Though introduced with success from Santo Domingo about the middle of the T 8th century, the sugar industry practically dates from 1796, when Etienne Bore first succeeded in crystallizing and clarifying the syrup. Steam motive power was first introduced on the plantations in 1822.
It's also believed to have a clarifying effect on a person's mind.
Alum finds application as a mordant, in the preparation of lakes for sizing hand-made paper and in the clarifying of turbid liquids.
A state sugar experiment station is maintained at Audubon Park in New Orleans, its work embracing the development of seedlings, the improvement of cane varieties, the study of fungus diseases of the cane, the improvement of mill methods and the reconciliation of such methods (for example, the use of sulphur as a bleaching and clarifying agent) with the requirements of " pure food " laws.
Many electrolytic methods have been proposed for the purification of sugar; in some of them soluble anodes are used for a few minutes in weak alkaline solutions, so that the caustic alkali from the cathode reaction may precipitate chemically the hydroxide of the anode metal dissolved in the liquid, the precipitate carrying with it mechanically some of the impurities present, and thus clarifying the solution.
