PRESERVATION OF FISHERY PRODUCTS FOR FOOD. 
385 
FREEZING FISH IN EUROPE. 
An account of the condition of the frozen-lish trade in Europe has recently been 
received from Mr. Nicolas Borodine, of the department of agriculture of the Russian 
Government, of which the following is a partial translation : 
la the regions of western Europe, not including Norway and Switzerland, the winters are so 
mild that fish naturally frozen are not found on the market; hence a strong prejudice has arisen 
among the Germans and French against fish in that condition. They express the opinion that frozen 
fish lose their savory qualities, and they esteem them far less than the unfrozen. In consequence of 
this prejudice frozen fish have not hitherto found much sale in the European markets, although efforts 
have been made in that direction. 
At the end of the eighties an attempt to procure fish in the frozen state throughout the entire 
year was made at Marseilles. A company was organized there, under the name of the “Trident,” 
which had a sailing vessel furnished with apparatus for freezing fish caught on the west coast of 
Africa. The selection of Marseilles as a market was unfortunate; in the first place, because the men 
of the south, never having seen frozen fish and not eating them, utterly refused to buy them ; and, in 
the second place, the inhabitants were entirely unaccustomed to the kinds of fish which were imported. 
Hence the company was soon compelled to wind up its business. The spread of reports of the worth- 
lessness of frozen fish as food, of which the French were at that time convinced, contributed no little 
to this failure. In their opinion tainted fish imported in warm weather were better than frozen fish. 
Hostility was even aroused at first against fish brought in ice from Algiers to Marseilles. These, they 
said, are not fresh fish, hut preserved fish, and therefore it must not he sold in the market as fresh fish. 
Another attempt of a similar kind was made by the Norwegians in the Hamburg market in the 
nineties. The North Cape .Joint Stock Company built a special steamer, the North Cape, with cold- 
storage rooms (low temperatirre being obtained by means of machinery), which were filled with “Cadus 
wglifinus” (haddock). The steamer arrived at Hamburg with a full cargo. In the first year hardly 
any customers were found for the frozen fish, and a part of the cargo was carried back. According 
to the reports for 1892-93 (see note by Mr. Heinemaun in Pisciculture of the World, 1893, No. 12, 
p. 395), this company built a large cold-storage warehouse at Vardd, in Norway, at a cost of 200,000 
German marks [$47,600]. The fish are caught on the spot, are frozen, and placed in the cold-storage 
warehouse in a temperature of 5° Reaumur [18f° F.J. The shipment on the steamer at that tempera- 
ture is usually made in the autumn. A cold-storage warehouse for frozen fish, with a capacity of 
21,000 poods,* was also built in Hamburg. A railroad goes to the warehouse, and the frozen fish are 
shipped to any point in Germany by rail. 
Fish are sent in a fresh state by rapid transit to Munich, Leipzig, and Vienna. To give an 
idea of the demand, it is stated in the note already quoted that of 9,000 poods shipped to Hamluirg 
on the steamer North Cape, November 14 (26), 1892, 5,200 poods were sold in the first week and the 
remainder of the cargo in the following week. 
Judging by statements made in the German weeklj', Deutsche Fischerei-Zeitnng, the prejudice 
against frozen fish is rapidly diminishing, owing in great measure to the fact that frozen fish are 
sold much cheaper than fresh fish shiiiped in ice; and it may be asserted that the same thing will 
occur in this case as in the case of the frozen meat from South America and Australia, which is now 
sold in large quantities in the groat commercial centers. 
In Paris the cold-storage warehouse is under the Bourse, and is under the management of the 
Compressed Air Company of Paris. The central station and the office of that company are 56 Rue 
Etienne Marcel, from which point the compressed air is carried in pipes to many places in the city 
as a motive power. The employment of compressed air for freezing purposes is based upon its rapid 
expansion, by which the surrounding atmosphere is rendered extremely cold. For the rarefaction of 
the compressed air conveyed into the basement of the Bourse a special engine is employed, by which 
the refrigerated air is carried into the compartments formed by the double wall of the refrigerating 
rooms. The walls are lined on the inside with tin, painted a whitish color, and on the outside with 
materials which are nonconductors of heat (layers of moss on wood). Every room is furnished with 
a ventilator to carry off the damp air. There are 16 rooms, and each of them can be refrigerated 
separately, and to any temperature near zero or below zero. They are arranged on both sides of the 
*One pood equals 36.112 ijounds. 
F. C. B., 1898—25 
