June i, 1892.] 
THE TROPICAL A«WWm.TUR18T, 
913 
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 Catot 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. Tiio bean is 
stirred now and then by experienced attendants who 
can tell by the flavour of the mpour that arises 
from thorn wlien the operation is completo. 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 destroyed. But a 
bad roast is a very exceptional incident. From the 
I’oasters the beans are conveyed to large hoppovs 
connected with the floors boheath by shoots that 
convey the roasted bean to tlie winnowing room. 
Here a machine cracks the nut, removing its hard 
outer skin or shell, and both are together hauled to 
a point over tlie winnower where the blowers sepa* 
rate the husk from the nut, and the latter now 
being thoroughly cleaned from all debris 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 niimbera, but for 
the better understanding of the reader we prefer to 
give them proper niuiios. Thus from the grinding 
rooni we come to the sugar grinding room, which 
is incidental as it were to the next operation w’hieh 
belongs both to the manufacture of chocolate and 
the ordinary drinking cocoa. Wo might now be in 
one of the floors of a flour-mill, so wdiito 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 atriffo 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-diesBod sugar and pounded between granite rol- 
lers into paste. No water is used, but the material 
is kept warm. There is a large tiercentage 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 bods of the revolving 
pans aro 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 w'ay 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 w e 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, 
niaking graceful curves, now ejected in liquid columns 
like miniature Severn “ bores ” or enormous snaJees, 
rich brown- tortuous never-ending boa constrictors; 
tlience 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 
niade in l*arU, and comes 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 described a certain 
proportion of the ground nibs come to the depart- 
ment to w’hich we next descend, falling into hoppers 
that make the powder finer and finer. For storage 
purposes there is a curious little machine hero, origin- 
ally made for pressing patent fuel into blocks. Later 
the inventor applied it to cocoa in this W’ay. Th© < 
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 .1 upiter could think of no punishment 
so jiorsiatent as tliat of tlie whirling wheel to 
w'hich 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 strans and bands; it is beginning 
and never-ending in almost every nook and comer ; 
blit w'e have rarely seen it in such striking evidence 
as in one particular department of these great cocoa 
factories. Hero on this floor of hoppers into which 
the ground nibs are deposited to make concentrated 
cocoa the sense is bow’ilderod, the mind faHuinated, 
by the incessant repetition of wheels. They All the 
ceilings in two or three vast circles, that have their 
revolving satellites liko moons each on its own axis, 
and eacli governed by the master wheels. The 
curious part of the scene for a novice is literally u 
ceiling of moving wheels as woU 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 witli them until you whirled 
yourself out of existence like the gyrating maiden 
in the fairy-tale. To the turn of those many w'heels 
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 
jiresRes 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 tne way; but 
the.se doublo-luuidlod machines aro worked by a 
power greater tlian that of a thousand Go^s and 
Nlagogs with an army of Polyphemuaes thrown in. 
The canvas bags subjected to hydraulic pressure give 
forth moat of tlie 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 wliite 
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 ore large artificial cool- 
ing rooms, for which there is on tho ground floor 
extensive frost-generating machinery on tlie brine 
and ammonia system. The shafts go up through tlie 
various factories as do also the lifts or elevators. 
Even in summer days tho artificial snow' has to be 
collected and removed from the freezing closots. 
Passing through the rooms devoted to the mixing 
of niisccllaneous chocolates we now leave w'bat may 
bo called tlie manufacturing deportments. We have 
not thought it necessary to mention tho separate 
treatment of different varieties of bean, Trinidad, 
Caracas, Ceylon, and others. The process does not vai*y. 
In quitting the grinding, winnowing, milling, pressing 
and Ollier operations wo leave behind up the men’s 
work. Not tiiatthe master hands do not appear in the 
lighter sections of tho 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 tho tilling of 
cocoa tins and pockets. Tier© crowds of girls are 
weighing and packing the browm powder. They are 
a healthy, well-dressed company of young women, and 
of a more than ordinary look of intelligence. Tlie 
ground floor of the factory is devoted to many varied 
purposes. First, wo come upon tho 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 wmite-capped labourers stir and 
beat up tho croam-liko compound with white wooden 
spades. Thu.s prepared it is transferred to the moulds* 
and this brings us to another department that ro’ 
peats the atmosphere of tho sugar mill. Moulds for 
ron castings, as you are aware, are made of sand 
