THE MANUFACTURE OP COD-LIVER OIL. 379 



In my younger days, and also after I was grown up, I lived many years 

 on the sea coast, principally at Christiansund, where I had many opportu- 

 nities of joining in the fishing, and of making myself acquainted with 

 everything connected with the cod and herring fisheries, and as a conse- 

 quence with the manufacture of cod-liver oil. The experience I then 

 learnt, forty years ago, suggested to me the idea whether it was not possible 

 to prepare more carefully an article, which, in a commercial point of view, 

 is of such importance to Norway ; but so long as the oil was employed only 

 as in olden times, there was no special encouragement to carry out my 

 views. 



It was not till it had been used for many years as a medicine, and that 

 I had heard endless complaints as to its unplesant taste and smell, so much so 

 as to render it almost an impossibility for many patients to take it, that I 

 again began to think of the realisation of my views. But as I at this time 

 resided in Christiania at a long distance from the coast, it was a matter of 

 extreme difficulty to organisite the requisite establishments for its manufac- 

 ture, at convenient places on the western coast. And it is more than 

 probable that I should not have stirred in the matter to this very day, had 

 not the Newfoundland cod-liver oil been imported from England into this 

 country, but at such enormous prices, that a bottle weighing 2 lbs. cost, with 

 charges, nearly seven shillings. If Englishmen at that great distance were 

 able to manufacture a satisfactory article, surely the same thing could be 

 accomplished here by us ? Before, however, further entering into the 

 matter, I received a letter from Mr. Krog, Apothecary in Hammerfest, dated 

 Dec. 31, 1852, requesting me to impart to him a better method for prepar- 

 ing Cod-liver oil. Accordingly I wrote to him March 18th, 1853, and 

 communicated the main points of my discovery, requesting him at the same 

 time to manufacture cod-liver in this manner, and offering to purchase all 

 he might be able to produce, by which he might in all probility realise a 

 considerable sum. Not only did I receive no answer from Krog, but he 

 actually published this new method in the newspapers, without mentioning 

 my name, and even sent specimens on a small scale prepared in this manner, 

 to the Exhibition of Industry and Art in Christiania, and later to Paris, as 

 his own invention ! 



Thus deceived, I resolved to take a journey in the month of August, 

 1853, along the western coast, in order to enqrrire whether any improved 

 method for the manufacture of this article had been discovered. I visited 

 in this manner, Molde, Aalesund, Christiansund, Bodo, Lofoten, Tromso, 

 and Hammerfest ; but in all of these places the old method was still in 

 vogue. Whilst on this journey, I organised the requisite arrangements for 

 boiling the oil, according to my method, in Lofoten, Christiansund, and 

 Aalesund. On my return home, I had three sets of apparatus prepared at 

 Aker's Mechanical Factory, and sent them to the above places, where they 

 are still at work. 



The result of the first experiment was perfectly satisfactory ; for I. ob- 



