Wichita eagle., 1889-02-27
TALKS WITH THE BOYS.
The Various Grades Of Sweets
Under the Microscope.
Description of the Processes Which Pre-
vail in Modern Sugar Refinery
How Sugars Are Purified and
Fitted For Market.
IN. Quad, in Detroit Free Press.J

IN. Quad, in Detroit Free Press.1
Take this lump of white sugar and hold
it under your miscroscope and what do
you see? It looks like coarse, white sand
stone, but at the same time there is such a
delicious look that your mouth begins to
water, and you long for taste.
Take the finest powdered white sugar
SO fine that it feels like flour in your fl n
gers--and under the microscope you can
see grains as if quartz rock had been bro
ken up.
Take the lightest, driest brown sugar
you can find and put i. under the glass
and you see a damp mass, with here and
there 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. l asked boy
standing at the door OF big sugar refn-
cry in New Orleans this question: and he
replied:
Don't know, mister-never been in
there"
"Why not?'
"Druther go fishing"
"Let's see if the process won't be Of in
terest to the thousands Of lads who have
had 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. 1t 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 fattest stuff you ever
tasted, and not at all like the sap from a
sugar maple. 1t is run into pans and
boiled down until sugar is left-a wet,
dark stuff, the taste Of which would dis
gust you.
Our Southern sugar men seldom attempt
TO make nice brown sugar, but barrel up
the coarse material | spoke of and send it
TO the refner, or, rather, sell it to him.
To 90 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 cauldrons eight or tea feet across the
top and five or six feet deep, with pefor-
ated 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 in
to CHARTERS. These are large iron tanks,
steam heated, and he liquid is now kept
at hei t OF 200 degrees. The next move
takes it down 10 the ninth floor. Pipes
conduct it from the CHARTERS to spouts be-
low, and at each spout is a bag made of
conrse material. The LIQUID strains
through the bags into iron tanks on the
eighth door, 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. Bone black is
dust of the bones of horses and cattle, and
it looks and feels like coarse blasting pow
der. 1t is a filter and a purifier. The
liquid makes its way down through the
bone-black to the other floor, and you now
notice a 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 a 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 a half
AS it comes down TO the fifth floor again il
runs into the mixer, and from that into the
centritugals on the fourth floor. These
centrIfugais are open iron tanks, lined
with brass, and perforated with thou
sands of small holes. They make 1870
revolutions per minute as they turn the
thick, sticky stuff into fair grade of
brown sugar. Ii you ever visit steam
laundry you will see them drying clothes
by the same process The centrifugal re-
wolves with such speed that all the damp
ness is thrown out through the perfora-
tions
Ciose at hand, as the iron tanks go
spinning around, are tubs of blue water,
and the contents are iadied in TO '.toner
the sugar and further purify it. 1t runs
now 10 the floor below, and comes out in a
hopper in which are revolving knives
These knives mix and turn and drv the
sugar, and if the grade is the one the re-
=
on the floor to be barreled. II higher
grade is desired it falls into a bin on the
floor below, and man shovels it to an
endless elevator, aud it is hoisted up one
story again, and goes into the granulator.
This is large irou cylinder, kept con-
stanty hot, and revolving like q coffee
roaster. The Office OF this Is 70 separate the
grains and further drv the sugar 1t comes
out not to the touch, and runs in spouts to
the ioor below
You have seen miller place a barrel
under spout and let il I'LL with -four:
But this beats the miller alI 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
steady loltlng, fitting the barrel about un.