the only kinds used on the
premises being those from Trinidad and Grenada. In an adjoining room,
imbedded in a huge mass of brickwork, are four cylindrical ovens
rotating slowly over a coke-fire, each containing a hundredweight of
nuts, which were undergoing a comfortable process of roasting, as
evidenced by an agreeable odour thrown off, and a loss of 10 per cent.
in weight at the close of the operation, which lasts half an hour.
Thus, in a day of ten hours, the four ovens will roast two tons of
nuts, the prime mover being a twenty-horse steam-engine. The sight was
one that would have gladdened Count Rumford's heart, for the cylinders
and their fittings comprised all the economical principles of his
roaster--certainty of effect without waste of fuel.

The next step is to crack or break the nuts in what is called the
'kibbling-mill.' The roasting has made them quite crisp, and with a
few turns of the whizzing apparatus, they are divested of their husk,
which is driven into a bin by a ceaseless blast from a furious fan;
while the kernels, broken into small pieces, fall, perfectly clean,
into a separate compartment, where their granulated form and rich
glossy colour give them a very tempting appearance. The husk is
repacked in the empty bags, and exported to Ireland, where it is sold
at a low price to the humbler classes, who extract from it a beverage
which has all the flavour of cocoa, if not all its virtues.

Thus prepared, the mass of broken nut is ready for more intimate
treatment, which is carried on in a large room where shafts, wheels,
and straps keep a number of strange-looking machines in busy movement.
Some of these are double-cylinders, highly heated by a flow of steam
between the inner and outer cases--an arrangement by which any degree
of temperature can be produced in the interior. Inside of cacti works
an armed iron-breaker, which, as soon as a quantity of the cracked
nuts is introduced, begins to rotate, and, by the combined influence
of heat and pressure, liberates the oil of the cocoa bean, and soon
reduces the mass to a liquid which flows, 'thick and slab,' into a pan
placed to receive it, leisurely as a stream of half-frozen treacle. In
this state it is ready for grinding between the millstones, to which
it is successively transferred, being poured into 'hoppers,' which,
like the cylinders, are heated by steam. The cocoa flows rapidly from
the stones in a fluid smooth as oil; but it is the best kind