﻿28 BULLETIN 2, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



removed. This leaves a mass of 44 pounds, 22 pounds of which is 

 fish and 22 pounds (50 per cent) water. 



The 18-foot power press is obtainable at a cost of $5,000, set up 

 complete. (PI. IV.) This has a capacity of 80,000 to 100,000 fish 

 per hour. A smaller press, 12 feet in length and with a capacity of 

 40,000 fish per hour, may be purchased, complete and set up, for 

 $3,500. 



The advantages of this system of ridding the fish of their water 

 and oil are obvious. Its speed and the fact that it is continuous and 

 automatic, requiring no labor, have enabled it to displace the discon- 

 tinuous hydraulic press in a number of old factories and have 

 brought about its adoption in practically all of those recently 

 constructed. 



DRYING (NEW METHOD). 



The hot-air drier is now in use in all but four of the fish-scrap 

 factories on the Atlantic coast. In at least two of the factories it 

 has not been adopted because of the hostility of the residents of 

 the neighborhood occasioned by the odor arising from the factories, 

 increased during the actual operation of the drier, and exhibited 

 by frequent suits at law. 



The modern drier (PL V.) is an insulated iron cylinder, about 6 

 feet in diameter and 30 or 40 feet in length. It is provided on the 

 inside with a series of iron flanges or shelves, about 8 inches wide 

 and running the length of the cylinder. These are designed to lift 

 the scrap and spill it again through the stream of hot air. The 

 cylinder is mounted slightly out of the horizontal and is supported 

 by a device consisting of two jointless steel tires or rings encircling 

 the cylinder toward each end and resting on steel rollers or wheels. 

 These rollers are rotated by suitable gearing, driven by an electric 

 motor, and they in turn rotate the cjdinder. Its higher end, which 

 is the front end, enters a brick chamber, the bottom part of which 

 constitutes a fire box. Suitable openings are provided for stoking, 

 etc., and an electric fan is also provided to produce a forced draft. 

 The wet fish scrap is charged at this end, being allowed to drop 

 directly into the swift stream of hot gases entering the cylinder from 

 the furnace. The forced draft serves also to blow the scrap through 

 the kiln as it is repeatedly lifted and dropped in the rotation of 

 the kiln. The finer particles, which are more quickly dried, are 

 blown more rapidly out of the zone of fiercer heat. The move- 

 ment of the scrap through the kiln is induced, then, both by the 

 draft and by the slope of the cylinder. The lower end likewise 

 enters a brick chamber, practically cubical in shape, designed to fill 

 the threefold purpose of catching the scrap as it falls from the cylin- 

 der, of acting as a sort of dust settling chamber, and of serving as a 

 rather inefficient chimney. From this chamber the scrap is conveyed, 



