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SUFFBEN 148 SXTGAH BEET France with the rank of captain in 1772. Early in 1777 he sailed to America, and his ship began the indecisive battle of Grenada on July 6, 1779. He next served with the allied fleet blockading Gibraltar, and early in 1781 was placed in command of a squadron of five ships for service in the East Indies. After an action at the Cape Verde Islands, he outsailed Commodore Johnstone to the Cape, and so saved the colony for the time. Sailing to Madras, he fought a hard but indecisive battle off Madras, and soon after, in a bloody two days' battle off Providien on the coast of Ceylon, proved himself a consummate master of naval tactics. Having captured Trin- comalee, he two days later stood out of the harbor with 15 ships against the English 12, and fought a hard but irreg- ular battle. His last fight (June, 1783) was also indecisive. Suffren arrived in Paris early in 1784, and was received with the greatest honors, and created Vice-Admiral of France. He died in Paris Dec. 8, 1788. SUFISM, the pantheistic mysticism of the Mohammedan East, which strives for the highest illumination of the mind, the most perfect calmness of the soul, and the union of it with God by an ascetic life and the subjugation of the appetites. This pantheism, clothed in a mystico- religious garb, has been professed since the 9th and 10th centuries by a sect which is gaining adherents continually among the more cultivated Mohammed- ans, particularly in Persia and India. The name is from sufi, a religious ascetic, an eastern term applied to all members of religious monastic bodies leading an ascetic life. The Sufis were originally devout persons who, perplexed by the dis- cord prevailing among the various sys- tems of Mohammedan philosophy in the 2d century of the Hejira, found consola- tion in pious mysticism. Their teachings, though at first consonant with orthodox Mohammedanism, gradually led to a mode of thought totally irreconcilable with the Koran. About the beginning of the 10th century the Sufis divided into two branches, one of which followed Bos- tanie, who openly embraced pantheism, and the other Juneid, who sought to reconcile Sufism with Mohammedanism. Among eminent Persian poets belonging to the Sufis we may mention Hafiz, a distinguished Sufi; Ferid-eddin, and Jami. The celebrated philosopher and jurist, Alghazzali was also a Sufi. SUGAR, a sweet, crystallized sub- , stance manufactured from the expressed juice of various plants, especially from the sugar cane; also, any substance, more or less resembling sugar in any of its properties; as sugar of lead; figuratively, sweet, honeyed, or soothing words or flattery, used to disguise or hide some- thing distasteful. In chemistry, Cn(0H2)m, the generic name for a large number of bodies occur- ring naturally in the animal or vegetable kingdom, or produced from glucosides by the action of ferments or dilute acids. They are all more or less soluble in water, and their solutions exert a rota- tory action on polarized light. Some re- duce alkaline solutions of copper while others either do not, or do so only to a limited extent. They may all be classed under two heads, viz., unfermentable sugars, as mannite, dulcite, sorbite, etc., and fermentable sugars, as cane sugar, glucose, maltose, etc. Cane sugar, C13H22O11, called also saccharose, sucrose, and canose, is found in the juice of many grasses, in the sap of several trees, and in beet and several other roots. It is ex- tracted most easily from sugar cane but on the Continent of Europe and also in the United States it is manufactured on a large scale from beet root. The ex- pressed juice is heated nearly to the boil- ing point, and a small quantity of slaked lime added. The clear liquid which sepa- rates from the coagulum is evaporated as rapidly as possible, and transferred into shallow vessels to crystallize Drained from the syrup or molasses, it yields the raw sugar of commerce. When further refined by treatment with animal char- coal, poured into molds, and then dried in a stove, the product is loaf sugar. When the crystallization is allowed to proceed very slowly, sugar candy results. Moderately heated it melts, and solidi- fies on cooling to an amorphous mass, familiar as barley sugar. Pure sugar separates from its solution in trans- parent colorless crystals, having the fig- ure of a modified monoclinic prism. Its crystals have a sp. gr. of 1.6. Heated above 210°, water is given off and a brown substance known as caramel re- mains. Cane sugar is transformed into invert sugar by boiling in presence of dilute acids, mineral acting more rap- idly than organic acids. Strong sulphuric acid completely decomposes cane sugar, and nitric acid converts it into saccharic acid. It turns a ray of polarized light to the right, Aj = 73.8. SUGAR BEET, a hardy, biennial plant, grown in France, Germany, Austria, Russia, Holland, Belgium, Norway, Swe- den, Denmark, Italy, Spain, and, more recently, in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and^ Great Britain. The number of varieties now grown is considerable, but they are all