146 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 
other wild animals. At the time he found it a considerable portion was 
left, although most of the meat had been consumed. It was even then 
not offensive at all, and the dogs were devouring it with great eager- 
ness. He obtained the skeleton anda portion of the skin, which are 
now to be seen in the Museum of the Academy of Science of St. Peters- 
burg. The natives assured him that the meat was fresh and fine, and 
in no way disagreeable. Here we have a case of meat preserved in a 
natural ice-house through a period, the antiquity of wbich we cannot 
readily measure, but certainly an estimate of many thousands of years 
is entirely within the mark. ; 
The animal was imbedded in the frozen soil below the point where 
the surface would thaw in the short summers of that country, and re- 
mained all that time, with all tendency to decay or deterioration abso- 
lutely suspended. 
All these processes mentioned for the preservation of fish for food 
are applied to a greater or less degree in keeping fish to be used as bait 
in the fisheries, namely, salting, keeping in ice, and bard freezing; dry- 
ing is less available. They have been discussed under that heading at 
page 133 e¢ seq. 
Next in importance is the method of the preservation of fish in oil of 
one kind or another. Here the fish, after being treated properly, are 
sealed hermetically in metallic vessels of smaller or larger’size. This 
method of preservation is applied more particularly to the sardines, 
but is also used in the case of the imitation of sardines, as the pilehards, 
menhaden, &c. In France, Italy, Spain, and Portugal, however, where 
olive oil is inexpensive, nearly all kinds of fish are preserved, as the 
tunny, bass, perch, mullet, &c., and various mollusks. Specimens of 
such preparations were exhibited at Philadelphia in 1876. In the 
United States, where olive oil must, tor the most part, be imported ata 
heavy cost, other vegetable oils, especially that of cotton-seed, have 
been found very satisfactory substitutes. . 
A novel, and what promises in time to become an important, prepara- 
tion of food is the result of a process for obtaining the extract from the 
flesh of thé menhaden, as invented and patented by Mr.8. L. Goodale, of 
Saco, Me. The value, bothin a hygienic and dietetic point of view, of 
the beef extracts of Liebig and other inventors, is now well known and 
established, and the fish extract of Mr. Goodale, strange to say, has no 
fishy taste whatever, and is scarcely distinguishable from the meat ex- 
tract. He claims that an immense amount of this substance can be ob- 
tained during the ordinary process of utilizing the menhaden, adding 
greatly to the profits of the business and without interfering with the 
preparation of oil and scrap. Samples of this extract were presented 
at the Philadelphia Exhibition, which were considered very excellent, 
promising a satisfactory future. In his opinion at least 20,000,000 
pounds of this extract can be obtained from the menhaden annually 
without interfering with the yield of oil and scrap, and possibly of nearly 
equal money value, 
