POPULAR SCIENCE 99 



other prehistoric animals, which are still found preserved in- 

 tact in a mummified condition. It is, however, only in recent 

 years that the industrial possibilities of preserving meat by 

 the use of low temperatures were realised, and the industrial 

 development naturally only took place when it became pos- 

 sible to construct refrigerating engines for the production of 

 the low temperatures necessary. 



The principles of refrigerating machinery were worked out 

 in the middle decades of the last century. It is outside the 

 scope of these articles to deal with the great amount of work 

 which led to the present development of this machinery. 1 The 

 first vapour compressing machine appears to be due to Jacob 

 Perkins, who patented an apparatus in 1834; but the first 

 machine of this type which was of industrial importance was 

 constructed by James Harrison in 1857, the machine working 

 with ether. According to French writers 2 it was Charles Tellier 

 who first used the refrigerating machine for the preservation 

 of meat during transport. In 1868 he made an attempt to 

 carry meat at a temperature of + 2 to o° C. from London 

 to. the river Plate, but this attempt failed owing to a break- 

 down in the machinery. Financial difficulties consequent on 

 the war of 1870 prevented an immediate repetition of the 

 experiment, although in 1873 Tellier succeeded in demonstrat- 

 ing to the Academie des Sciences in Paris that the keeping 

 qualities of meat were enhanced by lowering the temperature 

 to 2 C. to o° C, and that the food value was not lessened. 

 However, in 1876 he showed the possibility of transporting 

 meat in cold storage across the Atlantic by carrying thus ten 

 carcasses of beef, twelve sheep, two calves, one pig and fifty 

 birds from Rouen to Buenos Ayres, it being alleged that the 

 cargo arrived in a perfect state. Unfortunately, the return 

 journey was a failure. The twenty-one tons of meat carried 

 were spoilt ; whether this was due to the incapacity of the 

 plant to deal with so much material is not quite clear. 



Circumstances led to the withdrawal of Tellier from the 

 enterprise, but the possibility of transporting perishable food 

 products for long distances by means of cold storage had been 

 demonstrated. 



1 See J. A. Ewing, The Mechanical Production of Cold, Cambridge, 1908. 

 ' E.g. E. H. Amagat and L. Decombe, La Statique des Fluides. La Lique- 

 faction des Gaz et PIndustrie du Froid, Paris and Liege, 1917. 



