64 



round cakes not unlike flat stones in shape and appearance, 

 about a span (about nine inches), in diameter and a finger's 

 breadth (about three-fourths inch), in thickness. Tlie cakes 

 were sometimes punctured, and hence called challah, and mixed 

 with oil. Sometimes they were rolled into wafers merely 

 annointed or coated with oil. The cakes were now taken to 

 the oven having first, according to the practice in Egypt, been 

 gathered into " white baskets." The baskets were placed on a 

 tray and carried on the baker's head. In the towns where 

 professional bakers resided, there were no doubt fixed ovens, 

 in shape and size resembling those in use among ourselves, 

 (brick ovens), but usually each household possessed a portable 

 oven, consisting of a stone or metal jar about 3 feet high, 

 which was heated inwardly with wood, dried grass and flower 

 stalks. Other modes of baking specially adapted to the 

 migratory habits of the pastoral Jews as of the modern 

 Bedouins, — the cakes were either spread upon heated stones or 

 they were thrown into the heated embers of the fire itself. 

 Other methods were used for other kinds ; some were baked in 

 a pan, such cakes being used for sacred offerings. 



The flour for such bread was laboriously ground in a portable 

 mill consisting of two circular stones of about eighteen inches 

 in diameter, the upper stone fitting over the under, which was 

 fixed, was turned by an upright handle near its edge, by one 

 and sometimes two women, usually seated on the bare ground 

 facing each other ; the one whose riuht hand is disengaged 

 throws the grain, as occasion required, through a hole in the 

 upper stone, through which a pivot or shaft rises from the 

 centre of the lower one." 



In contrast to such processes, I quote the following from 

 LeffeVs Milling News (English) and the method of transporta- 

 tion then and now : 



" When the Queen's baker received the first barrel of this 

 year's American wheat crop, he presented a loaf of bread 

 made thereof to her majesty, and issued a circular to his cus- 

 tomers, saying: " We take the liberty of forwarding to you a 

 small loaf of bread, made from flour of this year's crop. Such an 



