I. SUGAR.-Cane Sugar-Its Physical and Chemical Properties-Action By DR. EVANS, of London (continued). 163 II. BRITISH AMERICA.-Extent of British America; Progress of Lib- eral Principles; Destinies; Upper and Lower Canada; New-Bruns- wick; Nova Scotia; Newfoundland; New Britain, etc. By STEPHEN F. MILLER, Esq., of New-Orleans. 181 III. VINE CULTURE AT THE SOUTH.-Wines in Carolina; Mississippi Wine; Grape Culture; Profits per acre. By J. NOYES, of Natchez. 200 IV. CALIFORNIA, NEW-MEXICO, AND THE PASSAGE BETWEEN THE ATLANTIC AND PACIFIC OCEANS.-Letter of Lieutenant Maury; Col. Fremont; Vallies of the Sacramento and San Joaquin; It is always unpleasant to talk about fiscal matters with our friends, but they must excuse us from the very necessity of the thing. This hard, harsh world, brushes off some of our nice susceptibilities, do what we will. Some three years ago we instituted the Commercial Review, the first work of the kind ever attempted in the Southern or Western States, and but the second in the whole Union. The idea was novel, and every one predicted its inevitable failure. Our faith, however, was strong, though the discouragements were legion. We have gone on, and no one has lost a dollar by us. From every section of the Union, the highest and the most flattering possible testimonials have been paid to the character and usefulness of the work. But what have the Editor and Publishers realized from the three years of unremitting toil? Literally nothing! At the present moment there remains due to the publication Eight Thousand Dollars, by subscribers who have received the work regularly, who are in general men of means, and who would scorn as evidence of utter pettiness any high appreciation of a Five or Ten Dollar note. Six hundred of these subscribers are indebted for one year. Three hundred for two years, and fifty for three years! Alas! that we cannot say of these as King Lear of old said of the winds and the storms, "You owe me no Subscription." Now these gentlemen, from inattention or carelessness, or what you will, do themselves and us great injustice. We are crippled at every step; obliged to curtail our expenses and economise, notwithstanding a desire of the utmost liberality in improving, embellishing and illustrating a work which is for their benefit, and we fondly hope for our whole region. Eight Thousand Dollars in our hands, and what could we do with it! And yet why should we not have it-why? Have we not had to pay out of. our own pocket for the printing, the paper, the binding, the writers, the clerks employed npon the books which have been sent to you from month to month, in the abiding confidence that you would sacrifice everything rather than we should lose one cent. Nor is that confidence yet gone. 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Many have already done this, and merited our lasting gratitude. Will others remember us? The Merchants have in the Review, carefully compiled and digested, all the statistics of the trade and commerce of our own and other countries, and a mass of matter upon every subject interesting to general trade, or that especially of the South. We have labored for the merchants. We have urged their claims in the University, and the establishment. for the first time, of a Commercial Professorship. The lectures of that chair will all be published in the pages of the Review. If one in one hundred of Southern merchants alone encouraged us, what success would be ours! The Cotton Planters find in the Review everything, from any source from home or abroad, that can relate to or affect their great staple, either in the fields, in the warehouse or the manufactory. Alas, did even one in a thousand of them throughout Virginia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Georgia, Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, Texas, appreciate and sustain the work! The Sugar-Planters. Since the Review has began, we have published a thousand pages relating to sugar, from the most practical planters, chemists, manufacturers, where nothing had ever before been published in this country. We are now publishing in the Review, and will complete this year, the great work entitled the SUGAR-PLANTERS' MANUAL. BY DR. EVANS, OF LONDON. This has lately appeared in England, and the three or four copies that reached NewOrleans sold for $4 50 in boards. There are 1500 or 2000 sugar planters in Louisiana and Texas, and of these perhaps 300 are our subscribers Should they not all have Dr. Evans' work, to say nothing of the Review and its abundant other matter? Our Bound Volumes.-Finally: We have sets of the Review from the beginning, January 1846, handsomely bound and re-printed at great expense. They embrace complete statistical records interesting to merchant, citizen, statesman, sugar-planter, cottonplanter and farmer, and we solicit orders from all. Every subscriber should have the work complete. We will supply numbers to make up sets, and have them bound at cost. We have made arrangements to enlarge the Review nearly one third after this number, and otherwise greatly add to its interest and value. Please distribute the enclosed Circulars. CANE SUGAR-ITS PHYSICAL AND CHEMICAL PROPERTIES-ACTION OF RE-AGENTS ON-MOLASSES-TREACLE-ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY OF THE CANE-COMPOSITION OF CANE-JUICE-CHANGES PRODUCED UPON IT BY RE-AGENTS-ALTERATIONS PRoduced DURING THE LIFE OF THE PLANT. THE substance, the nature and properties of which it is our purpose to investigate in the present chapter, is the one denominated by chemists cane sugar, or crystallizable sugar. It is the ordinary sugar of commerce. The presence of this non-azotised proximate principle is not confined to the sugar-cane, as the name usually given it would indicate, although it was from this source alone that Europe was supplied with it for many ages; but it is likewise found in the stalks of many grasses, particularly in those of the maize and guinea-corn, in the roots of the carrot, beet, &c., in pumpkins and melons, in the sap of the palm, and in most of the tropical fruits, from all of which, and also from other sources, it has been obtained by the chemist; but the sugar-cane, the Silesian beet-root, the sugar-maple, and the palm, are the only plants resorted to for this purpose by the manufacturer. From whatever plant it may have been obtained, cane sugar, when separated from its accompanying impurities by a process of refining, is physically and chemically identical. Although, when in that state of admixture with other foreign substances that constitutes what is called moist or muscovado sugar, its origin is readily recognized. Cane sugar, when pure, is solid, transparent and colourless. It crystallizes from its watery solution in oblique rhomboidal prisms; but if to the solution certain foreign matters be added, as alcohol for instance, the form of the crystals is very much modified. When bruised in the dark, it is seen to possess phosphorescent properties, and becomes luminous. It is soluble in one half of its weight of water at the temperature of 60°, and in one fifth of its weight at the boiling point. It is sparingly soluble in alcohol when cold, but boiling alcohol will dissolve one fifteenth of its weight which it deposits on cooling. The specific gravity of anhydrous cane sugar is calculated at 1600, that of water being 1000; but as in its natural condition it always contains water in combination, and, moreover, as it is found that sugar, when dissolved in water, undergoes an augmentation of volume of about one-fifteenth of its original bulk, the density of its solutions is much less than the above figures would lead us to expect. The apparent density of sugar differs much, owing to a variety of causes. Thus the refined sugars of France are much more loose and spongy in texture than those which have been refined in this country, and therefore they appear to possess a lower specific gravity; but these qualities are given to them expressly to suit the wishes of the respective customers. It has been already stated, that the composition of cane sugar consists of 12 atoms of carbon, 10 atoms of hydrogen, and 10 atoms of oxygen, combined with 1 atom of basic water, which is displaced when the sugar enters into combination with other bases. The atomic weight of these elements are: hydrogen, 1; oxygen, 8; and carbon, 6; hence C 12: = 72, H 10 = 10, O 10 = 80, must give 162 as the equivalent or combining number of 1 atom of anhydrous sugar. Water is composed of 1 atom of oxygen, united with 1 atom of hydrogen, consequently its atomic weight must be equal to 9. The proximate vegetable principle, cane sugar consisting, as has been shown, of 1 atom of anhydrous sugar 162+1 atom of water 9, it necessarily follows that its atomic weight must be 171; that in every 100 parts it must contain 5-3 of water; and that its specific gravity must be 1600 less fifty-three one hundredths of water, and less one fifteenth of the bulk of the sugar allowed for its expansion when dissolved in water. = = Cane sugar, like all other organic substances, undergoes decomposition from slight disturbing causes. When pure, however, it is not prone to undergo any chemical change by mere exposure to the atmosphere: we have an instance in ordinary refined sugar, which may be kept for an indefinite period without alteration. A syrup obtained by dissolving two parts by weight of very pure cane sugar in one part of water, may be kept for some time without undergoing any change; but at length it acquires a somewhat darker colour, and a portion of it, by combining with the elements of water, is slowly converted into glucose. But if it be exposed to a temperature of 180° or 200°, either in a closed vessel or exposed to the atmosphere, this change is produced in a very few hours. If the syrup be exposed to this degree of heat for ninety hours, it becomes black and acid, and a dark brown powder will be found at the bottom of the vessel. These changes are much expedited by the presence of an acid, even when its amount is very small; on the contrary, they are retarded by the presence of lime. But if the cane sugar be not pure, if it be combined with glucose even in a minute quantity, lime has a contrary effect, and rather hastens than retards them. The explanation of these phenomena is as follows: The sugar is first converted into glucose by combining with two atoms of water; this change is accelerated by the presence of an acid, which acts in the way formerly mentioned. The glucose in its turn is converted into glucic acid and melasinic acid. Lime or an alkali promotes this result, and when produced, it immediately enters into combination with the newly formed acids. The composition of glucic acid is, as has been shown, C 8, H 5, 05 = carbon 12+7-5 water; that of melasinic acid is C 12, H 6, O 5, = carbon 12 + 5 water + 1 hydrogen. These changes, therefore, are produced first by the addition to, and subsequently by the subtraction of the elements of water from the original cane sugar of the syrup. At the temperature of 390° cane sugar melts, and forms, on cooling, a glassy uncrystallized mass, known as barley-sugar. After some time this substance evinces a tendency to crystallize; but if the temperature be continued for seven or eight hours, the properties of the sugar are permanently changed, and its crystallizing power is gone. When the temperature is raised a few degrees beyond this point, decomposition visibly commences, water escapes in the form of vapour, and a dark brown mass remains. If exposed to a temperature of 400°, the sugar is converted into a blackish-looking substance, which is very soluble in water, and which deliquesces on exposure to the atmosphere. It consists of hydrogen 5.9, oxygen 466, carbon 47.5 parts in 100, and consequently corresponds with the formula, carbon 12 + water 9, or the original sugar less two atoms of water. In ordinary language it is said that the sugar which in whole or in part has undergone this change in consequence of its exposure to a too elevated temperature is carbonized; an expression sufficiently explicit of the transformation which has taken place. When the sugar is rapidly heated to 500 or upwards, a black substance, having a bitter sweet taste, is formed; water, the formic and acetic acids, and carbonic oxide, being at the same time evolved. This is the substance known by the name of caramel; it is a compound of sugar which has been more or less altered, ulmic acid (carbon 12+ water 6,) melasinic acid, and charcoal. Cane sugar, submitted to destructive distillation in a closed retort, emits a large quantity of inflammable gases, and an almost pure carbon or charcoal remains. This, on incineration, leaves a few ashes, which consist of the inorganic salts contained in the sugar. When a solution of cane sugar is mixed with one of sulphate of copper, if caustic potash be added in excess, a deep blue liquid is produced, which, on the application of heat, undergoes little or no change immediately. But if a solution of glucose, or the sugar of fruits, be treated in a similar manner, on the first application of heat it throws down a copious precipitate of a greenish colour, which rapidly changes to scarlet, and eventually to dark red, leaving merely a colourless liquid above. This is an excellent chemical test for |