before him a large copper basin shaped somewhat like a coal-scoop, and capable of holding above a hundred-weight of melted sugar. The men went to the 'heaters,' filled their scoops with the hot viscid sugar, and walked, or rather ran, with a quick elastic motion, to the moulds, which they filled one after another with the sugar. Each man, as soon as he had exhausted his cargo by filling three or four moulds, hastened back to the 'heaters,' obtained another supply, and returned to fill other

In witnessing this operation, it appeared strange that the men were not scalded, by the liability of the sugar being spilled from the vessels; but practice enables them, by a peculiar spring of the body, to hasten along at a tolerably quick pace, without much personal inconvenience from the heated sugar. As it is important to have all the sugar poured into the moulds while in a certain state of temperature and granulation, a sufficient number of men is employed to 'fill out' all the contents of one sugar-boiling in about half an hour. The operation, while it lasts, is a laborious one, and is generally undertaken by stout, hardy sons of the "Emerald Isle." When the moulds are filled, and the contents still in a fluid state, the surface is stirred and scraped round the edge of the sugar, to prevent any adhesion to the mould, and also to enable the small crystals which are forming to diffuse themselves equably through the sugar.

These moulds, then, contain sugar and syrup mixed up together,

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in a heated and viscid state; and in the fill-house' they remain till the following day, in order that two effects may be produced, viz.: the solidification of the sugar in the act of cooling, and the partial separation of the syrup from it. When these objects are to a certain degree effected, the moulds are taken, one by one, to a place called the 'pullup hole,' in order to be passed to the upper floors of the building. With the usual brevity of technical language, the term 'pull-up hole' designates the mode of transfer. This hole is a vertical space, fifty or sixty feet high and four or five square, with ledges occurring at distances of every few feet in height, on which boards are placed to serve as platforms. A doorway opens into this pull-up hole' at every story; and the moulds containing the sugar are handed up one by one through the hole, each man taking the moulds from the man next below him, and depositing them in some one of the upper rooms. The moulds differ greatly in size and capacity; the smallest, when filled with liquid sugar, weighing only twenty-five pounds, and the largest, for the inferior kinds of sugar, weighing as much as one hundred and fifty pounds of the larger kinds, therefore, the weight is too great to allow the moulds to be handed up in this way, and they are hauled up by means of a rope.

While the sugar is thus being conveyed to the upper stories, we will imagine ourselves to have ascended a spiral staircase which traverses the whole height of the building, and to have entered the washing' and 'netting' rooms. An extraordinary area of flooring is exhibited by these rooms, We have said that most sugar-refineries are lofty and consist of a great number of stories; and we are now in a condition to see the necessity for this. Every mould-full of sugar requires several days for its final completion; and thus each mould is in use so long, that a very large number is required for the purposes of the establishment, and many separate stories are necessary to contain them. In going from room to room, and from floor to floor, we saw repetitions of the same arrangements, viz., moulds ranged nearly all over the floors of the apartments, as thickly as they could stand: there could not have been less than from fifteen to twenty thousand of them filled with sugar, besides those which were waiting to be filled.

The processes which the sugar undergoes in these upper rooms must next be noticed. A small opening being made in the apex of each mould, the mould is placed in an earthen jar, where it is left for some time. During this period the syrup flows or drops out slowly through the perforation into the jar beneath. When this draining has

proceeded to a certain extent, the mould is taken out of the jar; and the syrup, under the name of 'green-syrup,' is emptied from each jar into one common funnel or pipe, by which it is conveyed down to the boiling-house. As this syrup still contains a portion of crystallizable sugar, it is boiled over again with raw sugar, to produce lump sugar of a rather inferior quality; and when all the crystallizable sugar is obtained from it, the residue becomes the well-known substance treacle.

This draining, however, does not remove all the syrup from the sugar, a portion being still entangled among and coating the crystals; and to separate this portion, the sugar is 'washed' in rather a peculiar way. Formerly a process of claying' was adopted: a stratum of fine white clay diluted with water being laid on the surface of the sugar, the water percolated through the sugar by its own weight, mixing with the syrup which yet remained in the body of the sugar, and washing it away through the orifice in the apex of the mould. By the modern improvements, this porous surface, or sponge, as it may be considered, is formed of sugar instead of clay. The rough and uneven surface of the sugar on the base of the mould is scraped off into a vessel, and there mixed with water to the state of a ' magma' or mortar, which is again laid on the surface of the sugar. When this magma has acquired a certain degree of dryness, a clear solution of very fine sugar in water is poured on it, and allowed to remain. This solution, finding its way slowly through the mass of sugar beneath, carries with it the greater part of the syrup still remaining, together with a portion of good sugar which unavoidably accompanies it. This richer syrup, technically called 'second runnings,' is emptied from the earthen jars into a funnel which conveys it to the boiling-house, again to be boiled for the separation of the sugar from the molasses. The solution of the sugar is renewed from time to time, until the syrup is so thoroughly washed away as to leave the loaf of sugar in a beautifully white state; or if the sugar be of a cheaper quality, until a corresponding degree of purity has been attained. The substitution of sugar for clay as the spongelike layer placed in the moulds, is one of the many improvements introduced by Mr. Howard; and its importance is shown by the fact, that the process is now effected in one-fourth of the time which it used to occupy under the old system.

A medium kind of sugar, called 'clayed,' or Lisbon sugar, is much used in some foreign countries, and forms a link between moist and loaf sugar. The brown cane-juice, at a certain stage of the process, instead of being put into hogsheads, is placed in conical pots, called

by the French formes,' with the points downwards, having a hole about half an inch in diameter at the bottom, temporarily closed with a peg. When the sugar in these pots is cool, the apex is opened, and the pots placed over jars. After this a claying' process is pursued, nearly similar to that alluded to above. The result of this process is, that after remaining fifteen or twenty days in the moulds, the sugar assumes a form more white and pure than that of raw sugar, but less so than refined. But it appears probable that this old method will not be much longer pursued.

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Returning to the refining processes, it will be evident that the quantity of syrup which drains from the apex of each mould is very considerable. In the first place, there is the green syrup,' which flows as soon as the hole in the apex is opened; and afterwards there are the finer syrups, resulting from the solution of fine sugar which is poured on the loaf or lump in the mould, and which carries off a portion of good sugar together with molasses. The subsequent boiling and preparation of those syrups, in order to obtain the crystallizable sugar from them, is almost as important an affair as the refining of the original brown sugar. A curious scale of qualities is maintained in these arrangements. The finest syrup is mixed with other sugar to obtain refined sugar of the same quality as that from which the syrup was obtained; the second quality of syrup assists in the preparation of sugar one degree lower in quality; whilst the coarsest, or green syrup,' produces a kind two degrees lower. Thus the finest syrup from the finest sugar is almost as pure as the sugar i'self; while the coarsest syrup from the coarsest sugar is so thoroughly exhausted of crystallizable particles, as to be dismissed from the refining processes, and sold as treacle.

The face of the sugar in the moulds becomes rough and uneven, from the subsidence of the solid parts of the solution. When the 'washing' or 'netting' (i. e., making the sugar net, neat, or pure), therefore, is completed, this face is made smooth. A man places the mould on its side across a stool, or trough, as in Fig. 5, and scrapes the base or open surface of the sugar with a small instrument: the process is called brushing-off,'-one of those odd technical terms which so puzzle a stranger, from their apparent inapplicability. The sugar is then allowed to remain a day or two in the mould, in order that the base may acquire hardness and firmness. A smart blow or two of the edge of the mould against a wooden post loosens the sugar within, and the loaf is turned out upon its base, after having lain in

the mould for several days. We are then enabled to see the effect of the cleansing processes which the sugar has undergone: the surface is hard, crystalline, and more or less white according to the quality, the finest quality having a degree of whiteness almost rivalling that of snow. In no part of the manufacture have the modern improvements produced more decided effects than in the purity of colour now obtained. The inferior kinds of sugar retain a tint more or less dark, probably from the impossibility of expelling all the molasses from them. The loaves or lumps (in the language of the refinery, 'loaves' are the finest quality, and lumps' somewhat inferior) of sugar are not, however, equally white all over when they leave the moulds, the parts near the apex being slightly damp and discoloured at the surface. To remove this damp portion, an ingenious machine is employed. Three cutting knives or blades are ranged in a conical form, and made to rotate by the motion of a wheel; and the apex of the loaf of sugar being introduced into the cavity formed between these blades, as in Fig. 6, the surface is shaved or sheared off, leaving the body of the loaf clean and smooth. Some of the larger and coarser lumps of sugar are not treated in this careful manner; but the damp apex is merely chopped off, leaving the lump as a truncated cone. The operation of shearing the surfaces of the loaves is termed turning off;' and the waste sugar ob