—­whilst one gallon of “Ramos’ prepared plantain juice” contains, besides vegetable extract, 226 grains of solid matter, consisting of sulphuret and potash, in the following proportions:—­

Sulphur 40 grains
Lime 156 "
Potash 30 "
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226 grains

They do not think it likely that the potash exists in fresh plantain juice as carbonate, but rather that this salt is the product of decomposition, arising from a compound of potash and a vegetable acid, such as tartaric or oxalic acid present in the fresh juice; be this as it may, any utility derivable from the plantain juice is evidently owing to the potash it contains.

They then give as a substitute for Ramos’ liquid, and to be used in a similar way, the following—­

Take of subcarbonate of potash 2 ounces, avoirdupois; sulphur, 21/4 ounces; best British lime slaked, 11/2 lb.; mix them into a paste in an earthen pan or wooden tub, with one quart of water (warm) and when thoroughly mixed, pour in ten gallons of boiling water—­rain water is the best to use—­and stir from time to time until it has cooled, when it may be drawn off from the sediment and kept for use.  If rain water cannot be obtained, the purest water obtainable may be used.

One of the causes most fatal to West Indian prosperity, is that exuberance of advantages which they enjoy from serenity of climate and fertility of soil—­causes which, in the absence of proper stimulus to industry and improvement, have led to an improvident system of cultivation, and to a blind and ignorant adherence to wasteful methods of manufacture.

The cane is believed to contain from 90 to 95 per cent. of its own weight of saccharine juice; and yet (as Mr. Fownes, a Professor of Practical Chemistry in University College, London, informs us, in an excellent paper “On the Manufacture of Sugar in Barbados,"[17] from which much of what follows has been borrowed) owing to the defective construction of the mills, hardly so much as 50 per cent. is obtained, although he believes it practicable, by an improvement in the mills, to obtain from 70 to 75 per cent.; and of the remaining 10 or 15 per cent. which he regards it as impossible to extract, much, if not the whole, might, I conceive, be obtained, by macerating the pressed canes or megass, as it issues from the mill, and repassing it through the rollers; and, be it remembered, that from 40 to 45 per cent. of saccharine juice is nearly, if not altogether, equivalent to a similar per centage of sugar; so that by these initiatory improvements alone, and with little additional trouble, the produce of sugar might be nearly doubled from any given quantity of canes.

From the action of lime-water when added in a slight excess to the cane juice or raw liquor, as it is vernacularly termed, immediately on issuing from the mill, as well as from the effect produced by ammonia or potash, this liquid appears to contain a considerable quantity of cane sugar, mixed with much glucose, or that saccharine matter which is found in fruits; gum or dextrine, phosphates, and probably malates of lime and magnesia, with sulphates and chlorides, potash and soda, and a peculiar azotised matter, allied to albumen, which forms an insoluble compound with lime, is not coagulable by heat or acids, and runs readily into putrefactive fermentation.