Evening capital. (Annapolis, Md.) 1884-1910, 1885-04-23
IN 4 SUGAR REFINERY.
= Description or the Way in
which Sugar is Made.
Gong Through : Ten-stOry Building and
Seeing the Various Processes

where the cane is crushed and the
juice extracted. The Juice or sap is
the --LATEST stun you ever tasted, and
not at all like the sap from a sugar
maple. It Is run into pans and boiled
down until sugar is left-a wet. coarse.
dark stuff the taste Of which would
disgust you.
our Southern sugar men seldom at
empt to make nice brown sugar,
but barrel up the coarse material /
spoke OF and send it to the refiner, or.
rather, sell it to him.
To go through a refinery you must
jump from the basement to the tenth
floor and follow the process down in
stead ofup. 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 Ave
or six feet deep, with perforated bot
toms. 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
clarifers. These are large iron tanks.
steam heated. and the liquid is now
kept at heat Of 200 degrees. The
next move takes it down to the ninth
floor. Pipes conduct it from the clari-
iers to spouts below, and at each
spout is 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 washing.
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- 10000 pounds in
each pot. Comeback is the dust of
the bones of horses and cattle, and it
looks and feels like coarse blasting
powder. It is filter and a purifier.
The liquid makes its way down
through the comeback to the sixth
floor. and you now notice a great
change in color. It has lost its dark
and muddy look, and is as clean as
common water. Iron tanks receive it
as it differs through. and it is run off
in pipes to other tanks on the fifth
floor. From here it takes boost back
to the sixth floor, to go 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
half. AS it comes down to the fifth
floor again it runs into the mixer, and
from that into the centrifugaIs on the
fourth door. These centrifugals 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 a fair grade of brown
sugar. If you ever visit steam laun-
dry you will see them drying clothes
by the same process. The centrifugal
revolves with such speed that all the
dampness is drawn out through the
perforations.
Close at hand. as the iron tanks go
spinning around. are tubs Of blue
water. and the contents are ladIed in
to .toner the sugar and further purify
It. II runs now to the floor below,
and comes out In hopper in which
are revolving knives. These knives
mix and turn and dry the sugar, and il
the grade is the one the refinery is rum
nlng on. the sugar i thrown on the
| aoor to be barreled. r. higher grade
j desired il falls into bin on the
door below. and man shovels It 70 an
endless elevator, and It i hoisted up
one story again, and goes into the
granulator. This is . large iron cylin-
der. kept constantly hot. and revolving
like 8 oefTee-roaster. The Office Of
this IS to separate the grains and fur
fher dry the sugar. Il comes out hot
Is the touch. and runs in spouts to the