The bed-plate as well as all the working parts of the machine are constructed of stout copper. The working parts admit of being raised or lowered by means of the hand-wheel above, and they remain fixed whilst the bed-plate turns and its underside is played upon by water. The machine is capable of working up pure fondant without any syrup addition, as well as that made up with syrup. The boiled sugar is poured on the bed-plate of the fondant machine, cooled down from 10-20 minutes according to the syrup content, and to such an extent that the machine can be set in motion, whilst the working parts are gradually lowered to the previously mentioned bed-plate. The sugar poured out is then cooled by means of the action of a ventilator fitted on a crossbeam, occurring in the middle of the wooden cooler, and working in conjunction with the ventilator, in consequence whereof a cooling current of air is brought to strike the hot sugar centrally.—When pure sugar is used, the fondant is finished within six minutes, but in the case of a syrup addition the time required is lengthened. [Illustration: Fig. 71.] A quite recent type of fondant machine is given in fig. 71. It achieves its end by employing an air-current and a cylinder with screw, which is provided with water cooling apparatus. The _modus operandi_ presents many and obvious advantages, chief among which is the possibility of conducting new material to the machine uninterruptedly, and further the preservation of the flavour of the chocolate worked up. The result is a production of first-class quality in respect to taste and flavour, which is quite ready to be passed on to the next processes. [Illustration: Fig. 72.] The fondant is then diluted with colouring matter in boiling pans, and so prepared for subsequent treatment. The figures which have to be poured in are then transferred to gypsum moulds, lined with starch powder, and the fondant sugar is in its turn poured over these either by means of pans held in the hand or such as are machine-driven. Hand-pouring postulates a considerable amount of skill on the part of the man in charge, especially when even weights of the separate pieces are required. We annex an illustration of a motor-driven depositing machine (fig. 72). The sugar is here introduced into receivers heated by means of a water-bath. The receiving boxes are moved under the outflow one after another, after having been dusted with powder and filled with chocolate, whilst the adjustment of the weight of each separate piece is effected by the operation of a very ingenious mechanism, even from 0-8 grammes. [Illustration: Fig. 73.] After a stay of several hours in the drying room, the molten figures are so hard that they can be raised out of the powder with the aid of a shovel. Fig. 73 shows such a machine, whilst Fig. 74 illustrates a machine where the work goes on unbrokenly, and from which the chocolate figures are removed with a shovel.