up water and goes over into a sugar, dextrose, commonly called
"glucose." Expressed in chemical shorthand this reaction is

C_{6}H_{10}O_{5} + H_{2}O --> C_{6}H_{12}O_{6}
starch water dextrose

This reaction is carried out on forty million bushels of corn a year in
the United States. The "starch milk," that is, the starch grains washed
out from the disintegrated corn kernel by water, is digested in large
pressure tanks under fifty pounds of steam with a few tenths of one per
cent. of hydrochloric acid until the required degree of conversion is
reached. Then the remaining acid is neutralized by caustic soda, and
thereby converted into common salt, which in this small amount does not
interfere but rather enhances the taste. The product is the commercial
glucose or corn syrup, which may if desired be evaporated to a white
powder. It is a mixture of three derivatives of starch in about this
proportion:

Maltose 45 per cent.
Dextrose 20 per cent.
Dextrin 35 per cent.

There are also present three- or four-tenths of one per cent. salt and
as much of the corn protein and a variable amount of water. It will be
noticed that the glucose (dextrose), which gives name to the whole, is
the least of the three ingredients.

Maltose, or malt sugar, has the same composition as cane sugar
(C_{12}H_{22}O_{11}), but is not nearly so sweet. Dextrin, or starch
paste, is not sweet at all. Dextrose or glucose is otherwise known; as