72 Rev. J. Barlow on the application [March 30, 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 



Friday, March 30. 



William Kobert Grove, Esq. Q.C. F.R.S. Vice-President, 

 in the Chair. 



The Rev. John Barlow, M.A. F.R.S. Vice-President and 

 Secretary R.I. 



On the application of Chemistry to the Preservation of Food. 



Neither force nor matter has been added to or taken from the 

 natural world since the commencement of its present condition — 

 consequently the development and growth of successive races of 

 plants and animals are dependent on the supply of materials which 

 once formed part of the structure of their predecessors. Needful, 

 however, as is the decomposition of the dead to the continuance of 

 universal life over the globe, it is equally necessary to the main- 

 tenance of civilized life, that this law should be modified. Man has 

 been, accordingly, permitted to acquaint himself with the conditions 

 of destruction so far as to become able to suspend its process. 

 These conditions appear to be — 1. A temperature above 32"^ Fah. 

 2. The presence of air and moisture. 3. A peculiar (generally 

 liquid) condition of that albuminous substance which surrounds the 

 cells and fibres of all animal and vegetable structures. 



1. Decomposition will not occur at the temperature of freezing 

 water. We believe that long before this planet was inhabited by 

 any creature of intelligence capable of receiving the idea of time, 

 bodies of animals, which became extinct before man existed, re- 

 mained undecomposed, because they were imbedded in ice, or in 

 frozen earth.* Meat and fish are transmitted from Archangel for 

 sale at St. Petersburg. Provisions are also sent packed in ice from 

 remote parts of Britain to London. The use of ice-houses and 

 ice-chests for the preservation of food, is among many obvious 

 applications of this principle. 



2. Decomposition will not occur, if moisture be excluded. 



* Pallas's Travels, quoted by Sir C. Lyell ; " Principles of Geology, 

 8th Ed., p. 82. 



