The following Table shows the quantities of Sugar contained in Syrups of the annexed specific gravities.[63] It was the result of experiments carefully made.
[63] The author, in minutes of evidence of Molasses Committee of the House of Commons, 1831, p. 142.
| Experimental spec. grav. of solution at 60° F. | Sugar in 100. by weight. | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ·3260 | 66 | ·666 |
| 1 | ·2310 | 50 | ·000 |
| 1 | ·1777 | 40 | ·000 |
| 1 | ·440 | 33 | ·333 |
| 1 | ·1340 | 31 | ·250 |
| 1 | ·1250 | 29 | ·412 |
| 1 | ·1110 | 26 | ·316 |
| 1 | ·1045 | 25 | ·000 |
| 1 | ·0905 | 21 | ·740 |
| 1 | ·0820 | 20 | ·000 |
| 1 | ·0685 | 16 | ·666 |
| 1 | ·0500 | 12 | ·500 |
| 1 | ·0395 | 10 | ·000 |
If the decimal part of the number denoting the specific gravity of syrup, be multiplied by 26, the product will denote very nearly the quantity of sugar per gallon in pounds weight, at the given specific gravity.[64]
[64] This rule was annexed to an extensive table, representing the quantities of sugar per gallon corresponding to the specific gravities of the syrup, constructed by the author for the Excise, in subserviency to the Beet-root Bill.
Sugar has been analyzed by several chemists; the following Table exhibits some of their results:—
| Gay Lussac and Thenard. | Berze- lius. | Prout. | Ure. | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oxygen | 56·63 | 49·856 | 53·35 | 50·33 | in 100. |
| Carbon | 42·47 | 43·265 | 39·99 | 43·38 | — |
| Hydrogen | 6·90 | 6·875 | 6·66 | 6·29 | — |
Of the sugar cane, and the extraction of sugar from it.—Humboldt, after the most elaborate historical and botanical researches in the New World, has arrived at the conclusion, that before America was discovered by the Spaniards, the inhabitants of that continent and the adjacent islands were entirely unacquainted with the sugar canes, with any of our corn plants, and with rice. The progressive diffusion of the cane has been thus traced out by the partisans of its oriental origin. From the interior of Asia it was transplanted first into Cyprus, and thence into Sicily, or possibly by the Saracens directly into the latter island, in which a large quantity of sugar was manufactured in the year 1148. Lafitau relates the donation made by William the Second, king of Sicily, to the convent of St. Benoit, of a mill for crushing sugar canes, along with all its privileges, workmen, and dependencies: which remarkable gift bears the date of 1166. According to this author, the sugar cane must have been imported into Europe at the period of the Crusades. The monk Albertus Aquensis, in the description which he has given of the processes employed at Acre and at Tripoli to extract sugar, says, that in the Holy Land, the Christian soldiers being short of provisions, had recourse to sugar canes, which they chewed for subsistence. Towards the year 1420, Dom Henry, regent of Portugal, caused the sugar cane to be imported into Madeira from Sicily. This plant succeeded perfectly in Madeira and the Canaries; and until the discovery of America these islands supplied Europe with the greater portion of the sugar which it consumed.
The cane is said by some to have passed from the Canaries into the Brazils; but by others, from the coast of Angola in Africa, where the Portuguese had a sugar colony. It was transported in 1506, from the Brazils and the Canaries, into Hispaniola or Hayti, where several crushing-mills were constructed in a short time. It would appear, moreover, from the statement of Peter Martyr, in the third book of his first Decade, written during the second expedition of Christopher Columbus, which happened between 1493 and 1495, that even at this date the cultivation of the sugar cane was widely spread in St. Domingo. It may therefore be supposed to have been introduced here by Columbus himself, at his first voyage, along with other productions of Spain and the Canaries, and that its cultivation had come into considerable activity at the period of his second expedition. Towards the middle of the 17th century, the sugar cane was imported into Barbadoes from Brazil, then into the other English West Indian possessions, into the Spanish Islands on the coast of America, into Mexico, Peru, Chile, and, last of all, into the French, Dutch, and Danish colonies.