A NEW PROCESS. OR METHOD FOR WHITENING. SUGARS
Year: 1829

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, JOSHUA
BATES, of Bishopsgate Street Within; in the City of London,+Merchant,-send-
greeting!
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Fourth,, by His
Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date:att West-
minster, the First day of August, in the year of, our' Lord: Thousand
eight hundred and twenty-nine, in the tenth year of His reign, did, for Him
self, His heirs and successors give and grant unto me, the said Joshua.Bates
His especial licence that I; the said Joshua Bates, my executors, adminis
trators, and assigns or such other's as I, the said Joshua Bates, my executors,
administrators, and assigns should at any time agree with, and no others,
from time to time and at all times during the term of fourteen years 'therein,
expressed; should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend, within'
England and Wales and the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, and also within!
all His Majesty's Colonies and Plantations abroad, the Invention; of which,
Tam possessed,in consequence of a communication made-to-me- bya.certains
Foreigner residing-abroad, of" A NEW PROCESS. OR METHOD FOR WHITENING.
SUGARS in which said-Letters-Patent there is contained: a proviso obliging,
me, the said Joshua Bates, by an instrument in writing, under my hand and
seal, particularly, to describe and ascertain the. nature of my said Invention,'!
of which I am so possessed as aforesaid, and.in what manner the same is to,

page_text: be performed, and to cause the same to be inrolled in His Majesty's rign
Court of Chancery within six calendar months next and immediately after
the date of the said recited Letters Patent, as, in and by the same, reference
being thereunto had, will more fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Joshua Bates, do hereby declare that my New Process or Method for
Whitening Sugars is intended as a substitute for and improvement on the
usual process of claying.
This
Claying is applied sometimes to raw sugars, but it is chiefly used as one of
the series of operations by which raw or Muscovado sugar is converted into
refined or loaf sugar. Both these applications of claying may be advantageously
replaced by my new method; but, as it is convenient to vary it in some
respects according to the state of the sugars,. I shall describe it as applied,
first, in the manufacture of loaf sugar; and, secondly, in the whitening of
raw sugar. After the operations of clarifying, boiling down, and graining have
been performed on the raw sugar, it is formed while warm and half fluid into
pots or hollow inverted cones of earthenware, so as nearly to fill them, the
drip hole at the point or bottom of the cone having been previously stopped
up. As the sugar cools and gets thicker it fixes itself to the sides of the cone,
and would adhere so firmly as not to be got out without difficulty, if it were
not stirred up with a stick from time to time. When it has become quite cool it
is no longer fluid, but is an aggregate of crystalline grains of white sugar, the
spaces between which are filled with brown-coloured syrup. syrup, owing
to the porosity and consequent capillary attraction of the sugar among which it is
inclosed, would never drip out of itself, but is got rid of by the operation of claying.
For this purpose some pipe clay is beaten up with water to the consistence of
batter, and is poured into the pot 'till it stands about an inch deep on the top of
the sugar. The plug at the point of the cone is removed, and the water draining
slowly from the clay enters the sugar, and by its weight drives down the
coloured syrup through the drip hole into a vessel placed below to receive it.
The clay itself remains on the surface of the sugar, and when dry enough to
be removed by hand is taken away, and a fresh quantity of clay batter is
poured on; this also when dry is removed, and is sometimes replaced by a
third quantity of clay batter. The brown syrup having now, by the pressure
of the water, been driven out of the sugar, the conical pot is placed point
upwards, and by striking it gently on the side the loaf comes out and shews
itself to be of a white colour, except at the point, which is still generally a
little brown. To the operation of claying, as above described, there are several
objections. The water at first drains too rapidly from the clay, so that it

page_text: penetrates the loaf before it has itself been saturated with sugar, thus occasion-
ing a looseness of grain which injures the appearance, and consequently the
price of the sugar. On the other hand, as the clay becomes dry it ceases to
supply moisture in due proportion, and thus time is lost. Again, the cakes of
clay, when taken off the sugar, are not thrown away, but are beaten up with
fresh water to serve again and again. The clay, however, cannot lie on the
surface of the sugar without absorbing a little of it, and therefore, when after-
wards beaten up with water and exposed to the warm temperature of a sugar
house, the mixture ferments, becomes sour, and sometimes imparts an unplea-
sant odour and taste to the sugar. One object of my Invention is to avoid
all these imperfections in the process of claying loaf sugar. For this purpose
I procure pans of unglazed porous earthenware made in the usual manner,
and of the same kind of clay or eartby mixture as is employed in the manufac-
ture of wine coolers. As these pans are intended to be placed on the top of
the sugar in the inverted conical pots, the figure of such pans must be round
and flat bottomed; the side may be perpendicular or else inclining inwards, and
upon the whole I prefer the latter form as more easily moved from place to
place, and less liable to be broken.
.
Clean water is to be put.
and this water percolating:
Fig. 1 of the Drawing hereto annexed is a bird's-eye view; and Fig. 2 is a
section of such a pan. If the sides are made perpendicular it might be
adviseable to have two handles of earthenware to carry them by. Fig. 3 is
a bird's-eye view, and Fig. 4 is a section of such a pan. The diameter of
these pans
is necessarily regulated by that of the base of the inverted cones
in which the sugar is contained; they must of course be small enough to go
into the cones and rest on the surface of the sugar, and they will be found to
be large enough if a ring of sugar about half an inch wide be left uncovered.
between the pan and the edge of the conical pot.
into the pan before it is placed on the sugar,
through the bottom of the pan mor or less rapidity, according to its porous-
ness, will form a dew on the outside, and thus will come in contact with the:
sugar while in a state of extreme division. The consequence of this will be
that the surface of the sugar will not be partially dissolved, as happens in the
process of claying, and the supply of moisture will be regular and uninter-
rupted "till the coloured syrup has been driven out at the drip hole. As
soon as this has happened the pan is to be removed, and the facility which this
gives of taking away the water, as soon as it has produced its due effect, will
allow the workman to continue the pan in the sugar 'till even the point of
the loaf has been whitened. A farther advantage is that the conical pot may

page_text: be entirely. filled with sugar, whereas at present the sugar.must not rise higher
than an inch or two.short of the top, in order to leave room enough for the
clay batter. Instead of earthenware pans, as above described, pans of a
similar form may be made of filtering: stone; orapans of wood, soreany other
material, with a sieve or sieve-like bottom covered: with sand or any other
suitable substance to retard the percolation of the water, may be employed. 'In
attempting to whiten raw or Muscovado sugar by the common process of clay-
ing-it-will-be found very difficult.to do this effectively, and without consider-
able loss, because the grains of the sugar. being separated from one another,
it is not easy to give by compression or otherwise an equals degree of density
to the sugar in the pot or other vessel.in which the.claying is to be performed;
the consequence of this is that the water percolates where it finds least resis-
tance, and the separation of the coloured, syrup is very imperfectly performed:
I find that this inconvenience is avoided by putting the sugar into shallow
vessels of unglazed-earthenware, the bottoms of which are formed into shop-
pers.or inverted cones, each having its own drip hole. Figs. 5 and 6,. and
Figs. 7 and 8 are respectively:a bird's-eye view and. section of such vessels;
-into-these-the-raw-sugar-is-to-be-pressed-down:as evenly.as possible, and on the
top of each is to be placed a filtering pan (as already described) resting on the
surface of the sugar; the water passing through the pores of the pan is
absorbed by the sugar, and is equally distributed through it, and drives.out
the coloured syrup through the drip holes.
In this Specification I have described the common process of claying sugar,
in-order that my new process or method of whitening. sugar. may be..the
better understood. But the whole that I claim the monopoly.of by this Patent
is a separate vessel or pan for holding the water employed in whitening sugar,
such vessel or pan being sufficiently porous to allow the water to percolate
through, and to be distributed on the sugar in a state of minute division;
and also a vessel (divided within into several compartments, each having its
separate drip hole) for holding raw or Muscovado sugar- during the
process of
whitening the same by the percolation of water, whether the common
process of claying, or the substitute for that process; as above described, or
any other method of effecting the same, be employed
In witness whereof, I, the said Joshua Bates, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Eighteenth day of January, in the year of our
Lord One thousand eight hundred and thirty.
(L.S.) JOSHUA BATEȘ.

page_text: AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the Eighteenth day of January,
in the year of our Lord 1830, the aforesaid Joshua Bates came before
our said Lord the King in His Chancery, and acknowledged the Specifi-
cation aforesaid, and all and every thing therein contained and specified, in
form above written. And also the Specification aforesaid was stamped accord-
ing to the tenor of the Statute made for that purpose.
Inrolled the Eighteenth day of January, in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and thirty.