The sugar-mill at Chica Ballapura is worked by a single pair of buffaloes or oxen, [fig. 1082.], going round with the lever A, which is fixed on the top of the right-hand roller. The two rollers have endless screw heads B, which are formed of 4 spiral grooves and 4 spiral ridges, cut in opposite directions, which turn into one another, when the mill is working. These rollers and their heads are of one piece, made of the toughest and hardest wood that can be got, and such as will not impart any bad taste to the juice. They are supported in a thick strong wooden frame, and their distance from each other is regulated by means of wedges, which pass through mortises in the frame planks, and a groove made in a bit of some sort of hard wood, and press upon the axis of one of the rollers. The axis of the other presses against the left-hand side of the hole in the frame-boards. The cane juice runs down the rollers, and through a hole in the lower frame-board, into a wooden conductor, which carries it into an earthen pot. Two long-pointed stakes or piles are driven into the earth, to keep the mill steady, which is all the fixing it requires. The under part of the lowermost plank of the frame rests upon the surface of the ground, which is chosen level and very firm, that the piles may hold the faster. A hole is dug in the earth, immediately below the spout of the conductor, to receive the pot.
The mill used in Burdwan and near Calcutta, is simply two small wooden cylinders, grooved, placed horizontally, close to each other, and turned by two men, one at each end. This simple engine is said completely, but slowly, to express the juice. It is very cheap, the prime cost not being two rupees; and being easily moved from field to field, it saves much labour in the carriage of the cane. Notwithstanding this advantage, so rude a machine must leave a large proportion of the richest juice in the cane-trash.
It is curious to find in the antient arts of Hindostan exact prototypes of the sugar-rollers, horizontal and upright, of relatively modern invention in the New World.
The sugar-mill of Chinapatam, [fig. 1083.], consists of a mortar, lever, pestle, and regulator. The mortar is a tree about 10 feet in length, and 14 inches in diameter: a is a plan of its upper end; b is an outside view; and c is a vertical section. It is sunk perpendicularly into the earth, leaving one end two feet above the surface. The hollow is conical, truncated downwards, and then becomes cylindrical, with a hemispherical projection in its bottom, to allow the juice to run freely to the small opening that conveys it to a spout, from which it falls into an earthen pot. Round the upper mouth of the cone is a circular cavity, which collects any of the juice that may run over from the upper ends of the pieces of cane; and thence a canal conveys this juice, down the outside of the mortar, to the spout. The beam d, is about sixteen feet in length, and six inches in thickness, being cut out from a large tree that is divided by a fork into two arms. In the fork an excavation is made for the mortar b, round which the beam turns horizontally. The surface of this excavation is secured by a semicircle of strong wood. The end towards the fork is quite open, for changing the beam without trouble. On the undivided end of the beam sits the bullock-driver e, whose cattle are yoked by a rope which comes from the end of the beam; and they are prevented from dragging out of the circle by another rope, which passes from the yoke to the forked end of the beam. On the arms f, a basket is placed, to hold the cuttings of cane; and between this and the mortar sits the man who feeds the mill. Just as the pestle comes round, he places the pieces of cane sloping down into the cavity of the mortar; and after the pestle has passed, he removes those that have been squeezed.
OF THE MANUFACTURE OF SUGAR IN THE WEST INDIES.
Cane-juice varies exceedingly in richness, with the nature of the soil, the culture, the season, and variety of the plant. It is an opaque fluid, of a dull gray, olive, or olive-green colour; in taste, balmy and saccharine; exhaling the balsamic odour of the cane; slightly viscid; and of a specific gravity varying from 1·033 to 1·106, according to circumstances. When fresh, it consists of two parts; the one liquid, the other solid; the latter of which being merely suspended in the former, and, therefore, separable in a great measure by filtration or repose. The solid matter consists of fragments of the cellular parenchyma of the cane, its fibres, and bark, mechanically protruded through the mill; mixed with a very abundant greenish substance, like that called chlorophyle by chemists.