146 NEW SOUTH WALES 



showing a disposition to enter every inlet and harbour in its course. It 

 is then in the finest condition, and full of roe. Its annual migration at 

 that period is simply in search of suitable spawning grounds. We are 

 convinced that Avith proper appliances, and under proper restrictions, 

 the mullet fishery at this time, lasting probably six weeks, might be 

 made of very great value to the Country. The quantity which could be 

 consumed in a fresh state during the fishery would be in a very small 

 proportion to the numbers captured, and it would therefore be necessary, 

 in order to utilize the vast numbers of this fine fish then offering itself 

 for our use, to hit upon some means of preserving the larger portion for 

 future use in a marketable form. At present it is not unusual to salt 

 and smoke it, but its very fatness and excellence make it a bad fish for 

 this mode of treatment — it takes the salt too readily, and is apt to 

 become rancid. The roe, however, salted and smoked, is equal to any- 

 thing of the kind in the world, and in that state is always rapidly 

 bought up in any quantity. 



It is evident that with a fish of such richness and delicacy no plan 

 can be so good for preserving its excellence of flavour as that generally 

 adopted in the case of the salmon — a fish possessing many of the same 

 qualities — boiling and heremetically sealing in tin cans. The form of 

 the tin need not be exactly the same as we are accustomed to see salmon 

 in — in fact there is considerable variety even in that, the Dutch practice 

 being to tin salmon in long cans holding each two full-sized fish. The 

 process is extremely simple. 



At the Columbia River (where in 187G the quantity canned was 

 428,730 cases, each containing 4 dozen 1-lb. tins, or about 23,000,000 

 lbs.), they cut the fish up with a number of curved knives — say seven or 

 eight — -with a lever attached. The fish are laid on a bench, and the 

 lever being pulled down, the knives cut the fish into sections the size of 

 the tin, whether 1, or 2, or 4 lbs. There are more 1 lb. tins put up 

 than those of 2 lbs. or 4 lbs. Then the fish are put into the tin, and a 

 small tea-spoonful of salt is added to each can, to take away any 

 unnatural flavour. The cans are then put into a large boiler and heated 

 with steam, and after the fish have boiled a certain time, say twenty 

 minutes under the greatest heat they can get — the steam is 2 1 degrees, 

 but then they get the heat up to 280 degrees by the . addition of 

 chemicals. 



They put salt into the water to enable it to be brought to a greater 

 heat than the boiling-point of pure water. The salt alone would not 

 bring it up to 280 degi'ees, but they use chloi-ide of calcium. Then 

 after the fish are cooked a certain time the screen that the cans are on is 

 raised out of the boiler, and a man goes round them with a little mallet, 

 having a small spike on it, and he taps every one of the cans, by which 

 means the gas that has accumulated in the cans escapes. After the fish 

 have settled down he solders the small hole, lowers the screen with the 

 cans again into the boiler, and the water is raised to the boiling point, 

 so as to produce steam inside the cans. When they are taken out and 

 cooled the steam condensing produces a vacuum in each can, and the 

 cans are then passed into a place where they are left for one, two, or 

 three days, to see that they are perfectly tight. 



