Louisiana Sugar, the best in the World. 207 and its manufacture into sugar. The England, if the statesmen, gentry, and fact is, however, that, with a few excep- nobility of that island did not look upon it tions, Louisiana is behind instead of as a device calculated to serve their purahead of most other sugar-growing countries, in machinery and the facilities afforded by art and science for the production of sugar; so says Prof. M'Culloh. The text-book of most of the sugar-makers of Louisiana was published in 1732, the year that Washington was born. Most of them have no book at all, but make sugar by the traditional knowledge derived from the Spanish work above alluded to. The American plow has been made to supersede much of the hoe work in the culture of the cane, and the steam engine has been substituted in the sugar mill for horse-power; but, in other respects, few or no improvements, until a very recent period, and only very partially adopted, have been made upon the Spanish practice in vogue a century and a half ago, while the English in the East Indies and the West, Demerara, Mauritius, Australia, and throughout every colony where cane will grow, have pressed into their service all the improvements in the arts and sciences, and encouraged men of learning and genius, by the most tempting rewards, to lend their aid to that extensive association of nobles, plebeians, priests and politicians, who are leagued together to monopolize the sugar culture, and to reap all the profits to be derived from the most valuable agricultural product the earth produces, the Americans have been standing still, unconscious that they occupy the best sugar region on the globe, and have only to adopt the modern improvements in the culture and manufacture of the cane to gain at once the prize, which Great Britain and the East India Company have, for more than half a century, been straining every nerve to obtain. It was to encourage the culture of the cane and cotton plant in India, and to set one hundred and fifty millions of people to work for a few in a distant island, that slave labor in the West Indies was abolished. To prevent America from continuing to be a competitor in tropical products, an organized system of agitation, about the time of West India emancipation, was set on foot in England by the East India Company, to overthrow slave labor in the cotton and sugar growing states of the union. The disgusting work, Uncle Tom's Cabin, would never have been reprinted, or a dozen copies sold, in moral pose, in turning public sentiment against that species of American labor, whose products come in competition with those produced in the immense colonial possessions of Great Britain, in the east, and throughout the world. Happily, however, for the interests of mankind, Americans are beginning to perceive that British East India philanthropy for American negroes consists in a desire to monopolize those rich Southern staple commodities-the products of negro labor, by tying the negro's hands, under the name of freedom, and sending him back to that barbarism, want and wretchedness, from which the patriarchal government, called slavery, rescued him. A few of our planters, however, are beginning to avail themselves of the advantages to be derived from pressing into the service of the sugar interest the science of medicine, and the modern discoveries in the arts and sciences, so long in the hands of the English and French. They have even improved on the French and English in the art of manufacturing sugar. The best sugar in the world is now made in Louisiana, by what is called "the first process," directly from the fresh cane juice, nothing but Avequin's lime water being used as a clarifier. In three or four days, a perfectly pure, crystallized white sugar is manufactured, drained, dried, and put up ready for market, from the fresh juice, as it runs from the mill. Lapice, Armat, Lesseps, Degruy, Levois, Zeringue, Hulett, Urquhart, Lanfear, Morgan, Davenport, Benjamin, Packwood, are a few of those who are making sugar according to the most approved method, and who have added many improvements themselves. Their method is spreading among the planters throughout the state, and will not only supersede the old (1732) Spanish method, which converts a large portion of the vital into chemical, sickly sugar, but will carry the culture of the cane to 32 north, and perhaps further. With a few year's governmental encouragement to the sugar interest, to enable our planters to provide themselves with the improved machinery, such as is now in successful operation on the plantations of the abovenamed gentleman, America would drive the East and West India sugar out of market, and greatly benefit mankind, by giving them the purest, most wholesome, and nutritious article of diet the earth produces. is hastened by the cold weather. The canes roasted in the fire, and the juice sucked while it is hot, is an excellent Those who wish to test the practica- remedy for coughs and bad colds. The bility of growing good cane in any lati- juice eaten with parched corn, is a poptude in the United States below thirty- ular and valuable remedy for dyspepsia. five degrees, should plant the cane at the Nature seems to have implanted so same time that Indian com is planted in strong a love for cane juice in children, the particular latitude where the experi- as if it were on purpose to defend them ment is made. Good rich land should against the evils produced by decayed be selected. That which produces the teeth and worms. Whether sugar be best corn will generally produce the best made from the juice or nut, a patch of cane. The cultivation of the two plants cane, on every plantation where it will is very nearly the same. In the vicinity come to maturity, would be more than of New-Orleans the cane is planted in worth the ground it may occupy and the January or February, and comes up ear- trouble of cultivation. Such experiments ly in March. In about 7 months from would also do much in determining the the time of sprouting, it begins to mature important agricultural question: "How sufficiently to be cut and converted into far north the culture of the cane plant can sugar. In higher latitudes its maturity be profitably extended in the United States?” ART. II-SALUBRITY OF CITIES RESTORED BY THE INTRODUCTION OF PURE AIR. [SEVERAL years ago (April, 1842,) there appeared a paper in the Southern Quarterly Review, entitled "Refrigeration and Ventilation of Cities," which was attributed to Dr. Gurrie, of Florida. The writer concluded with these words-" While it must be conceded that we are able to cool a city to any degree required by the habits, comfort and health of its inhabitants, it must also be acknowledged that we have the capacity to regulate the quantity of moisture it may hold in solution, and thus diminish, and probably remove, two fertile sources of disease in all climates." The mode of effecting these results he proposes is by the construction of machinery for the compression of air. "We propose," he says, "to effect the compression of air by means of water, wind, or steam-power, into suitable reservoirs in the suburbs of cities, and thence to transmit it through conduits, like water or gas, so that it may be distributed and set free in the houses, and even in the streets and squares of the city." The paper which we now publish contains many views which are equally novel, and as they relate to a matter of much public interest in the South and West, we give them a place, remarking at the same time that the germs of many a great truth lie often at the bottom of what seems at first sight but speculation, and that the head of the corner has often been constructed from the once rejected stone of the builder. We are willing to give our contributor a hearing, and to open, through our pages, the discussion of the subject to the scientific.]-EDITOR. Impure air being the great fountain of disease, more than any, perhaps all other causes, I have felt that this rock from which the waters of bitterness have so long and copiously flowed, has been too much neglected by the learned. Analysis has failed to detect the subtle poison lurking in this universal fluid; the most powerful microscope has been unable to discover the invisible arrows of death, constantly flying on the wings of the wind; and though chemistry professes, I believe, to be able to disinfect the universal element, when tainted by unsalubrious substances, yet it has been put to but little practical use in protect ing mankind from the evils of a contaminated atmosphere. The efforts of the scientific having been so barren of results, it seems that the only hope of relief for suffering humanity is in simple, but untried mechanical means. Writing from a secluded district, remote from books, I recollect having read, but cannot now tell where, how the London club-houses are ventilated with a salubrious atmosphere, by first passing through water the air intended for circulation in their crowded apartments. This is the only instance which I now remember to have heard of purification Principles of Pneumatics-Purity of the Upper Atmosphere. 209 by mechanical, or, perhaps, this should the fires in those at one end, to supply the be called chemical means. I wish to direct attention to a process more simple still. Instead of endeavoring to purify a contaminated atmosphere, I would, by mechanical agency, bring, where most needed, one already pure. Millions of men are compelled not only to work during the day, but to sleep during the night, in infected air, though there may be, within a few hundred feet of their apartments, an inexhaustible supply of the pure uncontaminated article to be had, if not for the asking, for the bringing, by very simple means. Air is known to be cooler, and believed—perhaps I might say known to be purer the higher we ascend from the earth. Miasma, the great infecting substance, is known, by experience, to be more dangerous during night than the day. It is known, that men may remain, during the day, in a malarious district with impunity, provided they sleep at night in a salubrious atmosphere. vacuum, it is drawn down and through the rooms from those at the other, as, in cold weather, it is drawn whistling through the key-holes and other small apertures of our rooms while blazing fires are in the chimneys. Now let your sleeping apartments be made air-tight, and any common lathed and plastered room may be made close enough for this purpose. Let it be connected with one end of a tube, the other of which shall extend into the air to such an altitude as will reach a pure current. By means of fire, or some other propelling power, the air may be forced out of the room opposite the end where it enters through the tube, giving a pure circulation at such times as may be desired. The height to which the ventilating tube will have to be carried to reach a salubrious region must depend on experience, but I have no doubt, in most localities, it would be found at the upper extremity of such a mast as could be raised at a trifling expense. It is said to have been noticed, when the cholera was in Montreal, that meat became putrid in less time than usual; but some hung upon one of the steeples of some of the great plagues which have desolated most of the large cities of the world, their violence became mitigated in those subjects who occupied the upper stories of the houses. The well-known principles of pneumatics teach us, that air may be forced through a tube, of any length, from one point to another. We see this operation constantly performed by steam and the city escaped the rapid change. In other power. In the English coal mines, pure air is forced through them, from above ground, sometimes for miles, by the power of steam. In like manner, air is forced through tubes, to supply those working in diving bells. I learn, But suppose that neither by masts from the Génie Industriel, through that nor towers nor other contrivance, we excellent paper, The Scientific Ameri- can penetrate the regions of purity, can, that the Northern Hospital of we know that in the neighborhood of France is ventilated in the following most miasmatic districts and large manner: "The air is taken from a towns are salubrious places, where the tower on the top of the building, so as air is healthy near the earth, and which to be always pure, and in summer cool. can be reached by horizontal tubes of It is sent inside in a quantity invariably sufficient extent. To perpendicular tubes, equal, and of the same power, by nu- the main objection is the uncertainty of merous apertures in the centre of the reaching an unadulterated region. To rooms, which it passes along from one horizontal, the expense only is to be consiend to the other, and issues by eighteen dered, purity can always be known. The orifices, without its action being neutral- expense would depend upon the distance ized by opening one or all the win- the air would have to be carried and dows." And we see it every day, by population to be supplied. The simplest human muscles, forced through the pipes material would answer for ventilating of hand and blacksmith's bellows. tubes, such as that of which our comSometimes fire is used as the most con- mon stone jugs are made, glass, and many venient propelling agent. The large other cheap substances. Even a comapartments of the British parliament- mon tunnel, or covered ditch, coated house are supplied with fresh air by this with a proper cement, with solid tubes agent, through ventilating chimneys. to span or pass through or under water, As it is expelled by the rarefaction of would, I have no doubt, dispense with any other, except connecting tubes at each end. Such water as might percolate through the cement and collect at the lowest points could be let off in the daytime, or received through the valves of covered wells to be sunk at such places. And when we consider that the ditch, as a tube itself, or to receive a glass or other tubes, need be only of such depth as to secure it from injury, and give an equable temperature to the air; that it can follow the undulations of the earth's surface; and that covering with the earth would make the joints of the tubes air tight, the expense would be inconsiderable for the benefits that would be obtained in many towns and rich miasmatic districts, by the use of pure air thus brought from adjacent hills. When brought for the use of towns, in one common tube, the air could be distributed to the various dwellings in the way so common in the distribution of water. Each dwelling could have its own power to compel the circulation of the pure fluid, through its apartments; or by other pipes, connecting with one common reservoir or main tube, one power could be used for the whole town. The air approaching the town by a common trunk could be made to ramify so as to furnish every house requiring it, and then, by connecting with another, common to all, would make its exit by the force of a common power. In districts with a scattered population, a large common trunk for conducting, and small pipes for distributing the fluid through the neighborhood, might be used for all, but the power could not be common. To those who look on difficulties as impossibilities, judgment of condemnation has, no doubt, been pronounced by such as may have read thus far. But the considerate who will deliberately hear and investigate before condemning, will fairly consider the legitimate question, properly propounded, in all enterprises,-"Will it pay?" Will the advantages to be derived authorize the trouble and expense? No certain estimate of expenses can be made; but from what has been said, they would be inconsiderable. The nearest data in my power is the expense of under-draining wet lands by the use of tiles. In England they lay pipes one and a half inch bore three feet below the surface for less than sixty dollars per mile. If ventilating pipes of sufficient bore to serve a population of five or ten thousand should cost ten, twenty, or even forty times this sum per mile, in many places, it would be the best investment that could be made. When once laid, the tubes would need no repairs during the generation that might perform the task. As the air usually needs be forced through them during but a few months in the year, and at night only, the propelling power could cost but little. I have been considering the expense of bringing air from a distance of miles. If it can be reached by perpendicular tubes the expense may be considered of but small account compared to the benefits expected. Individuals relying on fire for the moving power need expend no more for fuel than would be usual for warming their rooms in winter. In the French hospital before mentioned the most economical means-such as the use of hot water, stones, etc.—are used to warm the six wards of the establishment, costing during the winter $2,805, while the cost for ventilation during summer is but $935. Indeed, of so little account is the expense of ventilation for the "whole year," that it is estimated to "cost nothing," inasmuch as the steam engine used pays for itself in the performance of other services. Much more can we hope that steam or water-power, sufficient to ventilate the sleeping apartments of a large town during night and for a few months only, would cost almost nothing, as it could be used for mechanical purposes during the day without interruption. It is hardly necessary to notice that the ventilating fires could be placed in one of a suit of rooms, or the inmates so shielded as to protect them from uncomfortable heat in warm weather. If the expense of procuring the invaluable commodity be uncertain, but must be small, the benefits, when obtained, are likewise uncertain, but must be great. Great as is the value of pure air, it cannot be reduced to dollars and cents any more than health can be reduced to a money value. But we can make some estimate of its importance by considering its influence on property. Besides their profits to the stockholders, we estimate the worth of rarl-roads by the enhanced value they give to contiguous property, and this is, to a country, the great and main element of wealth in those improvements. For every dollar they are valuable to their owners, they Artificial Ventilation-Preservation of Health. 211 are of ten to those who use them. Many the temperature could receive any modimillions worth of real estate, both in fication desired. A spiral tube passing town and country, would be doubled in through the water at the bottom of a value, could they be made secure against well, with ice added, if necessary, would the annual and occasional visitations of lower it, or through fire or other warm epidemics engendered by bad air. One medium, raise it sufficiently for all purtenth of the sums paid by those living poses of comfort or health. The same in such infected districts, for their annual fire might warm as well as expel the air migrations in search of salubrious air, from an apartment. This kind of venwould bring it to their permanent homes. tilation would be most used in warm laFor want of a few mouthfuls of pure titudes where insects are so annoying air, large tracts of the most fertile portions and sometimes dangerous to existence. of the globe now lie waste under the The air-tight sleeping apartments necesviewless poison that broods over their sary to exclude impure air would cut off teeming surfaces. these troublesome intruders. Artificial ventilation would protect, not only against periodical contaminations of the air, but those epidemics which run to and fro the earth on the trackless air, with woe and desolation in their train, might often be defied. Surrounded by the pure air brought from above, on the distant hills, the prudent citizen could, like Noah in his ark, be in security, while consternation reigned without. Besides the general preservation of health, the use of air in the way above indicated, might be made for other purposes hardly less valuable. It might be made a most efficient agent in the restoration, as well as preservation of health. In the way directly noticed, a patient could have his room, in summer as well as winter, of any desired temperature, could have a dry or moist atmosphere, and for the cure of many diseases, foreign particles might be added, carrying healing on its wings to diseased humanity. Dr. Cartwright, in the last December number of this Review, tells us how important the vapor of sugar boilers is in some fatal diseases. Instead of sending invalids thousands of miles from their comfortable homes to inhale the saccharine vapor amidst the discomforts of a sugar-house, a few canes, sent even to the coldest latitudes, with a very simple contrivance, added to the ventilating pipes before mentioned,might be made to infuse their healing particles, in graduated quantities, through the most luxurious apartments. Science would also come in for its share of benefits. It would test the power of various fluids to disinfect the air in its passage through them. By experience we could soon know to what height the air is usually contaminated with impurities, what pestilence walketh in darkness, and the destruction that wasteth at noonday, and many other secrets of the viewless and mysterious air. There can be no doubt but that more than half the ills which flesh is heir to are born of adulterations of the inoderous air. There is a plan by which this great source of human calamity may be greatly mitigated if not entirely exterminated; and though new, it does not rest on speculation. That air can be, and is moved from one place to another, is as certain as that water can be made to change its position; that it can be moved without being contaminated by the surrounding impure air is equally certain; and, I apprehend, no one will doubt that, whether breathed in a bedroom, on the hills, or two or three hundred feet from the earth, it is equally inoffensive to our lungs, and healthy to our systems. We form large companies with heavy capitals to supply our cities with gas, to send to the hills for pure water and distribute them through pipe to our houses. With much less expense the more necessary air might be brought to our rooms to be used like water by the turn of a faucet. We bore the solid earth It is manifest, this forced ventilation many hundred feet for water of a quamight be made to minister greatly to lity to suit our fancy, and by tubes conthe comfort, nay, the luxury of our race. duct it uncontaminated through interThe ventilating pipes should be laid so vening currents to our dwellings. With deep in the earth as to obtain an equable half the expense, and to half the numtemperature winter and summer. By ber of feet, we might tube the empty air passing them through proper mediums to those regions which would furnish a |