The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1883-04-21
Our Foreign Correspondence.
SAN FRANCISCO, April :. 1885.

Yesterday / went over the new sugar lt-
finery that Claus Spreckels is having built
out on Eighth and Grammar streets-that
is, the position of the refinery Is defined by
the mention Of Eighth and Brannan streets.
/ but streets properly s~O-caiied there are none.
I The building stands securely founded on
rock, upon a peninsula halfway between
San Francisco and South san Francisco,
and on the walk from the street car 10 the
wharf. one may sec the longest rope walk
in tn United States on the jetty pushing
far out into the bay, and still further, in
! the middle distance, Butcher town. Near
that romantic spot il situated the kiln
where the charcoal for use in he Refinery
is prepared.
The refinery wharf, constructed 80 that
deep sea vessels, both with coal and sugar,
can come up TO 1t and be unloaded. y large
/ steam derrick is already erected for the I'M
loading of the ~colliers. The coal is put into
cars that run upon al elevated Runway di-
rect from the vessels to the huge bunker of
$500 tons capacity, from which suspended
travelling cars distribute the coal as il is
needed for the twenty-five boilers. By the
way, there is accommodation, in space and
apparatus, for double the present quantity
of boilers, and consequently double the
working power the building will possess in
June or July when all the quiescent mass
will be put in motion. Twelve square feet
of heating surface is allowed to l one horse
power, and the steam generated supplies
engines to the extent of 5000 horsepower.
There are from u to II engines in the build
Ing, the MALL engine OF ObD horsepower.
Most of these engines are made in San
Francisco, the chief engineer. EIr. Watson
said, and by their aid of Il force 800 wOrkmen
Will be able TO run the vast tWelve-stoFy
building, where more than 900 would be
necessary with less perfect mechanism. The
lighting is to be by the Edison electric ma
chine, and the "a, 200 gallons of sea water in
constant use for cooling purposes arepumCed
from a cistern built at the tide level. There
is also q reservoir of sweet water, necessary
of course, when the water comes i'm con
tact with the syrup.
After the examination of the steam der
rick and engine-hOuse for the management
of the coal, came q view of the warehouses.
Those already completed were low, vast,
sOlidly-built rooms, ~scTupulOusly clean,
with fine floors of artificial stone, and al
ready full of the brown bags of raw sugar.
This will be brought-the first step in the
process of refining it-in cars propelled bv
the electric motor, from the warehou> es TO
the melting-rOOm. The endless chain, like
that which runs our cable-cars, was COZ
templated for this railway from the ware
houses to the main building, but he MANY
turns and switches of the track would have
made the machinery too cOmplicate {, and
electricity was substituted. 1t will be the
first instance in the United States of a rail
way run by electricity. The .ars will de-
posit their loads of raw sugar i'm breakers,
whose formidable iron teeth look capable of
reducing the most resisting object to atoms,
and the sugar will then be transferred to
lllC IlClLlIS pans III III lMO TGNOlNIn0
arms and an introduced current of steam.
keep the mass in a violent state of ebulli-
ton until by the agency of a $50 horse
pc yer force and suction bumps it is carried
to the top of the building for the next stage
i'm its refining. In the management of both
charcoal and liquor, the principle of CRAWL
tatiOn is made use of so that much of the
process is automatic. The first cIeansingo of
the g is in bag filters. There are 10 of
these and $50 bags in each filter, the bags
being about 6 feet long, and double, a
cOarser fabric outside ii finer. They are
fastened to copper pipes that fit into the
roof of the filters as rowi0cks fit into place
without putting the wOrkmen to the trouble
Of finding the thread Of n screw as is usual.
The credit of this improvement is due En-
giueer Watson, who indeed has managed
not only the erection Of the refinery, but
has had all of the attendant correspondence
in his hands as we'll. After the bag filters
have retained the grosser impurities, the
liquor passes into the filter tanks proper
where it is clarified by dripping through
charcoal. This removes both impurity and
all colorin% matter, the liquor is henreforth
clear as water. There are A filter tanks, p
feet deep. each with a capacity of holding
50 tons of charcoal. The centre hole of the
tanks discharging the charcoal, and a side
opening the liquor. From these tanks also
are conveying pipes which wind about in
sets of four and permit the strained liquor
to be drawn off by faucets which are regu-
lated by graduated discs, it being found bet
ter that the liquor should remain long on
the charcoal. Under these faucets are cop
per cutters inclining both was to receive
the liquor from the two sets of twenty-five
filter tanks. This room where the sugar
may be made to run in an outward and visi-
bic stream, is only to he entered by trusted
employees.
The California Refinery is justly proud of
the vacuum pan into which the liquor
passes after the filtering by charcoal. The
pan is a vast inverted cone, 40 feet in height,
II feet at its largest diameter and 30 inches
at the opening in the apex, which, as have
said, is inverted. Sevcnty-five tons of
liquor are put into this pan at a charge and
are treated in two hours and = half. At the
old refinery now in operation, it took four
hours to treat ten tons.
The vacuum pan was made in New York
city and cost $50, 900 there. A look into
his costly rose-colored caldron showed il
lined with coil upon coil of copper piping.
700 feet of it, and this contains the steam bv
which the liquor is heated when it is drawn
from the receiving tanks which store it
after the charcoal filter. 1t is in the va
cuum pan that crystallization first takes
place, the proof sticks being cIeverly made
to lock the valve by which air might enter
While the process of Capitalization is being
examined. When crystals are formed in
syrup the mass is called magma and is
transferred from the vacuum pan to magmae
tanks and hence to the centrifugal ma
chimes. There are two sets of these, the
larger baskets for the finer grades of sugar,
anu lllC AdAA ~ NAAC lllAEllpl ~ L llG
larger hold 1000 pounds of magma at a
charge, the stuff being contained in an
inner basket perforated with minute holes
through which the revolutions of the
basket force the syrup leaving the sugar
CRYSTALS which next 90 to the dryers. The
centrifugal machines revolve at the rate of
l 200 revolutions a mi ute. The first clari-
f~icaticn, when the raw sugar has been put
through this process, gives the finest grade,
the material remaining after the first cry
stalls have been extracted is put again and
again through the operation just described
as is done in your island mills giving lower
and lower grades of crystals until at last
! crystalliZatiOn will no longer take place
and the liquid residuum is sold for golden
syrup.
The dryers are able to finish 10 barrels of
sugar, cube or crushed, at the place where
it first takes shape. Difficulty had been
experienced in drying the under sides of
the cubes whent they came from the shaping
machine, so Mr.. Watson provided only per-
forated plates, the holes are about the size
of a knitting needle. A barrel warehouse
is to be built at the side of the refinery, and
an elevator constructed on the plan of
| brinpino I'M a load of emDtV barrels on one