The Digital Ark: Early Modern Collections of Curiosities in England and Scotland, 1580-1700
Archigenes (c.75 - c.129)
Archigenes was a Roman physician from Syria. Dictionary of National Biography entry: http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780198606413.001.0001/acref-9780198606413-e-688 Other biography: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archigenes Authority - ancientRelevant locations: Birth place in Syria, Asia
References in Documents:
Arundo Saccharina. In
called b) b)
c. 1
planted from the Reed about
seven or eight feet high,
with many Joynts, one at about
every ½ foot, and a
large close Pith; out of which, the
greatest part of the Juyce, whereof the Sugar is made, is c)
c. 1
expressed. See the Description hereof at large in c)
and d)
d) Hist. of
Barb
&c
ing and pressing the same; and of ordering
the expressed
Juyce, for the making of several sorts of Sugar, and
Brandy: as also the Engines, and contrivance
of Vessels for
the same purposes.
The principal knack, without which all their labour
were in
vain, is in making the Juyce, when sufficiently
boil'd, to kerne or granulate.
Which is done, by adding
to it, a small proportion of Lye made with (vegetable)
Ashes: without which, it would never come to
any thing
by boiling, but a Syrup, or an Extract. But a little
of
that Fixed Salt, serves, it seems,
to Shackle or Crystallize
(which is a degree of Fixation) a very
great quantity of
the Essential Salt of
this Plant.
In refining the Sugar, the first degree of pureness, is
effected only by permitting the Molosses to
drain away
through a hole at the bottom of the Sugar-Pots; the Pots
being, all the time, open at the top. The second degree
is procur'd, by covering the Pots at the top
with Clay.
The reason whereof is, for
that the Aer is hereby kept out
from
the Sugar, which, in the open Pots, it hardens, be
fore it
hath full time to refine by separation. And there
fore, whereas the first way requires but one Month, this
requires four. The finest Sugar of all, (e) e) See
de Reb. Bra
sil. p. 119. &c
Lime-Water (and sometimes Urine) and Whites of Eggs.
Sugar-Candy (Saccharum cantum, because it
shoots into an
gular Figures) by placing a great many
slender sticks across
a Vessel of liquid Sugar, for it to shoot upon.
That which
saith Sugar: saving that,
whereas this is
made of the Juyce expressed and boil'd;
that of the Ancients,
as is likely, was only the Tears;
which
bursting out of the Cane, as the Gums or Milks of
Plants are used to do, were thereupon
harden'd into a pure
white Sugar. That the Sugar of the Ancients
was the
simple Concreted Juyce of a Cane, He well conjectures:
and what is above said of
the Mambu, may argue as much.
But that
it was the Juyce or Tears of the Sugar-Cane,
he
proves not. Nor, I think, could be, if, as is supposed, it
was, like Salt, friable, and hard. And
in affirming our Sugar
to be the same for substance with that of the Ancients, he
much mistakes; that being the simple Juyce of the Cane,
this a compounded Thing, always
mixed either with the
Salt of Lime, or of Ashes; sometimes of Animals too.