The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1885-04-16
HOW SUGAR Is MADE.
Short Talks With the Boys
BY Dr. QUAD.

1
Take this lump of white sugar and
hold it under your microscope and what
do you see? 1t looks like coarse, white
sandstone, but at the same time there is
such a delicious look that your mouth
begins to water, and you long for taste.
Take the-6nest powdered white sugar
so fine that it feels like flour in your
6ngers-and under the microscope you
can see grains as if quartz rock had been
broken UP.
Take the lightest, driest brown sugar
you can find and put it under the glass
and you see damp mass, with here and
there a speck of dirt. Every grain
stands out by itself, and you wonder that
the sugar did not wet your fingers.
"Now, then, how are sugars made ?'
"Don't know" as usual. I asked boy
standing at the door of big sugar re.
finery, in New Orleans, this question,
and he replied:
"Don't know, mister-never bin in
there"
"Why not?"
"Druther go fishing"
Let's see if the process won't be OF
Interests to the thousands of lads who
have no opportunity to get at the facts
from personal observation.
| You know that sugar. cane is grown
the same as corn, though it must be more
highly cultivated. II is cut in season
and carted TO the sugar mill, where the
cane is crushed and the juice extracted.
The juice or sap is the hatest stuff you
ever tasted, and not at all like the sap
from sugar maple. 1t is run into pans
and boiled down until sugar is lett-a
wet, course, dark stuff the taste of which
would disgust you.
Our Southern sugar men seldom at
tempt to make nice brown sugar, but
barrel up the coarse material spoke of
and send it to the re6ner, or, rather, sell
it to him.
To &C through refinery you must
jump from the basement to the tenth
floor and follow the process down instead
of up. The sugar goes first into the
basement and is dumped into the meters.
These are iron caldrons eight or ten feet
across the top and FIVE or six feet deep,
with perforated bottoms. Steam pipes
are used to melt the sugar and the
liquid drops down into tanks. From
these tanks it is pumped directly to the
tenth floor into clari6ers. These are
large iron tanks, steam heated, and the
liquid is now kept at heat of 200 de.
grees. The next move takes it down to
the ninth floor. Pipes conduct it from
the purifiers to spouts below, and at each
spout is a bag made of coarse material.
The liquid strains through the bags into
iron tanks on the eighth floor. These
bags must be kept very clean, and the
tubs to wash them in are handy by, while
men, stripped to the waist, do the wash
ing.
The liquid runs from the eighth floor to
the seventh, and falls into huge iron pots
sunk flush with the floor. Each one Of
these great pots is full of bone. black
10, 900 pounds in each pot. Bone.black
is the dust of the bones of horses aud
cattle, and it looks and feels like coarse
blasting powder. 1t is filter end a
purifier. The liquid makes its way down
through the bone.black to the sixth floor,
and you now notice great change in
color. 1t has lost its dark and muddy
look, and is as clean as common water.
Iron tanks receive it as it filters through,
and it is run off in pipes to other tanks
on the fifth floor. From here it takes n
boost back to the sixth floor, to 60 into
the pans to be reheated, as the liquid is
now getting cooled off. These pans are
iron tanks with steam coils inside, and
the syrup is boiled for two hours and q
half AS it comes down to the fifth floor
again it runs into the mixer, and from
that into the centrifugals on the fourth
floor. These centrifugais are open iron
tanks, lined with brass, and perforated
with thousands of small holes. They
make 1000 revolutions per minute AS
they turn the thick, sticky stuff into u
fair grade Of brown sugar. If you ever
visit a steam laundry you will see them
drying clothes by the same process. The
centrifugal revolves with such speed that
all the dampness is thrown out through
the pertorations.
Close at hand, as the iron tanks go
spinning around, are tubs of blue water,
and the contents are ladled in to "tone"
the sugar and further purify it. 1t runs
now to the floor below, and comes out in
a hopper in which are revolving knives.
These knives mix and turn aud dry the
sugar, and if the grade is the one the
refinery isruunipg on, the sugar is thrown
on the floor to be barreled. If a higher
grade is desired it falls into bin on the
floor below, and man shovels it 10 an
endless elevator and it is hoisted up one
story again, and goes into the granulator.
This is a largeiron cylinder, kept constant,
iy hot, and revolving like coffee roaster.
The office OF this is 10 separate the grains
and further dry the sugar. 1t comes out
hot to the touch, and runs in spouts to
the floor below.
You have seen a miller place barrel
under a spout and let it ill with -four /?
But this beats the miller all hollow. He
must shake his own barrels to settle the
contents, while in this case each barrel
stands on an iron plate which keeps up q
steady jolting, tilting the barrel about
until the sugar packs rs hard as sand.
One man has charge of three spouts, and
as he wheels the filled barrels Oft The
shaker, cooper stands ready to put in
the head and crowd on the hoops. The
barrels are sent up from the sidewalk on
two endless chains, to which arms are
attached at regular distances. The bar
rel rests against these arms until it is
carried to certain height, and it is then
dumped OF and rolls to the cooper's feet.
Now, then, you know how sugar is
made-coarse brown, light brown, powd-
cred, granulated and coffee, but three
hours tramp through such an institution
reveals many other interesting facts. 1t
is the place above all others to find a
perfect system. Everything goes like
clock-work, from basement to the top
floor. Every employee has certain task