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 and a 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 which 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 et scq. 



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 pilchards, 

 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, for the most part, be imported at a, 

 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 the menhaden, as invented and patented by Mr. S. L. Goodale, of 

 Saco, Me. The value, both in 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 L'0,000,000 

 pounds of this extract can he obtained from (lie menhaden annually 

 without interfering with the yield of oil and scrap, and possibly of nearly 

 equal money value, 



