BEET-ROOT SUGAR. See SuoAa. The sugar obtained from the beet is similar to cane-sugar, but inferior in sweetening power. Beet-root contains on an average about 10 per cent of saccharine matter (sugar-cane, 18 per cent); of the varieties, the white Slesvig beet is the richest. To obtain the sugar, the roots, after being washed, are first rasped down by machines, To as to tear up the cells. The pulp is then put into bags, and the juice is squeezed out by presses. The juice is next treated with lime or sul phuric acid, to clarify it, and also filtered till no deposit is formed; after which it is boiled in large boilers to concentrate it. When it has attained a certain density (25° Beatimi.), it is poured through flannel, and is now a dark•colored syrup; which, in order to yield pure sugar, must he deprived of its coloring-matter and mucilage. This is effected by filtering it through animal charcoal or bone-black. The filtered juice is now treated with lime-water beat up with a little white of egg to a lather, till it is slightly alkaline, and is then further concentrated by boiling in copper pans, care being taken to stir and scum it all the while. When sufficiently concentrated, it is put into vessels, and allowed to stand several days in a warm room to crystallize; the uncrystallized part, or molasses, is then drained off, and what remains is raw sugar. This is still further refined by again dissolving and treating it with albumen and blood. In separating the crystallized from the uncrystallized part, centrifugal machines are now much used. Another improverhent is the vtienum-pan, which allows the juice to be boiled dOwn without burning. The molasses drained off from beet-root sugar has a disagreeable taste,
and cannot be used for sweetening, like cane molasses.
About the middle of the 18th c., INEarggraf, an apothecary in Berlin, drew attention to the sugar contained in beet-root; but Achard, the Prussian chemist, was the first who was tolerably successful in extracting it. Still, as only 2 or 3 per cent of sugar wan obtained, the product did not pay the cost, until Napoleon's continental system raised the price of sugar, and gave rise to improved methods of manufacturing it. Even after the fall of Napoleon, protective duties kept alive this manufacture in Prance; and when numerous improvements of method had raised the percentage of sugar realized to about 5 lbs. from 100 lbs. of beet, it took a fresh start (about 1825) in France and Bel gium, was revived in Germany, and spread even to Russia. The falling off of the cus toms duties on the import of colonial sugar obliged the German governments to impose a small duty on beet sugar, which checked the manufacture for a time; but owing to the protective measures of the Zollverein, the trade soon recovered, and is still brisk. Large quantities are annually imported from the continent of Europe, and are used by our refiners mixed with cane sugar, without which it is not successful, for producing the best qualities of refined or loaf-sugar. The imports into Great Britain from the conti nent, in 1875, amounted to about 240,000 tons.