EGGS IN COLD STORAGE. 31 



lation of air which will keep in motion the whole 

 volume of air in the storage room will have a purify- 

 ing- influence independent of any moisture absorb- 

 ing- capacity, but no satisfactory reason has been 

 assig-ned. There may be such an influence opera- 

 tive when the air is mechanically circulated. If so, 

 there seems to be no scientific or practical explana- 

 tion of it. 



Manv patents have been granted for improve- circulation in 



A natural ice 



ments in storag-e rooms or refrig-erators using- ice only refrigerators. 

 for a cooling- ag-ent; house refrig-erators, refrigerator 

 cars and refrigerator buildings are represented in 

 number about in order named. A large portion of the 

 patents granted have been on claims for the improve- 

 ment of circulation, and this is the keynote of what- 

 ever success has been attained by the various sys- 

 tems which use ice only for cooling. As any system 

 of cooling whereby the air is caused to circulate in 

 contact with melting ice is now quite generally re- 

 garded as obsolete for the successful refrigeration of 

 eggs for long period storage, a discussion of the 

 merits of the various devices applied to this work 

 will be omitted.* It may be said to their credit, how- 

 ever, that the builders of ice refrigerators have orig- 

 inated ideas on circulation which have been of much 

 value to the present-day refrigerating engineers, and 

 there are still those who may obtain good information 

 from this source the provision for circulation (or 

 rather, lack of circulation) in a few of the new me- 

 chanical cold storage houses being simply ridiculous. 

 In the more progressive mechanically refrigerated 

 houses there are a number of devices, which have 

 been introduced for assisting natural gravity air cir- 

 culation, also the various modifications of the me- 



* The above must not be construed as condemning- the use of ice as a 

 refrigerant when rightly applied. The writer has in successful operation a sys- 

 tem of gravity brine circulation, cooled by ice and salt, with which he will under- 

 take to produce at moderate expense any possible results in refrigeration down 

 to a temperature of 15" F. 



