June i, 1892.] 
THE TROPICAL AGrtTftJULTURlST. 
A fine old city Bristol, full of ancient landmarks, 
rich in architectural treasures, a vein of romance 
and poetry running right through its history from 
the days when Caljot sailed out of its picturesque 
port to discover new worlds to the present time 
when ships from every sea float upon her lazy tides 
and moor themselves in the very heart of the city 
as they do to this day in Amsterdam and Yarmouth. 
But our courteous guide awaits us and we must 
postpone for the time being such wayside reflection 
as do not come within the immediate focus of our 
work. The bags already mentioned are upon this 
floor, emptied into several roasters, cylindrical pans 
slowly revolving over open coke fires. The bean is 
stirred now and then by experienced attendants who 
can tell by the flavour of the vapour that arises 
from them when the operation is complete. This 
first process is the most important of the series of 
treatments which the cocoa bean undergoes before 
it is ready for the breakfast or dessert table. A 
bad roast is fatal. The bean is destroj'ed. But a 
bad roast is a very exceptional incident. From the 
roasters the beans are conveyed to large hoppers 
connected witli the floors beneath by shoots that 
convey the roasted bean to the winnowing room. 
Here a machine cracks the nut, removing its hard 
outer skin or shell, and both are together hauled to 
a point over the winnower where the blowers sepa- 
rate the husk from the nut, and the latter now 
being thoroughly cleaned from all dehrix of the shell 
becomes what we know as cocoa-nibs which are now 
ready for grinding. 
As there are four main factories, each more or 
less reproductions of the other, the various depart- 
ments are known in the works by numbers, but for 
the better understanding of the reader we prefer to 
give them proper names. Thus from the grinding 
room we come to the sugar-grinding room, which 
is incidental as it were to the next operation which 
belongs both to the manufacture of chocolate and 
the ordinary drinking cocoa. We might now be in 
one of the floors of a flour-mill, so white is the 
atmosphere, so ghost-like the workpeople. Tons 
of loaf-sugar are here ground and sifted until 
it is as fine as the finest flour, and as soft 
and silky to the touch. As the salt-sea waves leave 
their flavour upon the lips, so does the flying 
dust of the sugar-room leave behind its sweet 
if not cloying flavour ; and one also leaves 
the room as to beard a trifle grayer than one entered 
it. This little world of "sweetness and white " gives 
upon the pan or pug-mill room, where the cocoa- 
nibs, in great revolving pans, are mixed with the 
fine-dressed sugar and pounded between granite rol- 
lers into paste. No water is used, but the material 
is kept warm. There is a large percentage of oil in 
cocoa-nibs, and encouraged by a gentle heat it is 
brought forth, and thus the nut or bean becomes 
liquefied. Sugar is added until the cocoa is of the 
consistency of dough. The beds of the revolving 
pans are of granite like the rollers. Iron would set up 
a chemical condition inimical to the delicate flavour 
of the product. When the nibs find their way into 
these heated mills they are hard and brittle, and one 
might expect to see them ground into powder. Not so; 
they become paste as we have seen, and in this form are 
made to perform all kinds of strange evolutions. 
It is whirled hither and thither in the great pans, 
making graceful curves, now ejected in liquid columns 
like miniature Severn "bores" or enormous snakes, 
rich lu'own tortuous never-ending boa constrictors ; 
thence it goes into" batteries of rollers where it is 
conducted over granite cylinders, flattened out and 
rolled by a series of ingenious machines invented and 
nuule in Paris, and conies out chocolate, except that 
it has to cool. This hardens the oil of the nib, 
called " cocoa butter," and the chocolate is then ready 
to bo prepared for use. 
Skipping the floor wo have just described a certain 
proportion of tho ground nibs coiiio to the depart- 
ment to whicli wo next descend, falling into hoppers 
tliat make tho powder finer and finer. For storage 
purposes there is a curious little nuicbine here, origin- 
ally made for pressing patent fuel into blocks. Later 
the inventor applied it to cocoa in this way. The 
material is placed in an automatic metal box, the lid 
is closed, then by pressure the bottom is forced up- 
wards until the lid opens to let out the compressed 
brick of cocoa which is then stored. Passing this 
little machine we are in one of the most picturesque 
departments of the factory. There is no more artistic 
form than that of a wheel, nothing in continual 
motion that gives a greater idea of power. The 
avenging Jupiter could think of no punishment 
so persistent as that of the whirling wheel to 
which Mercury bound the banished Ixion. In 
every manufactory the wheel is familiar enough. 
It is the motor of the place, the guide and con- 
troller of miles of straps and bands ; it is beginning 
and never-ending in almost every nook and corner ; 
but we have rarely seen it in such striking evidence 
as in one particular department of these great cocoa 
factories. Here on this floor of hoppers into which 
the ground nibs are deposited to make concentrated 
cocoa the sense is bewildered, the mind fascinated, 
by the incessant repetition of wheels. They fill the 
ceilings in two or three vast circles, that have their 
revolving satellites like moons each on its own axis, 
and each governed by the master wheels. The 
curious part of the scene for a novice is literally a 
ceiling of moving wheels as well as a continuation 
of the same right, left, and centre. Watch them for any 
length of time and you might find yourself presently 
going round and round with them until you whirled 
yourself out of existence like the gyrating maWen 
in the fairy-tale. To the turn of these many wheels 
the mills perform their eccentric motion until the 
chocolate is sufficiently ground. It is then collected 
in batches and placed in canvas bags, which are 
packed into the receivers of a long array of hydraulic 
presses that also constitute a very interesting scene. 
At first blush you might think you had strayed into 
the counting house of the firm of Gogs and Magog 
whose letter-copying presses stopped the way ; but 
these double-handled machines are worked by a 
power greater than that of a thousand Go^s and 
Magogs with an army of Polyphemuses thrown in. 
The canvas bags subjected to hydraulic pres.sure give 
forth most of the oil which the cocoa contains. It 
runs off into tin pans and leaves behind the dry 
pure cocoa of commerce. The oil is of a dark brown 
colour, but as it cools it gradually becomes white 
and in solid blocks. Later we come upon it turned out 
of the tins "cocoa butter" in great solid pats. On 
this and other floors there are large artificial cool- 
ing rooms, for which there is on the ground floor 
extensive frost-generating machinery on the brine 
and ammonia system. The shafts go up through the 
various factories as do also the lifts or elevators. 
Even in summer days the artificial snow has to be 
collected and removed, from the freezing closets. 
Passing through the rooms devoted to the mixing 
of miscellaneous chocolates we now leave what may 
be called the manufacturing departments. We have 
not thought it necessary to mention the separate 
treatment of different varieties of bean, Trinidad, 
Caracas, Ceylon, and others. The process does not vary. 
In quitting the grinding, winnowing, milling, pressing 
and other operations we leave behind up the men's 
work. Not that the master hands do not appear in the 
lighter sections of the factories, but girls and women 
predominate in the later departments which belong 
to the production of chocolate creams and fancy con- 
fections. On our way to the ground floors we come 
upon one of the rooms set apart for the filling of 
cocoa tins and packets. Here crowds of girls are 
weighing and packing the brown powder. They are 
a healthy, well-dressed company of young women, and 
of a more than ordinary look of intelligence. Tiie 
ground floor of the factory is devoted to many varied 
purposes. First, we come upon tlie busy scene of 
sugar boiling, long rows of boilers, long rows of men 
in white French caps and aprons. From the boilers 
the sugar is emptied upon great stone slabs where a 
little army of more w-liite-capped labourers stir and 
beat up the cream-like couiponnd with white wooden 
spades. Thus prepared it is transferred to the moulds; 
and this brings us to .another department that re- 
peats tho atmosphere of tho sugar mill. Moulds for 
ron castings, as you are aware, are made of aand. 
