with the grateful aroma of chocolate, reminding us that we are indeed in
a city, if not literally a pile, of cocoa, yet owing its origin to the
products of that wonderful tree, or rather to the ingenuity by which its
resources have been turned to such account.

The works are built on the river Marne, and, having seen two vast
hydraulic machines, we enter a lift with the intelligent foreman deputed
to act as guide, and ascend to the topmost top of the many storied,
enormous building in which the cocoa berry is metamorphosed into the
delicious compound known as Chocolate Menier. This is a curious
experience, and the reverse of most other intellectual processes, since
here, instead of mounting the ladder of knowledge gradually, we find
ourselves placed on a pinnacle of ignorance, from which we descend by
degrees, finding ourselves enlightened when we at last touch the ground.

Our aerial voyage accomplished, we see process the first, namely, the
baking of the berry, this, of course, occupying a vast number of hands,
all men, on account of the heat and laboriousness required in the
operation. Descending a story, we find the cocoa berry already in a fair
way to become edible, and giving out an odour something like chocolate;
here the process consists in sorting and preparing the vast masses of
cocoa for grinding. Lower still, we find M. Menier's great adjunct in
the fabrication of chocolate, namely, sugar, coming into play, and no
sooner are sugar and cocoa put together than the compound becomes
chocolate in reality. Lower still, we find processes of refining and
drying going on, an infinite number being required before the necessary
firmness is attained. Lower still, we come to a very hot place indeed,
but, like all the other vast compartments of the manufactory, as well
ventilated, spacious, and airy as is possible to conceive, the workman's
inconvenience from the heat being thereby reduced to a minimum.