A refinery consists of a group of buildings, each of which has been constructed for a special purpose and for convenience and economy in operation. They are as follows:

In addition there are offices, shops, laboratories, and last, but by no means least, very extensive warehouses.

To begin at the beginning it will be necessary to start with the steamer laden with raw sugar and made fast to the wharf in front of the warehouse that forms part of the refining plant.

The sugar is hoisted out of the ships in sling-loads by powerful winches, and landed on a platform on the dock alongside the ship. Each sling-load consists of from twelve to twenty sacks, or the equivalent weight in baskets or mats, as the case may be. As soon as the sacks are landed, they are sorted according to mark, put on trucks to be run over a scale set in the floor, and their gross weight recorded.

As the truck leaves the scale, the samplers take a sample from each sack. This is done with a tryer, a long, hollow steel tube, open on one side and sharp at one end, with a handle on the other for the sampler to grasp when forcing the tryer into the sack. The individual sample from each sack of each different mark is deposited in large closed cans until the cargo is completely discharged, when an average sample of all the individual samples of each mark is made up and used in the laboratory to determine the polarization or sucrose content of the various lots comprising the entire cargo. The value of the sugar is fixed by this polarization.

The weights of the various truck-loads of sugar passing over the scales are totaled and the weight of the sacks, baskets or mats deducted, giving the net weight of the sugar.

Hawaiian sacks weigh exactly one pound; Cuban, Javan and Peruvian sacks about three and one-half pounds. Javan baskets weigh from twelve to fifteen pounds, and Philippine mats about four pounds.

In order to facilitate the weighing and simplify the calculations, in cases where the exact weight of the sacks is known, every truck is made to weigh the same by ascertaining the weight of the heaviest and then putting small iron nuts or washers on the rods of the other trucks until each of them exactly counterbalances the heaviest. One truck is then placed on the scale and the scale is brought to a perfect balance, just as though there were no truck on it. In this way the weight of the truck is never recorded, which greatly simplifies the entire weighing operation.