REFORMS IN THE FISHERIES OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 303 



cable, have and will always fail, as foreign and home investigations and experiments 

 have conclusively demonstrated. 



Where bait has to be used alive, then it must be preserved in the same manner 

 previously herein advocated. 



One of the many useful trade functions to be fulfilled by the proposed free tech- 

 nical schools, would be instructions how at all times to provide abundant cheap bait 

 for fisherfolks, who are now often unable to go out fishing because of fresh-bait fam- 

 ines. This is another avoidable factor tending to make our present fish supply dear, 

 scarce, and bad, whilst inflicting an avoidable though severe loss upon too many of 

 our impoverished fisherfolks and their families. 



DRY-AIR REFRIGERATORS FOR VESSELS, MARKETS, ETC. 



It is only quite recently that the dry- air machinery for ships, wharves, ware- 

 houses, and railway cars has been sufficiently perfected to work well, cheaply, and 

 regularly, so as to be commercially remunerative. Hence the first losses of the earlier 

 introducers of the frozen-food trades are now avoidable. It is to be expected that in 

 the near future further improvements in the economy and efficiency of the frozen-food 

 trades will be introduced, though already, at home and abroad, several rival plans 

 and patents compete for business. Setting aside minor details, the best processes for 

 food freezing may be thus briefly summarized. The average temperature of the cold 

 air in the special ships and storehouses is turned on at 70° to 80° below the zero of 

 Fahrenheit, or upwards of 100° F. of frost. For meat the cold in these refrigerator 

 chambers can be accurately regulated by the machinery, which usually keeps the 

 chamber at 16° to 22° F., though in the case of fish a less amount of cold is necessary. 

 For this purpose the air to be cooled is so greatly compressed that its temperature 

 becomes elevated to about 240° F. The heated air then passes through a long series 

 of pipes, surrounded by cold water, which absorbs the heat of the compressed air, 

 bringing this air down to the temperature of the cool water. This air is next let into 

 another vessel surrounded with cold air, where it deposits all its moisture, for it is 

 essential that the air for freezing food should be freed from every trace of water or 

 moisture. By this time the doctored and dried air has become cooled to about 70° 

 F., when it is suddenly and rapidly expanded, and thereby becomes so intensely cold 

 that the air passes out of the machine at a temperature between 70° and 80° below 

 zero, Fahrenheit, or upwards of 100 degrees of frost. This dry cold air circulates 

 through the refrigerator chambers, and afterwards returns to the compressor machin- 

 ery, to be again further dried and cooled down to 70° or 80° below zero. 



The refrigerator chambers have walls, floors, and ceilings, composed of several 

 layers of nonconducting or insulating materials, generally charcoal, with specially 

 constructed massive insulated doors, so as to hermetically seal the refrigerator com- 

 partments. Here the substitution of peat moss for charcoal would be an economy. 



Some frozen meat removed from the refrigerator ship Tainui to a covered insulated 

 barge maintained 3° of frost after 55 hours, although after the first 24 hours had 

 elapsed about half the frozen carcasses were withdrawn. 



For carrying fish from the fishing fleets at the fishing-grounds, specially con- 

 structed coal-saving refrigerator swift steel steamers, of about 200 to 300 tons each, 

 would be advisable. The present frozen meat ships have chambers insulated with 

 thick layers of charcoal, though peat moss would be more economical and efficient, 



