RICE STARCH. Starch is more abundant in rice grain than in wheat. Jaconnet obtained from Carolina rice 85.07, and from Piedmont rice 83.8 per cent. of starch. Vogel procured from a dried rice no less than 98 per cent of starch. For purposes of ordinary starching, the people in the E. Indies use the water in which rice has been some time boiled, called Conjee or Gunji in India, and in Chinese Mi-t'ang. Their Mi-tsiang-fen is the Mi t'ang mixed up with powdered gypsum, the product cut up in thin rectangular cakes, and dried in the sun. There are several patent processes in exist ence for the manufacture sof rice starch, vvhich are accomplished chiefly bY\ digesting rice in solutions, more or less strongkof caustic alkali (soda), by which the gluten is dissolved and removed, leaving an insoluble matter composed of starch, and a white substance technically called fibre. Under Jones' patent, the alkaline solution employed contains 200 grains of real soda in every gallon of liquor, and 150 gallons of this liquor are requisite to convert 100 lbs. of rice into starch. In manufacturing rice starch on a, large scale, Patna rice yields 80 per cent. qf marketable starch, and 8.2 per cent. of fibre, the remaining 11.8 per cent. being made up of gluten, gruff or
bran, and a small quantity of light starch carried off in suspension by the solution. Jones' process may thus be described : 100 lbs. of rice are macerated for 24 hours in 50 gallons of the alkaline solution, and afterwards washed with cold water, drained, and ground. To 100 gallons of the alkaline solution are then to be added 100 lbs. of ground rice, and the mixture stirred repeatedly during 24 hours, and then allowed to stand for about 70 hours to settle or deposit. The alkaline solution is to be drawn off, and to the deposit cold water is to be added, for the double purpose of washing out the alkali, and for drawing off the starch from the other matters. The mixture is to be well stirred up, and then allowed to rest about an hour for the fibre to fall down. The liquor holding the starch in suspension is to be drawn off, and allowed to stand for about 70 hours for the starch to deposit. The waste liquor is now to be removed, and the starch stirred up, blued (if thought nee,essary), drained, dried, and finished in the usual way.— Pharmaceutical Journal, ifi. p. 188.