Molasses
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Molasses. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
The Encyclopedia of Founding (1892)
A brown, viscid, uncrystallized syrup produced in the manufacture of sugar. Owing principally to the gluey nature of this product, it can be made of great use in the foundry. Core-sands void of the quality of adhesiveness may, by being mixed with molasses, be made sufficiently tenacious to admit of their being employed where, if sands containing aluminous substances were used, there would be great difficulty in extracting the core when cast. The molasses, owing to its sticky nature, holds the loose grains of silica together until the molten metal has solidified, during which time all its cohesive qualities have been burned away by the intense heat, leaving the sand free to run out of the cavity at the slightest provocation. Common beach and river sands may be made serviceable by the use of molasses when the cores are for light castings; but when it is desired to accomplish similar results in heavy castings, the more refractory silica sands must be used. Molasses is now extensively used for mixing with the silica sands, etc., used in steel casting, in order to bring these incoherent materials up to the right consistency for forming the moulds. Mixed with water until the latter may be pronounced very sweet, it is an excellent restorative for a badly burned mould surface, especially when a little black lead has been stirred in. If the mixture be too thick with molasses, instead of penetrating the burned mould surface, it will lie there and form a hard skin, which, as it dries, separates and curls up, bringing the sand with it, and making matters worse. See CORE-SAND; FLOUR; GLUE; STEEL CASTINGS.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
. See Sugar
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The 1892 Encyclopedia of Founding treats molasses chiefly as a foundry binder, holding "the loose grains of silica together until the molten metal has solidified" — and that use is essentially gone. Sand cores are now bonded with synthetic chemistry: sodium silicate hardened by carbon dioxide, phenolic resins in the shell-moulding process developed by Johannes Croning in Germany in the 1940s, and cold-box resin systems that cure in seconds. As a sweetener molasses also lost ground, displaced in most kitchens by refined white sugar and corn syrup, though it survives in baking, in rum distilling, in cattle feed and as "blackstrap" sold for its iron and mineral content. The best-known molasses event of the intervening century was industrial rather than culinary: the Boston molasses tank burst in January 1919, killing 21 people.
Written for this edition, 2026.