Let us now examine the action of lime on sugar, and we shall find it equally, if not more, injurious than on the other substances. Sugar is capable of dissolving half its weight of lime, by which its sweet taste is destroyed, and it becomes converted into gum; the lime abstracting carbonic acid from it to form a carbonate of lime or chalk. It will be seen by the above table that-- 100 parts of sugar contain 42.47 carbon. 100 parts of gum contain 42.23 ditto. ----- Difference 24 So that, if we extract 24-100ths of a grain of carbon from 100 grains of sugar, we convert them into gum. Let us suppose that about two ounces of lime, or say 1,000 grains, remain in solution in a pan, (say 200 gallons of liquor,) those 1,000 grains of lime will require 761 of carbonic acid to convert them into carbonate of lime or chalk, 100 grains of which consist of 56.2 lime and 43.8 carbonic acid. So that 1,761 grains of chalk consist of 1,000 lime and 761 carbonic acid. Now 100 grains of carbonic add consist of 27.53 carbon and 72.47 oxygen; therefore 761 grains will consist of 209.50 carbon and 551.53 oxygen. Consequently, 1,000 grains of lime will require 209.50 grains of carbon to convert them into carbonate of lime; and as we have seen that the abstraction of 24 from 100 grains of sugar convert them into gum, it follows, that the abstraction of 209.50 grains would have a similar effect on 87,000 grains, or about 15 lbs. of sugar, which, being converted into gum, would prevent the crystallisation of several times its weight of sugar; and this is the cause of the formation of molasses. The loss of sugar is not the only bad consequence of the use of lime, as the greater the quantity of gum in the liquor, the more it must be boiled--the more it is boiled the darker it gets--and the higher the temperature at which the skip is struck, the smaller the grain. The following is a good proof that lime dissolves albumen, and becomes converted into chalk:--Take a spoonful of syrup out of the tache of any estate on which the liquor is tempered cold; it will be found filled with small flakes; these are albumen set free from its solution in the lime by the conversion of the latter into carbonate of lime, and coagulated by heat. It is perfectly possible to temper liquor, so that scarcely any uncrystallisable sugar will remain; but planters do not like this; they must have molasses for the still-house; they could, however, boil low, by which the grain and color would be improved, and plenty of uncrystallised, although not uncrystallisable, syrup would be left to take the place of molasses.