FROZEN FISH. 239 



Intercolonial railroad is completed, salmon will be too 

 valuable to put up in tins ; it will pay the fishermen much 

 better to send them fresh to market. Hitherto the price 

 of salmon in this country has been from 2d. to 3d. a pound. 

 Fresh salmon is worth at least a shilling in the cities of 

 Canada. There are two ways of sending salmon fresh to 

 market. When the time taken in transition does not exceed 

 two or three days, they are packed in boxes with broken ice, 

 or better still with snow. Collecting and storing these pack- 

 ing materials is not a great labour in this country. Snow 

 is considered the better of the two. It is collected in 

 wooden sheds built with double walls and roofs, with a 

 vacuum between the outer and inner one. As the snow is put 

 in, it is tramped down, and in this state there is no trouble in 

 preserving it all summer. The ojfcher way of sending fish 

 to market has the advantage that by it fish may be kept 

 perfectly fresh for almost any length of time, and can be 

 held up like wheat until the market is high. The fish in 

 this case are frozen solid. By the kindness of one of the 

 owners of these great refrigerators, I was allowed to see 

 the process. The fish when brought in are exposed to a 

 temperature of about 30 degrees of frost. This intense 

 cold is caused by packing a freezing mixture, the main 

 ingredients of which are crushed ice and salt, into a cham- 

 ber which surrounds the fish about to be frozen. Between 

 300 and 400 can be frozen at a time. A fish requires about 

 an hour's time to freeze for each pound that it weighs. 

 Not only are they frozen perfectly solid, but they are 

 coated with ice. They are then removed to a storeroom 

 in which the temperature is kept below freezing point. 

 The vessels in which they are shipped are supplied with 



