In the tropics and sub-tropics cane-sugar juice, as well as the cane molasses, serves as a source of alcohol both for industrial purposes and for making spirituous beverages such as rum and tafia. The juice of sorghum stalks is likewise employed to some extent for similar purposes. Both the sugar-cane and the sorghum stalks yield 65 to 70 per cent, of juice, which contains 12 to 16 per cent, of sugars.

1 Press Bulletin, No. 63, Bureau of Science, Manila, 1917.

2 Heriot, J. Soc. Chem. Ind., 1915, 34, 339.

The sap of certain varieties of palm, especially the nipa palm and the coco palm, is also an important actual and potential source of alcohol. In the Philippine Islands there are more than 100,000 acres of nipa palm swamp, and in British North Borneo as much or more, relatively small parts of which are yet worked. The sap has an average sugar-content of 15 per cent., and it is calculated that the yield of sap in a season is about 30,000 litres per hectare of land. The total production of alcohol in the Philippines is about 2 1/2 million gallons a year, of which nine-tenths is obtained from nipa sap; and it is estimated that 50 million gallons of alcohol could be produced each season.