178 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 
itor, without any question, an award for an admirable new method. That man is 
now using that process on a very large scale in New York for the preservation of fish 
of all kinds, and he claims he can keep them any length of time and allow them to 
be used as fresh fish quite easily. I don’t suppose any fisherman ever thought of 
using any preservative except salt. 
Q. That is entirely experimental 7—A. It is experimental, but it pro mises very well. 
Now, borax is one of the substances that will preserve animal matt er a great deal 
better than salt and without changing the texture. Acetic acid is another prepara- 
tion, or citric acid will keep fish a long time without any change of the quality, and 
by soaking it in fregh water for a little while the slightly acidulated taste will be 
removed. I don’t believea cod will know the difference between a clam preserved 
in that way and a fresh clam. 
Q. Now, about ice. We know a good deal has been done in the way of preserving 
bait in ice. How far has that got?—A. It is a very crude and clumsy contrivance. 
They generally break up the ice into pieces about the size of pebble stones, or larger; 
then simply stratify the bait or fish with this ice, layer and layer about, until you 
fill up a certain depth or distance. The result is that if the bait can be kept two 
weeks in that method it is doing very well. They generally get a period of presery- 
ability of two weeks. The ice is continually melting and continually saturating the 
bait or fish with water, and a very slow process of decomposition or disorganization 
goes on until the fish becomes musty, flabby, and tasteless, unfit for the food of man 
or beast. j 
Q. Well, there is a newer method of preservation, is therenot ?—A. There is a bet- 
ter method than using ice. The method described by the Noank witness, by using 
what is equi valent to snow, allows the water to run off or to be sucked up as by a 
sponge. The mass being porous prevents the fish from becoming musty. But the 
coming methods of preserving bait are what are called the dry air process and the 
hard freezing process. In the dry air process you have your ice in large solid cakes 
in the upper part of the refrigerator and your substance to be preserved in the bot- 
tom. By a particular mode of adjusting the connection between t he upper chamber 
and the lower there is a constant circulation of air by means of which all the moist- 
ure of the air is continually being condensed on the ice, Jeaving th at which envelops 
the bait or fish perfectly dry. Fish or any other animal substance will keep al- 
most indefinitely in perfectly dry air about 40° or 45°, which can be attained very 
readily by means of this dry air apparatus. I had an instance of that in the case of 
a refrigerator filled with peaches, grapes, salmon, a leg of mutton, and some beef- 
steaks, with a great variety of other substances. At the end of four months in mid- 
summer, in the Agricultural Building, these were in a perfectly sound and prepos- 
sessing condition. No one would have hesitated one moment to eat the beefsteaks, 
and one might be very glad of the chance at times to have it cooked. ‘This refriger- 
ator has been used between San Francisco and New York, and between Chicago and 
New York, where the trip has occupied a week or ten days, and they are now used 
on a very large scale, tons upon tons of grapes and pears being sent from San Fran- 
cisco by this means. I had a cargo of fish-eggs brought from California to Chicago 
in a perfect condition. Another method is the hard frozen process. You use a freez- 
ing mixture of salt and ice powdered fine, this mixture producing a temperature of 
twenty degrees above zero, which can be kept up just as long,as the occasion re- 
quires by keeping up the supply of ice and salt. 
Q. How big is the refrigerator ?—A. There is no limit to the size that may be used. 
They are made of enormous size for the purpose of preserving salmon, and in New 
York they keep all kinds of fish. I have been in and seen a cord of codfish, a cord of 
salmon, a cord of Spanish mackerel, and other fish piled up just like cord-wood, dry, 
hard, and firm, and retaining its qualities for an indefinite time. 
Q. Well, can fish or animals be kept for an unlimited period if frozen in that way ?— 
A. You may keep fish or afiimals hard dried frozen for a thousand years or ten thou- 
sand years perfectly well, and be assured there will be no change, 
