Chocolate and cocoa are made from the seeds or beans of the Theobroma Cacao. The fruit of this plant somewhat resembles a cucumber, and contains from twenty to thirty seeds; these are dried and packed for the market. They come to this country from the West Indies (Berbice and Demerara). The beans are roasted in an iron cylinder with holes to let out the vapour, &c.; when cool they are deprived of their husks, and then crushed by means of rollers turning on a flat slab, kept warm by stoves or steam. The seeds when crushed on the warm slab become almost liquid, owing to a kind of butter or concrete oil which they contain, and which melts by a gentle heat. When the seeds are rolled by the machine into a smooth paste, this is either put into a mould of tin and formed into squares and various other forms, or left rough as it is scraped from the slab (this is called “rock” cocoa). For chocolate it is mixed with sugar, and either dried and powdered, or made, as the cocoa, into paste. On the Continent it is flavoured with “vanilla.”
STEEL.
BESSEMER’S PROCESS.
Steel is usually made by a process called “cementation.” Bars of the best Swedish or Russian iron, about six feet long, are placed in an iron box, the bottom of which is covered with a layer of charcoal powder; over the first row of iron bars some more charcoal is put, and then another row of iron bars, and so on till the box is full, when it is carefully closed and kept at a white heat for four or five days. When cold, the bars are found to be converted into steel, and, being rough and blistered on the surface, are called “blistered steel;” this is broken up, and the bars laid side by side and made hot in a forge, where they are welded together by the blows of a heavy hammer, and drawn or rolled out by machinery into bars of “fine steel.” Steel differs from iron in the closeness of its grain, in being very much “tougher,” and in having that very useful and peculiar property called “temper,” which is the power of hardening when suddenly cooled while red-hot. If a bar of steel as soft as iron be made of a bright red heat, and then suddenly plunged into cold water, it will be found to have become harder than any other metal (so hard, indeed, that it will scratch glass), and is as brittle and readily broken as flint or glass. If now a gentle heat be applied to it, this extreme hardness of temper gives way. For instance, if a piece of bright hard steel is held for a moment in the hollow of a clear fire, a pale straw color appears on its surface, it is now still very hard (but not so hard as before), and is fit for razors, surgeons’ instruments, &c; but if held in the fire a moment or two longer, it becomes of a bright golden yellow, and is fit for penknives, and other cutting instruments; held longer still, it becomes bright blue, and is fit for watch-springs, swords, and other purposes requiring great elasticity but no great hardness; if the heat be carried still further a brown tinge is seen, and it is now rather soft, but greatly harder than iron, and is still elastic; saws, coach-springs, and many other articles are made from steel at this temper. If the heat be carried on to redness, the steel would be quite soft when it had slowly cooled, but if suddenly cooled (as by being plunged into water) the original hard temper comes back again.
Steel, like iron, may be cast, and cast-steel is one of its most useful forms, and much resembles “fine steel.” The mode of preparing cast-steel is to melt the “blistered steel” in a crucible, or earthen pot, and then run it into a mould: this forms an “ingot” of steel, which may be afterwards rolled or welded as the case may require.
Steel may be drawn into very fine wire, or wrought into the most minute articles, as the springs and other parts of watches. It bears a very fine and bright polish, and does not rust or tarnish so easily as iron. It has lately been proposed to make heavy cannon of cast-steel, which is much tougher than either cast-iron or gun-metal.
