PRESERVATION OF FOOD BY REFRIGERATION. 49 
The following papers were read :— 
ON THE PRESERVATION OF 
FERISHABLE .ARTICLES .OF - FOOD, BY 
REFRIGERATION ;* 
BY 
JAMBS sTOLSON;,). ESQ. 
(Read on the 4th Fune, 1886.) 
(PEATE IE) 
IN the paper which | now have the honor to bring under 
your notice, | have endeavoured to put into as concise a 
form as possible, a few remarks on the preservation of 
perishable articles of food by means of cold air. As far as 
can be ascertained, no attempt has yet been made to bring 
this most important branch of mechanical work under 
scientific control. The laws governing the compression 
and expansion of air, the transmission of heat, and the 
cooling of heated bodies, are but little understood by the 
majority of working engineers, and the causes which bring 
about decomposition in organic substances almost less so. 
What I am now attemptin g, is the preliminary gathering 
together of such information as, by directing inquiry into 
the proper channels, shall thereby lead up to a more com- 
prehensive and scientific treatment of the substances we 
wish to preserve by the above-named process. 
The importance of the subject, as well as the necessity 
for the more general adoption of this method of food 
preservation, is such as cannot be denied, even by those 
who look at it only from the narrow point of view of their 
*The works referred to in the subsequent pages for the several statements 
quoted are— 
Tyndall: ‘‘ Heat Considered as a Mode of Motion.’’ London, 1868. 
Ganot: “ Traité Eleméntaire de Physique.’””’ Eng. Trans. London, 
1881. 
Balfour Stewart : ‘‘An Elementary Treatise on Heat.’’ Oxford, 1881. 
Box: “A Practical Treatise on Heat.’’ London, 1880. 
Schiitzenberger: ‘‘ Fermentation.” London, 1876. 
Rankine: ‘“‘ The Steam Engine.’”’ London, 1882. 
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