FIRST ESSENTIAL— REFRIGERATION 259 



before a market could be found for it, and then 

 it would fetch threepence a pound ; and cheese 

 and other perishables realized so little that it 

 was hardly worth while to go to the trouble of 

 preparing them. Breeders of pigs even had a 

 massacre of superfluous stock every second or 

 third year in order to keep up the prices of those 

 animals or of those products which alone it was 

 worth while to put on the market. 



It was seen that the best remedy for these 

 conditions would be found in the furnishing of 

 food supplies to Great Britain ; but an essential 

 preliminary to the adoption of this remedy was 

 the discovery of an effective system of refriger- 

 ation, so that perishable commodities could be 

 carried the very considerable distance to be 

 traversed and arrive in sound condition. To-day 

 all this is regarded as a matter of course, and 

 refrigeration seems a simple enough business. 

 But there has been an element of romance in 

 the story, all the same. It was in 18G1 that the 

 late Thomas Sutcliffe Mort resolved in his own 

 mind that the man who could solve the problem 

 of refrigeration on board ocean-going vessels, for 

 the safe transport of large quantities of perish- 

 able produce, would bring wealth to the Colonies 

 and confer a great boon on the teeming popula- 

 tion of the Mother Country. Not only did he 



