PART TI. 
Uganda is setting an example to Kenya, for a distillery which has 
been erected to work in connection with the sugar mill at Jinja, is 
about to commence operations. The milling capacity is 400 tons of 
cane per day, and the distillery is capable of producing forty gallons 
of etherized alcohol per hour. 
Another sugar mill with an annual output of 10,000 tons of sugar 
is to be erected at Kamiti, and when it is crushing to its full capacity 
it will produce molasses sufficient-to run a unit distilling plant. 
The consumption of petrol in Kenya and Uganda in 1925 was 
1,500,000 gallons and it should be possible for these three mills to 
supply Kenya and Uganda with motor spirit to the extent of one half 
of this amount. 
According to different authorities the cost of producing 959% 
aleohol, without recovering potash and nitrogen from the residues, 
and excluding the cost of molasses which is rightly charged to the 
sugar, has been stated to be approximately 5d. 
It will pay to concentrate the spent wash to a fertiliser syrup 
which can be easily transported and applied to the soil. This can be 
done economically in a multiple effect, the vapours from the last unit 
being finally used to heat the column. 
Heriot (meeting of the Society of Chemical industry, 1920) quoted 
actual working figures shewing that the value of the fertiliser syrup 
produced in this way, covered the total working expenses of a 
particular distillery leaving the alcohol as a by-product free of cost. 
At the present local prices of artificial fertilisers the fertilising 
ingredients in the spent wash from each gallon of alcohol would be 
worth about 6d. Allowing for the cost of recovery, a portion of this 
sum could be placed to the credit of the alcohol thereby reducing 
working expenses. 
S1san. Waste: Mr. A. C. Barnes, Chemical Officer, examined the 
undiluted juice after decortication and found it to contain 1.65% of 
fermentable matter. It was concluded that from liquids with such 
a low percentage of fermentable matter, alcohol could not be 
produced by any economical process. 
Very dilute liquors containing 1.3% to 2.0% of fermentable 
sugars are obtained in the manufacture of wood pulp by the sulphite 
cooking process, and after fermentation produce a wash containing 
about 1.09 of alcohol, which is recovered by distillation. 
The cost of recovering alcohol from sisal juice should be about 
the same as that of sulphite liquor and estimates of the latter vary 
from 5}d. to 71d. per gallon pre-war to more than 1/- during the 
war. 
If aleohol can be recovered economically from sulphite liquor, 
then its recovery from sisal juice is not impossible, and the matter 
might be worth further investigation. 
CELLULOSIC MATERIALS : 
Woop Waste: The cellulose of plants may be converted into 
fermentable sugars by hydrolysis with mineral acids under pressure 
and at elevated temperatures. The processes employing the use of 
dilute acids are cheaper, but the highest yields are obtained from 
those in which strong acids renders their use costlv and the commer- 
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