Raftsman's journal. [volume] (Clearfield, Pa.) 1854-1948, 1869-03-24
Live Sugar.

We treated our readers some time since to
a short paragraph on the recent discoveries
of animal life in all sugar Of low grades.
Since then We have seen several conhrma-
tory statements, from scientific men and 9TH
ers, but none conveying a livlier sense of the
facts we set forth in our former article than
the following from the n. Y. San, which
we are satisfied does not give the picture a
higher coloring than it deserves:
Last night we saw the hidden wonders of
raw sugar as they were revealed to us by a
microscope of uncommon power and great
detective ability, which will forever set US
against all sweets in that form with an in
tensity of horror, such as no man can con-
ceive who has not been behind the scenes.
We saw the living hell itself in less than a
quarter of an ounce of raw sugar. There
as large as beetles, and having the appear
ance of crabs. Four dreadful legs with claw
pincers at the end of them, jointed in four
parts as with armor, and bristling with sharp
pointed spears, were in front of the mon
ster, and his head was a long pyramidal
terminus where the mouth ought to have
been The body was oval shaped, ,and mark
ed almost exactly like that of crab, only
upon the rims of an inner circle upon the
back there were twelve more OF these long
sharp spears, with two at the tail, and four
snake,,iiaae tentacula. exceedingly fine in ar
ticuation and no doubt i;;c.!2d ike puss
whiskers to be feelers, to warn the hinder
end parts of contiguous danger. The re-
verse sind showed the ugliness of the beast
even more than the DIVERSE but it also
showed thewondrous mechanical genius of
the maker of it. Each limb was padded by
a mass of muscle at the base, which gave
the impression of immense trelative) power
and over the muscle there was a case of ar
NOR through which it showed.
Talk about lively beasts, and lively they
were. Eager, restless, ravenous; always
falling foul of each other, or attacking great
joints of sugar, as large in reality. as math-
ematical point With the pinchers attached
TO the end of each probosis they caught
hold of one another, and tore one another,
repeating in their small way the enormous
tragedies of Tennyson's primal NJ onsters.
The way these marvels came to light was
this: A spoonful of raw, coarse sugar was
dissolved in about three times the quantity
of water, when, as with a conjuror's rod,
the animalcules sprang to the surface, and
foatcd there, swimming about, and up and
down, like the beasts that wriggle in soft
water tubs, and finally turn into flies resemb-
ling mosquitoes, but harmless. These su
gar animalcules, or acarus sdcchari, as the
scientific men call them, were then gathered
up in a spoon. aud placed under glass
magnifying about 200 times. They could
be seen, however, with the naked eye, to
begin with, but not in their entire hideous-
ness until the object glass brought it out. 1t
has been proved that in every pound of un-
refined, raw sugar, there are 100,0 900 of these
acari In Is grains weight, DR.. Hassall, of
London found one hundred of these insects;
and Dr. Barker, of the Royal college of sur
geons, ireland, found 400 in 45 grains
weight, or 26S, 900 in pound.
Worse still, as a matter of aesthetics, this
is the very same insect that bores into the
skin of its victims in Scotch beds. and treats
them to taste of the Scotch fiddle, alias
the itch.