2 6o AUSTRALASIA 



undertake the task, but from that time he 

 devoted his energies and his means almost 

 entirely to its accomplishment. Fourteen years 

 later — that is to say, in 1875 — he called together 

 a number of the leading colonists of New South 

 Wales to inspect some " chilling works " he had 

 set up for preparing meat for export to Great 

 Britain, and so confident of success was he that 

 in his opening speech on the occasion he declared 

 that " the half-starved nations of the earth shall 

 now be fed." Some thousands of pounds were 

 also spent on fitting up the ship Northam with 

 refrigerating apparatus, and the vessel was duly 

 laden with a cargo of meat for consignment to 

 England. But the machinery broke down before 

 the vessel left the wharf, and the experiment was 

 a failure. Mr. Mort died soon afterwards, with- 

 out having seen the successful accomplishment 

 of efforts on which he is said to have expended 

 a quarter of a million sterling. 



But there were other workers in the same 

 field, notably Dr. James Harrison, of Geelong, 

 who gave the best years of his life to developing 

 the system of artificial refrigeration. In 1880 

 there was a first successful shipment of frozen 

 meat from Australia to England by the steamer 

 Strathleven, and a new era was started for 

 Australasian agriculture, though another period 



