The Romance of Modern Chemistry

SUGAR AND STARCH ment of the atoms in the molecules is not the same. The sugar, however, which is obtained from the beet is chemically identical with that which comes from the sugar cane; beet sugar, in fact, is simply cane sugar from another source. What we refer to in ordinary conversation as “ sugar,” the article which appears on the breakfast- and the tea- table, is cane sugar, although in reality a great deal of it has been manufactured from beetroot. The inhabi- tants of these islands ought to be specially interested in this article, for the annual consumption per head of the population of Great Britain is about 80 lbs., which is equivalent to eighteen pieces of ordinary lump sugar per diem. This is nearly three times as great as the corresponding figure for France or Germany. Up till a hundred years ago there was practically no sugar produced except from the sugar cane, whereas now more than half the world’s production of sugar is derived from the beet; the name “cane sugar,” therefore, is not quite so accurate a description of this compound as it once was. Much energy has been devoted to the scientific cultivation of the beetroot, and to the proper extraction of the sugar which it contains. The advance which has been made in this way is very well illustrated by some published figures showing that whereas in 1836 a ton of beetroot yielded 124 lbs. of sugar, the same quantity in 1871 was made to yield 204 lbs., in 1900 300 lbs. of sugar. In the old methods of extracting sugar from the canes, these were crushed, and the juice which was thus pressed out was clarified and then boiled down until the sugar crystallised. Another and modem plan, which is similar to the method used in extracting sugar from beetroots