ON ARTIFICIAL REFRIGERATION. 957 



Professor Boiiley remarks, in liis report to the Academy of Sciences, 

 that " the knowledge of the preservative action of cold on organic bodies 

 is, without doubt, as old as hnmanity itself, and every day one has re- 

 course to this preservative influence for the i)reservation of alimentary 

 substances. M. Tellier cannot, therefore, pretend to this invention. But 

 that which is new in this process, which he has brought before the Acad- 

 emy, and which constitutes a real invention, is the idea of creating a dry 

 and cold atmosphere, in which organic matters may be preserved per- 

 manently ; atmosphere which is circulating without ceasing from the 

 cold room to the refrigerating apparatus and back to the room in order to 

 maintain the required temperature and abstract the moisture." "Grace 

 ^ ce circulus, on beni^ficie de I'abaissement de temperature une fois 

 acquis, et Fair revient a la chambre froide, desseche et purifie." This, he 

 says, is the ingenious process of preservation of organic matters, and 

 particularly of meats, which M. Tellier has communicated to the Acad- 

 emy. " Your commission has recognized its efficacy under the condi- 

 tions under which it has been applied. But they must practise every 

 reserve as to the industrial application that may be made of it. Expe- 

 rience alone can determine its economic value." 



That M. Tellier had only then developed his practical methods may be 

 gleaned from his English patent dated the 11th of August, 1874, l^o. 

 2,770. He says : " My process has for its object a slow desiccation com- 

 bined with the action of cold exerted at temperatures approaching to 

 32° Fahr., but without congelation for organic substances under 32^ 

 Fahr., with congelation for amorphous substances, such as butter. Such 

 desiccation requires to be graduated according to the nature of the arti- 

 cles to be preserved ; and particularly with regard to meat, it must be 

 slight when it is required to preserv'e the meat in the ordinary condition 

 of butcher's meat, in which case a desiccation equivalent to a loss in 

 weight of one-quarter to one-third per cent. x)er day is all that is neces- 

 sary." He moreover says that the air may be dried by passing through 

 the refrigerator of any suitable machine, and the desiccating jiroperty 

 may be increased by causing the air to pass over dry chloride of calcium 

 or other agent absorbing moisture readily. 



M. Tellier had evidently been developing his idea over a period of 

 four or five years, but he was neither alone in these efforts nor was he 

 unanticipated. 



To those who have known the natiu'e and extent of my experiments 

 since 1865, and especially from the autumn of 18G9 to June, 1870, with 

 the many efibrts made in 1871, 1872, and 1873 to carry out, on a large 

 scale, the transport of meats in dry cold air, I need not address a word. 

 I saw Professor Low's ship, with a carbonic-acid refrigerating-machine 

 on board, in 1869. Had he been fortunate enough to use more manage- 

 able chemicals he might have succeeded ,• but, like Mr. Mort, of Sidney, 

 Mr. Harrison, of Victoria, and many others, he proposed to freeze meat, 

 and that system I then, and ever after, condemned. In 1873, after hav- 



