161 



BISCUIT-MANUFACTURE. 



BISHOP. 



162 



every simplicity compatible with the goodness of the articles; and 

 improvements have, with this view, been made from time to time 

 to lessen the amount of labour in the establishments. The mode of 

 conducting the operations, on what may be termed the hand-method, 

 is as follows : 



Meal and water being mixed together in due proportion, the dough 

 is'placed upon a wooden platform. A wooden roller, or staff, has one 

 end fixed by means of a staple and eye to the wall, so that the roller 

 can be made to traverse the surface of the platform ; and when the 

 dough is placed upon it, the roller is used to knead it by indenting 

 upon it lines radiating in a semicircle from the staple. To perform 

 this kneading process, a man seats himself upon the overhanging end 

 of the roller, and proceeds with a riding motion backwards and for- 

 wards through the semicircular range until the dough is sufficiently 

 kneaded ; it is a very uncouth process, in which muscular labour is 

 wastefully applied. In this kneaded state the dough is cut by large 

 knives into slices, which are subdivided into small lumps, each suffi- 

 cient for making a biscuit. In moulding these small lumps, which is 

 done by hand, the dough undergoes a further degree of kneading, and 

 at length receives the form of the biscuit. The men who thus fashion 

 the dough make two of these cakes at the same time, working with 

 each hand independently of the other. When this part of the work is 

 completed, the two pieces which have been simultaneously prepared 

 are placed one on the other and handed over to another workman, by 

 whom the two together are stamped with a toothed instrument, the 

 use of which is to allow the equable dissipation of moisture through 

 the holes from all parts of the biscuit during the baking. The biscuits 

 are then separated by another workman, who places them on a par- 

 ticular spot of a small table standing close to the mouth of the oven, 

 so that each biscuit can be taken up in its turn without the necessity 

 of his looking for it, by the man who supplies the oven. The office 

 performed by this man is that of throwing the biscuits in succession 

 upon the peel, which is held by another man whose business is to 

 arrange them in the oven. This peel is a flat thin board, a few inches 

 square, which can, by means of a long handle, be slidden over the floor 

 of the oven, so aa to deposit and arrange the biscuits thereon. The 

 greatest nicety is required on the part of the man who thus throws the 

 biscuits on the peel, and he could not perform this evolution with the 

 necessary degree of precision if he were at any time obliged to with- 

 draw his eye from the peel in search of the biscuit. The oven is by 

 these means supplied at the rate of seventy biscuits in one minute. 

 The mouth of the oven is necessarily open during the time of its being 

 charged ; the heat is therefore greater at the beginning than at the 

 end of that operation ; and besides this, the biscuits first deposited are 

 of course a longer time exposed to heat than the rest. To remedy the 

 irregularity that might be thus occasioned, the pieces of dough are 

 gradually and regularly made of smaller bulk, so that the effect of the 

 cooler oven is equalised by the smallness of the biscuits. When suffi- 

 ciently baked, the biscuits are placed in the warm atmosphere of rooms 

 well-ventilated over the ovens, and remain there until perfectly dry. 

 In this state it is found that one hundred and two pounds of biscuits 

 are procured from one hundred and twelve pounds of meal. 



Notwithstanding the perfection to which the hand-method has 

 attained, the processes have of late years been still further perfected 

 and facilitated by the introduction of machinery. In the Royal Dock- 

 yards, the dough is thoroughly mixed and rolled out into sheets about 

 two yards long and one wide, which are stamped at one stroke into 

 about! sixty hexagonal biscuits of nix to the pound, in such a 

 manner aa to leave the sheet sufficiently coherent to be put into the 

 oven as one piece, though when baked the biscuits are easily separated. 

 The hexagonal shape has been substituted for the circular, because it 

 effecte a saving of time and material, and also of space in packing. 



At the ship biscuit bakery of Mr. Harrison, at Liverpool, an appa- 

 ratus has been constructed which exceeds in automatic completeness 

 even that employed at the government establishments ; for the made 

 biscuits travel into the oven without the aid of any peel or other hand- 

 worked tool. The flour and water are placed in a cylinder, mixed well 

 together by revolving bars, kneaded by a large iron cylinder, and spread 

 large sheet on an endless cloth. As this cloth travels along, a 

 nicely adjusted piece of mechanism cuts the dough into the shape of 

 nix-sided biscuits, and stamps them. Passing along the endless cloth, 

 tli. l.iscuita are received by a kind of gridiron, and enter the oven. 

 This oven is 26 feet long ; it is heated by hot water, and bakes the 

 biscuits as they slowly travel through it. The mechanism was patented 

 by Mr. Harrison, in 1849. 



Mr. Deucale, an American inventor, has introduced an ingenious 



iking biscuits. A brick oven, 12 feet long, 6 wide, and 



1 hiirU, stands in the middle of the bakehouse. The top has no opening 



whatever. The front has an opening near the ground, with a metal 



through which the fuel is introduced, and made to cover the 



entire area of the floor of the oven. About a foot above the furnace 



door is an opening, six or eight inches high, and the whole width of 



the oven ; and a similar opening exists at the back. Near each 



opening is a wooden cylinder ; around both cylinders a wire lattice-work 



,tly coiled, so as to form an endless cloth stretching horizontally 



:. and across the oven, over the fire. The biscuits, in the state of 



dough, being ranged in a row along the front edge of the wire-cloth, 



the baker turns a winch-handle, and winds them into the oven ; this he 



AUTS AND S(T. I)IV. VOL. IT. 



does row after row, until, by the time the first row has reached the 

 back of the oven, the biscuits in that row are properly baked. 



In another biscuit-baking apparatus, by Messrs. Barrett & Exhall, 

 the flour is put into a receptacle, where it is speedily mixed into 

 dough. This dough passes to a breaking machine, where it is kneaded 

 until it becomes sufficiently tenacious to be passed between rollers 

 for more thorough kneading. From these rollers it passes to other 

 rollers, which reduce it to the required thickness. It then passes in a 

 continuous sheet, by means of an endless web of canvas, to another 

 machine, where it is cut, docked, crimped, and stamped. The biscuits 

 are then divided from the waste dough, and conveyed to the oven. 

 The waste dough is collected and passed through a shoot, to be re- 

 kneaded, and made into biscuits. 



It may here be remarked, in reference to navy biscuits, that an 

 important national saving is effected by the use of machinery in the 

 manufacture. Twenty years ago, it was calculated that the three 

 government biscuit-bakeries at Deptford, Gosport, and Plymouth, could 

 produce 7300 tons of biscuit in a year ; that this quantity would cost 

 3200/. for labour, and wear and tear of machinery ; that the wages and 

 utensils on the old method would have cost 11,600?.; and that the 

 nation thus saved 8400/. by employing machinery. 



BISCUITS, MEAT. The meat-biscuits, which first became 

 familiarly known in this country about the time of the Great Exhi- 

 bition in 1851, are a kind of antiseptic or preserved food, introduced 

 by Mr. Borden of America. As carried on at Galveston, in Texas 

 (where excellent cattle abound at a very low price), the manufacture 

 is so conducted as to concentrate the nutriment of the meat with 

 flour, into a sort of biscuit. The biscuits are dry, inodorous, flat, 

 brittle cakes, which will preserve their qualities for a (practically) 

 unlimited period. No fat of beef is included ; only the nutritive part 

 of the lean. One pound of biscuit contains half a pound of wheaten 

 flour combined with the nutriment from five pounds of beef. During 

 the United States' war with Mexico these biscuits were taken as part 

 of the army rations, packed in casks. When required for use, the 

 biscuits are dissolved in water, boiled, and seasoned at pleasure, form- 

 ing a soup about the consistency of sago. One ounce of biscuit will 

 suffice for a pint of water. It can also be used as an ingredient in 

 puddings and sauces. These meat-biscuits have not been brought 

 much into use in England ; yet Dr. Lindley, as a member of one of the 

 juries of the Great Exhibition of 1851, spoke highly of them. He said : 

 " I think I am justified in looking upon it as one of the most important 

 substances which this Exhibition has brought to our knowledge. 

 When we consider that by this method, in such places as Buenos 

 Ayres, animals which are there of little or no value, instead of being 

 destroyed, as they often are, for their bones, may be boiled down and 

 mixed with the flour which all such countries produce, and so con- 

 verted into a substance of such durability that it may be preserved 

 with the greatest ease, and sent to distant countries : it seems as if a 

 new means of subsistence was actually offered to us. Take the 

 Argentine Republic, take Australia, and consider what they do with 

 their meat there in times of drought, when they cannot get rid of it 

 while it is fresh ; they may boil it down, and mix the essence with 

 flour, and we know they have the finest in the world and so pre- 

 pare a substance that can be preserved for times when food is not so 

 plentiful, or sent to countries where it is always more difficult to 

 procure food. Is not this a very great gain ? " 



Professor Owen, as one of the jurors at the Paris Exhibition in 1855, 

 noticed a kind of meat-biscuit which had been recently introduced in 

 France by M. Beurmann. According to the information obtained, 

 these meat-biscuits are thus prepared. Quarters of beef, immersed in 

 water sufficient to cover them, are subjected to a long and slow 

 ebullition. The liquid, after the fat has been skimmed off, is 

 evaporated to the consistence of syrup ; it is then incorporated with 

 fine wheaten flour, hi quantity sufficient to give it a consistence 

 capable of yielding to the rolling-pin. When rolled out to the thick- 

 ness of an ordinary ship biscuit, the cake is pricked and cut into the 

 angular form best adapted for stowage. The meat-biscuits are then 

 baked in an oven, thoroughly dried, and packed for exportation. 

 They can be eaten in the dry state, like ordinary biscuits ; and this 

 confers great value on them for the soldier when in the trench or on 

 the march. But they afford a more sapid and comforting kind of 

 subsistence if they are broken up in about twenty times their weight 

 of water, and boiled for half an hour with salt, or other condiments ; 

 an excellent and most nutritious soup is thus readily obtained. 



See further on the subject of preserved meats under ANTISEPTICS. 



BISHOP, the name of that superior order of pastors or ministers in 

 the Christian church who exercise superintendency over the ordinary 

 pastors within a certain district, called their see or diocese, and to 

 whom also belongs the performance of those higher duties of Christian 

 pastors, ordination, consecration (or dedication to religious purposes) of 

 persons or places, and finally, excommunication. 



The word itself is corrupted Greek. 'EwicrKoiros (episcopal) became 

 epucopus when the Latins adopted it. They introduced it among the 

 Saxona, with whom, by losing something both at the beginning and the 

 end, it became pigcop, or, as written in Anglo-Saxon characters, Birceof. 

 This is the modern bishop, in which it is probable that the change in 

 the orthography (though small) is greater than in the enunciation. 

 Other modern languages retain in like manner the Greek term slightly 



