Chocolate, in commerce, a kind of cake, prepared principally of the nuts of the cacao, or Co-coa-tref, to which we refer.

In preparing these cakes, the cocoa is properly roasted, and well cleaned, before it is pounded in a mortar to reduce it to a coarse mass, which is afterwards ground as fine as possible on a stone. As soon as it is sufficiently triturated, it is put quite hot into tin moulds, where it congeals in a very short time.— This is the common chocolate, as prepared in England from the cocoa alone, without any other ingredient. Sometimes, however, a small quantity of sugar, or of vanilla, is added, for improving its taste. As these cakes are very liable to contract good as well as bad scents, they should be carefully wrapped up in paper, and kept in a dry place.

Good, unadulterated chocolate, ought to possess the following properties : a brown colour inclining to red, and rather lively than faint; a smooth surface not affected by mere contact of the hand ; a fine and uniform consistence on breaking it, without any granulated particles, which arise from the addition of sugar, employed by the manufacturer to conceal still baser ingredients ; lastly, it should easily melt in the mouth, and leave no roughness or astringency, but rather a cooling sensation on the tongue. - This last quality is the most decisive criterion of genuine chocolate.

Among the various experiments made with the view of discovering substitutes for the expensive nut of the cocoa, in the preparation of chocolate, none has hitherto completely succeeded. The Germans employ sweet almonds, as well as the blanched, dried, arid roasted kernels of the hazel, and wall-nut, for this purpose; and M. Mar-graff procured a quantity of oil from the fruit, or kernel, of the lime-tree, which he formed into a paste, resembling chocolate, but it differed much from it, both in taste-and flavour.

Chocolate, ready made, and cocoa-paste, are prohibited to be imported, on penally of forfeiting the same, and double the value: 10 Geo. I. c. 10, sec. 2. - We understand, from the "Encyclopedia Britannica, " though we cannot find it in "Steel's Talles of tlie Custom and. Excise Duties, " that chocolate, made and sold in Great Britain, pays an inland duty of 1s. 6d. per lb. avoirdupois; that it must be inclosed in papers, containing one pound each, and pro-duced at the excise office, to be stamped.—(It is, nevertheless, generally sold in papers, containing, four ounces each.) — On giving three days notice to the excise, private families may make their own chocolate, provided not less than half an hundred weight of nuts, be employed at one time.

Considered as an article of diet, chocolate is a nutritive and, in general, wholesome food, well adapted to the weak stomachs of invalids and valetudinarians. If duly prepared, and not too much roasted in the nuts (which imparts a dark, rather than reddish colour to tl e cakes), it is easily dissolved in a liquid state; and, being quickly assimilated to alimentary matter, it is less flatulent, and oppressive, than most vegetable dishes of a viscid, and oily nature. To promote its digestion, it ought not to be used without the addition of aromatic spice, such as cinnamon, cardamoms, vanilla, etc. which last, however, must be sparingly employed, as it is one of the most beating, and stimulating drugs.