small furnace, containing a quantity of burning sulphur, sends through a
tube a volume of its stifling fumes, and these, caught by jets of steam,
thoroughly impregnate the contents of the juice box. Having received its
first lesson in cleanliness, the liquid now rises through a tube to the
series of clarifiers on the second floor. They are heated by a chain of
steam pipes running along the bottom, and being filled, the juice slowly
simmers Much of the foreign substance rises in a scum to the surface
and is skimmed off by the sugar maker. It is further purified by the
addition of Thomaston or what is called sugar lime. At one half a peck
is considered sufficient for seven hundred and fifty gallons of juice,
but much depends upon the quantity of saccharine matter it contains.
Another set of pipes now permit the liquor to run into the evaporators,
in the boiling room below. These are also heated by circles of steam
pipes, and the liquid is first gently simmered, to enable any additional
foreign substance to rise to the surface and be skimmed off.

"After that the steam is turned on fully, and the juice boils until
it reaches the solidity of twenty-five degrees, as measured by the
saccharometer. This point attained, more pipes conduct it to a series
of square iron tanks called filterers. Each is provided with a false
bottom, covered with thick woolen blankets, and through these the juice
slowly drips into an immense iron vessel called a sirup tank.

"The process of cleaning has now been completed, and the sirup is pumped
into the covered vessel previously alluded to, called the vacuum pan.

"This is also heated by layers of steam pipes, and here the liquor boils
until the process of crystallization is completed. This end achieved,
another conductor permits the substance to slowly descend to a large
square iron tank, called a strike-pan. The process of emptying the