he flour and
water poured in, whereupon the door is again fastened and the drum is
made to rotate. As the rotation proceeds, the dough begins to form,
and being lifted up by the revolving drum falls by its own weight. In
this process, which is repeated again and again, the dough is caught
by and tumbled over by the rods, which act as mixers and take the
place of the revolving arms of the trough kneader. The kneading action
of the rotating arms is absent, but the steady tumbling over these
rods appears to have a thorough mixing effect, and the dough is
discharged from the drum in good condition for moulding. The time
occupied for making a dough by this apparatus varies from four to six
minutes. The advantages claimed for this machine are that it consumes
comparatively little power, and that there is not so much danger of
"felling" or over-kneading dough as in some of the machines with
revolving blades. The compactness of this rotating drum mixer, often
known as the Rotary mixer, recommends it on shipboard and in other
places where space is limited.

Dough dividers and moulders.

In the earlier days of machine bakeries the accurate dividing of
dough, and still more the moulding of loaves by mechanical means, was
considered an unattainable ideal. The first step in this direction was
made by the Lewis-Pointon dough divider and weigher, which was
intended for dividing and weighing out dough ready for the moulding
table. In an ordinary way a baker who wishes to bake a batch of
half-quartern or 2-lb. loaves scales off 2 lb. 2 oz. of dough for each
loaf. The 2 oz. are a sort of insurance against light weight. The
evaporation of moisture from dough in the oven is bound to reduce to
some extent the weight of the baked loaf, but with normally baked
bread, 2 lb. 2 oz. in the case of half-quarterns, and 4 lb. 4 oz. in
the case of quartern loaves, is sufficient to ensure full weight. As
the accurate scaling of dough requires some pains and trouble, it
would be surprising if hand scaling were always accurate. The
Lewis-Pointon machine can, it is claimed, be set to turn out lumps of
dough of the exact weight required either for 1-lb., 2-lb., or 4-lb.
loaves. The apparatus does not measure the dough by weight but by
volume by an ingenious piston arrangement. The machine when first put
on the market was a little complicated, but its mechanism has since
been s