corded of California or Australia. One miner says his claim will last ten years "to work it out." Labor commands $8 per day with board; so that an industrious and healthy man cannot fail to make money. Gold dust is worth $16 30 to $16 50 per ounce, or $17 in payment for goods. It averages about 850 100ths fine, though some specimens assayed 918. The winter climate of Carriboo is not worse than that of Canada. The Indians are peaceable. Among the drawbacks are the want of good roads and the consequent difficulty of obtaining supplies of provisions and tools, for both of which very high prices have to be paid. Probably the lowest price paid for any article of food is $1 a pound, on the California scale twelve years ago. The mining season continues from May to October; but as tunnelling has commenced, there will be no difficulty in the mines all the year through. MANUFACTURE OF BEET-ROOT SUGAR. An eminent Prussian chemist, of the name of MARGGRAF, first called the attention of the public to beet-root sugar, by an elaborate memoir printed in the Transactions of the Academy of Berlin for 1747. The roots selected by him for experiment were the skirret, (a variety of parsnip.) the white beet, and the red. He found that when slices of these were dried by a very gentle heat, small spicular crystals of sugar might be observed in them by a microscope. Next he reduced the dried root to powder, and digested it in boiling alcohol, by which the whole of the sugar was dissolved, and the mucilage, starch, and most of the other impurities were left behind. The alcoholic solution, by long rest, deposited crystals of sugar, which, by re-solution and crystalization, were obtained quite white, amounting in quantity to from one-twenty-fifth to one-sixteen h of the weight of the dried root. He also found that the white beet loses by drying three-fourths of its weight, and the red beet seveneighths. He next made an attempt to manufacture sugar from these roots; for which purpose, having broken down the texture of the skirret by bruising it in a mortar, and of the beet by grating it, he pressed out the liquor, and kept it at rest for forty-eight hours in a cool cellar. It bere deposited most of the feculence; and the clear liquor was drawn off. It was then clarified with white of egg, boiled down, and the syrup, after some months, afforded brown crystals intermixed with syrup. The crystalline part was again dissolved, crystallized anew, and afforded a concrete viscid mass, from which the syrup drained off by degress, and left the rest nearly in the state of muscovado, or raw cane sugar. The experiments of MARGGRAF were, several years afterwards, resumed by M. ACHARD, at the desire of the Prussian government. He followed the general process pointed out by his predecessor, except that he boiled the beet previous to pressing it-a change obviously for the worse, as he thus rendered soluble most of the starch, and introduced an additional embarrassment in the subsequent operations. After the failure in France of the attempt to make grape-sugar, the attention of CHAPTAL, at that time Minister of the Interior, and a manufacturing chemist of considerable eminence, was directed to the half-suc cessful attempts which had been made in Prussia, and other parts of Germany, to obtain sugar from beet-root, and which I have already mentioned. A manufactory was established by M. CHAPTAL at Amboise, on the Loire; and by substituting a crop of beet, in the rotation of his farm, instead of a naked fallow, and by feeding sheep and cattle on the fibrous residue of the roots, after having pressed out the sweet liquor, he obtained his raw material at a very easy price. The subsequent treatment of the juice differed in no material degree from that employed by MARGGRAF, except that instead of at first standing to settle it was directly run into the boiler, where it was mixed with quicklime. The other processes were also much expedited; and the result, according to the statement of M. CHAPTAL, was a profit of sufficient magnitude to encourage the extension of the manufacture. At the end of 1825, there had been twenty-six establishments founded in the north of France for the preparation of beetsugar; and from that time to the present, the number appears to have been continually increasing, and the quality of their products improving. This has been the result of several advantageous modifications of the original process. The juice, after being pressed from the pulp, undergoes its first defecation in a boiler, where it is mixed, while cold, with a small quantity of dilute sulphuric acid. After this latter is judged to have acted sufficiently, it is neutralized by the addition of slacked lime; and the fire is then lighted. When the liquor has been heated up to about 100° Fahr., animal charcoal is first stirred into it, and then blood diluted with water. As the heat increases, the blood coagulates and involves all the impurities floating in the liquor, which after filtration through a woolen cloth, is clear, bright, and of a very pale yellow color. It is now put into a shallow boiler, and evaporated at a heat never exceeding 200°, for fear of burning it, till it is brought to the consistence of syrup. It is then filtered, is further reduced by boiling, and then is transferred to a cistern, where it is stirred continually until it granulates, and is got sufficiently cool to be poured into cones of earthenware; after which it is treated precisely as cane sugar. It has been, however, observed, that the lime employed in the process of defecation injured the sugar in the subsequent boiling; to prevent which the manufacturers are now in the habit of adding the lime to the raw liquor, and afterwards saturating it, or very nearly so, with sulphuric acid. It appears, on a general average, that the beet used by the French manufacturers yields 70 per cent of juice; and that 100 parts of the entire beet afford from two to two and a-half of common loaf-sugar. The molasses, or uncrystallizable syrup, when fermented and distilled, yield a spirit, which, on account of its peculiar and disagreeable flavor, is only employed in the composition of varnishes and other similar uses.-The Grocer of London. RAILWAY, CANAL, AND TELEGRAPH STATISTICS. 1. THE NEW YORK STATE CANALS. 2. THE SUEZ CANAL. 3. MORRIS Canal and BANKING COMPANY. 4. THE PACIFIC RAILROAD. THE NEW YORK STATE CANALS. The following tables, which we take from the Auditor's Report, show the amount transported and received for tolls on the canals of the State during the years 1860 and 1861: Total..... 1,574,390 2,856,846 1,282,456 1,348 1,220 87,956 95,722 223,885 107,958 251,876 226,336 7,766 .... 128 ...... 115,927 25,540 3,009,597 3,908,785 1,299,760 400,572 Comparing the two years we find a loss of 617,155 tons in various descriptions of property, and a gain of 474,576 in other descriptions. The balance against the canals on this account is 142,579 tons. There is a gain of $1,299,760 in tolls on four classes of property, and a loss of $400,572 on five other classes, leaving a balance in favor of the canals for the year of $899,188. It has been supposed that the traffic on the canals has been much benefitted during the season of 1861 by the navigation of the Mississippi river being closed. On this point, the Auditor says that no increased tonnage from the West has been thrown in an eastern direction to reach our canals by that obstruction. New Orleans has not been a shipping port of grain in bulk to a European market. Our increase in tonnage and tolls over 1860 has been almost exclusively in "vegetable food." In consequence of the disturbed state of the country the traffic in the "products of the forest" has fallen off from 1860, 457,518 tons, with a loss $253,945 in tolls. This is the first serious di-turbine we have met with in a series of years in this class of canal traffic. With a restoration of peace and confidence and a revival of business we may expect a return of that trade to its wonted channels. We cannot expect hereafter to keep up the large transits in "vegetable food" on the canals which we had in 1860 and 1861 in the absence of a supply and demand equal to those two years; shall we have them? If not, then it behooves us to look out for other sources of revenue and for other traffic from which tolls can be drawn. The "products of the forest," or the most of them, will probably be retained by the canals in spite of railway competition. Of the increased receipts on "vegetable food," as exhibited in the last preceding table, $525,895 arose from the increased rates made by the canal board on wheat, corn, and flour, in the spring of 1861. The following statement shows the number of tons of each class of property carried on the canals during the season of navigation, in the year 1861; and on all the railroads in the State from the 1st of October, 1860, to the 30th of September, 1861: Of this amount carried by railroads, the following table shows the amount carried by the New York Central and the New York and Erie Railroads, compared with the amount transported by the canals: Other New York Central.... The Product of Vegeta- agric'l Man'fac- Merchan- Other Total. 39,310 251.964 441,562 47,341 80,597 192,583 113,945 1.167,302 108,685 209,757 243,959 26,919 145.673 167,244 351,181 1,253,418 147,995 461,721 685,521 74,260 226,270 359.827 465,126 2,420,720 1,052,392 19,292 2,122,237 2,854 280,256 135,095 895,518 4,507,635 904,397 1,436,716 53,986 442,439 71,406 224,781 430,892 2,825,491 738,567 THE SUEZ CANAL. The annual meeting of the shareholders of the Suez Canal Company was held in Paris on the 2d of May. The report contains several very interesting facts. It appears from it that there exists no doubt in the opinion of the chief engineer that the waters of the Red Sea will unite with the Mediterranean in the course of eight months. Port Said is commenced, and the new town already contains a population of 1,000 Europeans and 2,000 Arabs. There are at present 26,000 Arabs employed, and their number will shortly be increased to 40,000. M. de Lesseps congratulated the shareholders on all political opposition to the canal having ceased, and paid a high compliment to Lord RUSSELL, Mr. GLADSTONE, and Mr. MILNER GIBSON for their speeches in Parliament on the subject. The Alexandria correspondent of the London Times transmits the following further information on this subject: The Suez Canal Company have lately been enabled, by means of the large supply of men obtained from government, to push on their operations with greater activity. They have at the present moment, according to the information I have received from a gentleman who has just returned from the Isthmus, in forced labor about 22,000 men, and about 1,500 volunteers. The intention is to raise the number of laborers to 40,000 men if the government can be induced to grant them. At present the work is almost entirely concentrated upon the cutting to be made through the sand heights of El Djisr, and engineers of the company promise that the rigole de service, or small elementary canal, will, within the next two months, convey the water of the Mediterranean into the basin of Lake Timash. This canal, it will be remembered, is about 13 feet wide and about 18 inches in depth. The portion of the rigole constructed through Lake Menzaleh last year has been almost entirely obliterated. Some 22 dredging machines are shortly to be at work re-excavating the canal on the full scale, and with strong embankments. At Port Said some of the iron piles lately driven into the sea for the purpose of forming a small stone islet on the line of the proposed western jetty have, after a severe storm, been either bent or else they have given way in their foundations, and the cross iron tie-bars have been broken away. These skeleton frames of iron are intended to be filled with large blocks of stone, to be brought for the purpose from the quarries of Mex, near Alexandria. The wooden jetty that projects from the shore, and which is constructed with wooden piles filled in with stone, has not been injured by the late storm. It will be seen from the above that very much, in fact, almost everything, remains to be done. Whether the project will or will not be brought to a successful termination is, of course, entirely a question of money and men. Where these can be obtained in sufficient abundance it can hardly be said that the accomplishment of any work whatever is beyond the skill of modern engineering. But there is clearly room for the strongest doubt that the capital subscribed by the company will be sufficient to effect the object, and when it is exhausted it is difficult to see whence another supply will be obtained, especially as the improbability of the canal, even if inade, ever paying or being of any practical use must become more and more apparent. It is not unlikely also that it will presently be discovered that the Isthmus of Suez is, after all, not a weak point dans la cuirasse Anglaise. |