BISCUIT. 



the embarkation. It will keep good a 

 whole year. 



The process of biscuit-baking for the 

 British navy is as follows, and it is equal- 

 ly simple and ingenious. The meal, and 

 every other article, being supplied with 

 much certainty and simplicity, large 

 lumps of dough, consisting merely of 

 Hour and water, are mixed up together; 

 and as the quantity is so immense as to 

 preclude, by any common process, a pos- 

 sibility of kneading it, a man manages, or, 

 as it is termed, rides a machine, which is 

 called a horse. This machiue is a long 

 roller, apparently about four or five 

 inches in diameter, and about seven or 

 eight feet in length. It has a play to a 

 certain extension, by means of a staple in 

 the wall, to which is inserted a kind of 

 eye, making its action like the machine 

 by which they cut chaff for horses. The 

 lump of dough being placed exactly in 

 the centre of a raised platform, the man 

 sits upon the end of the machine, and 

 literally rides up and down throughout 

 its whole circular direction, till the dough 

 is equally indented ; and this is repeated, 

 till it is sufficiently kneaded ; at which 

 times, by the different positions of the 

 lines, large or small circles are described, 

 according as they are near to or distant 

 from the wall. 



The dough in this state, is handed over 

 to a second workman, who slices it with a 

 prodigious knife ; and it is then in a pro* 

 per state for the use of those bakers who 

 attend the oven. These are five in num- 

 ber ; and their different departments are 

 as well calculated for expedition and cor- 

 rectness, as the making of pins, or other 

 mechanical employments. On each side 

 of a large table, where the dough is laid, 

 stands a workman ; at a small table near 

 the oven stands another ; a fourth stands 

 by the side of the oven to receive the 

 bread ; and a fifth to supply the peel By 

 this arrangement the oven is as regularly 

 filled, and the whole exercise performed 

 in as exact time, as a military evolution. 

 The man on the further side "of the large 

 table moulds the dough, having previous- 

 ly formed it into small pieces, till it has 

 the appearance of muffins, although ra- 

 ther thinner, and which he does two to- 

 gether, with each hand ; and as fast as he 

 accomplishes this task, he delivers his 

 work over to the man on the other side 

 of the table, who stamps them with a 

 vlocker on both sides with a mark. As he 

 rids himself of this work, he throws the 

 biscuits on the smaller table next the 

 oven, where stands the third workman, 



hose business is merely to separate the 



El 



different pieces into two, and place them 

 immediately under the hand of him who 

 supplies the oven, whose work of throw- 

 ing, or rather chucking, the bread upon 

 the peel must be so exact, that if he look- 

 ed round for a single moment, it is im- 

 possible he should perform it correctly. 

 The fifth receives the biscuit on the peel, 

 and arranges it in the oven ; in which 

 duty he is so very expert, that, though 

 the different pieces are thrown at the 

 rate of seventy in a minute, the peel is 

 always disengaged in time to receive 

 them separately. 



As the oven stands open during the 

 whole time of filling it, the biscuits first 

 thrown in would be first baked, were 

 there not some counteraction to such an 

 inconvenience. The remedy lies in the 

 ingenuity of the man who forms the pieces 

 of dough, and who, by imperceptible de- 

 grees, proportionably diminishes their 

 size, till the loss of that time which is 

 taken up during the filling of the oven 

 has no more effect to the disadvantage of 

 one of the biscuits than to another. 



So much critical exactness and neat ac- 

 tivity occur in the exercise of this labour, 

 that it is difficult to decide, whether the 

 palm of excellence is due to the moulder, 

 the marker, the splitter, the chucker, or 

 the depositor ; all of them, like the 

 wheels of a machine, seeming to he actu- 

 ated by the same principle. The busi- 

 ness is, to deposit in the oven seventy bis- 

 cuits in a minute ; and this is accomplish- 

 ed with the regularity of a clock ; the 

 clack of the peel, during its motion in the 

 oven, operating like the pendulum. 



The biscuits thus baked are kept in 

 repositories, which receive warmth from 

 being placed in drying lofts over the 

 ovens, till they are sufficiently dry to be 

 packed into bags, without danger of get- 

 ting mouldy ; and when in such a state, 

 they are then packed into bags of a hun- 

 dred weight each, and removed into store- 

 houses for immediate use. 



The number of bake-houses belonging 

 to the victualling-office at Plymouth are 

 two, each of which contains four ovens, 

 which are heated twenty times a day, and 

 in the course of that time bake a suffici- 

 ent quantity of bread for 16,000 men. 



The granaries are large, and well con- 

 structed ; when the wheat is ground, the 

 flour is conveyed into the upper stories 

 of the bake-houses, whence it descends, 

 through a trunk in each, immediately in- 

 to the hands of the workman. 



The bake-house belonging to the vic- 

 tualling office at Deptford consists of 

 two divisions, and has twelve; ovens, each 



