Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1885-03-21
MAKING BEET SUGAR.
The New Process as IL VIII Be Con-
Quoted at Laveaham, England.
TEondon letter.

MNFNilN6 DEF oO1fAls
The New Process" IL VIII Be Con-
Quoted ut Lavenham, England
london letter.
At the factory there will appear great
changes readily observable to persons
who were familiar with the operations
of dozen years ago. The loads of
carrot-shaped roots minus their green
crowns cut off by the growers) will be
weighed, but not subjected to any
trimming by hand; unless, in
deed, a forked and fancy root
be dealt with now and then. For, as
there will be no rapid rasp grating up
the roots into a fine pulp, there is no
need for carefully pairing on the small
rootlets and flores which used to go
away in the drain water-to the clogg-
ing and fouling of the brook which flows
close beside the factory And this
waterway will not be corrupted and
made peStiferOus with black char water
which used to pour from the charcoal
filters, as there will be no such filters.
The beets, cleansed from adhering soil
by the mechanical stirrers and brushes
revolving in long watts of washers, will
be elevated to the cutter-a machine re-
sembling the root-cutter used by a
shepherd-which slices the roots into
finger pieces; and these will be sent
down a spout or trough which delivers
a proper charge in turn into each of
series of circular vessels, placed in a
ring form of arrangement for being con-
veniently charged by the spout as it
swings round from the center like q
crane jib.
BY what is called the diffusion pro-
cess, water of different temperatures at
different stages flows continuously
through all the vessels in turn, com
mencing as clear water with each spent
charge of beet, and gradually enriching
itself with the juice from partly ex-
hausted charges in succession till If
passes, as rich solution of sugar, salts
and impurities, from the last vessel in
which the maceration o. fresh beet is
begun Each of the vessels is emptied
in turn of the spent beet, which is car
ried to the pressing operation, where
any sweet strip remaining Is made to
to exude-the pressed beet, however
still holding enough nutritive materials
10 be an excellent fattening food for
animals. This will be loaded upon carts
fetching it away at the price of Gs per
ton; that is, half the price formerly paid
for the pulp as it came from the bag
presses after the rasp.
The solution from the beet will be
boiled with lime, which is termed de
location" and the lime then precipi-
tated by blowing carbonic-acid gas
through the liquid BY the old process
there would follow a second DELEGATION,
and then the tedious and expensive
charcoal iltering. But it has been OBJ
served that the mineral earth strontia
has the properly Of being able to seize
and enter into combination with sugar
solution. Hence the liquor is boiled
with strontia under pressure; yellow
ish-white sucrate falls as a deposit to
the bottom of the vessel; the water.
still holding the salts and impurities
though it has parted with the sugar, is
run out through the precipitate of sucrate
on a screen upon the bottom of
the vessel and this material is then
treated with carbOnic acid in water,
which breaks it up, separates and re-
covers the strOntia, and leaves the pure
sugar in solution to be concentrated by
vacuum pan and crystallized in the
usual manner.
The greatest gain of the new process,
however, Is that, whereas by the old
crystalll alton process the manufactures
lost some 90 per cent. of the Saccharine
matter of the beet juice, which from
contamination of salts could not be crys-
tallized and went away in the mOlasses
"a product of low value-the strOntia
perfectly clears all the sugar from these
impurities in the way of capitalization,
and extracts up to % or more per cent.
OF the sugar contained in the beet juice.