120 COCOA AND CHOCOLATE 



If the reader will look at the illustration entitled 

 " Women grinding chocolate," he will see how the 

 brittle roasted bean is reduced to a paste in primitive 

 manufacture. A stone, shaped like a rolling-pin, is 

 being pushed to and fro over a concave slab, on which 

 the smashed beans have already been reduced to a paste 

 of a doughy consistency. 



Fig: 4 Fig- 3 Fig. 1 Fig. 2 



Early Factory Methods. 



Fig. 1 is a workman roasting the cacao in an iron kettle over a 

 furnace. He has to stir the beans to keep them from burning. Fig. 2 

 is a person sifting and freeing the roasted kernels (which when 

 broken into fragments are called " nibs ") from their husks or shell. 

 Fig. 3 shows a workman pounding the shell-free nibs in an iron 

 mortar. Fig. 4 represents a workman grinding the nibs on a hard 

 smooth stone with an iron roller. The grinding is performed over a 

 chafing-dish of burning charcoal, as it is necessary, for ease of grind- 

 ing, to keep the paste in a liquid condition. 



Early European Manufacture. 



The conversion of these small scale operations into 

 the early factory process is well shown in the plate 

 which I reproduce above from Arts and Sciences, pub- 

 lished in 1768. 



A certain atmosphere of dreamy intellectuality is 



