380 
BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
for a moment througli cold water, wliicli draws the frost sufficiently from the iron to 
allow the lish to be removed in a block without breaking apart. In one or two freezing- 
houses the thawing of the fish from the sides of the pan is omitted, the cover being 
loosened and the block of fish removed by hitting the pan at the ends and sides. In 
several houses each pan of fish is dipped for a moment in cold water, when the top is 
lifted off. This is usually the case in ammonia freezing-houses when the fish are 
removed from the pans in a cold room where running water would be objectionable. 
In most of the houses use is made of a sj)riukling trough or tank, 2^ or 3 feet 
wide and 8 or 10 feet long, with two parallel iron bearings on inclined scantling 
6 or 8 inches apart on the inside, on which the pans may slide from one end of the 
tank to the other. Besting on top and near each end of this trough is a sprinkling 
box about 30 inches long, 18 inches wide, and 3 inches deep, which usually consists of 
a box or a block of wood hollowed out from the under surface and with a sheet of metal 
perforated with many small holes tacked on the bottom. At one end of the box 
or block is a 1-iuch auger-hole, into which the end of a hose may be entered, sending 
a stream of water into the sprinkling box and through the perforated metal bottom, 
falling into the trough and overflowing at the lower end. 
Some houses substitute a 2-inch pipe with perforated under surface in place of 
the metal bottom to the box. 
The pans of frozen fish are successively placed in the trough under the first 
sprinkling box, whei'e the water falling through thaws the top sufficiently so that a 
workman standing at the middle of the trough may remove the cover, and, turning the 
pan over, he permits it to slide under the second sprinkling box, where the descending 
stream of water thaws the bottom sufficiently for a workman at the end of the trough 
to lift it from the block of fish, which remains intact and is removed from the 
trough and placed on a truck or other conveyance for transfer to the storage room. 
Three men are required at the trough, one to place the pans under the first sprinkling 
box, the second to remove the top and turn the pan over and to pass it under the 
second sprinkling box, and the third to remove the bottom of the pan from the fish 
and place the block of fish on the carrying truck. In order to avoid thawing the 
surface of the fish, the water used must be cold and the pans are placed in the trough 
rapidly, taking but a few moments for the removal of the blocks of fish at the other 
end. In removing the fish from the pans 8 men are usually required — 2 to remove the 
pans from the sharp freezer and carry them to the sprinkler, 3 at the sprinkler, 1 
passing the truck to storage room, 1 handling the blocks of fish in the storage room, 
and 1 placing them in i^iles. To sprinkle, unpan, and store 40,000 pounds of frozen 
fish requires such a force about 3^ hours, and the cost of labor approximates $4.20. 
In x)assing through the trough considerable moisture adheres to the fish, which is 
frozen by the surplus cold, forming a coating of ice about --V inch thick, entirely sur- 
rounding the irregular block of fish. The process of freezing dries the fish to some 
extent, the loss in weight amounting to about 2 iier cent., but the ice coating placed 
on them adds about 4 per cent to the weight. Some freezing-houses, in order to make 
the coating of ice thicker, pass the block of fish, ou its removal from the sprinkling 
trough, through a second trough nearly filled with ice-cold water, which has suspended 
in it a long box with perforated bottom filled with crushed ice. The blocks of fish 
pass through a channel in the trough underneath the ice-box, coming out at the other 
end with a coating of ice gV inch or more in thickness. In houses where sprinkling 
