Foods / by Edward Smith.

  • Smith, Edward, 1818?-1874.
Date:
1886
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Foods / by Edward Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    season to grow animals for our markets, or by storing large quantities of ice in an economical manner at the ports of other meat-producing countries. Moreover, it is now possible that ice may be made anywhere at so small a cost as to be available for this purpose; for Messrs. Nasmyth, of Manchester, have constructed machines, on the patent of M. Mignot, by which 50 lbs. of ice may be made per hour at the cost of condensing and then rarefying air, and a company has been formed with the intention of producing as many tons daily. We need not despair of seeing the time when the whole carcass of an animal will be imported in a state fit to be cut up in our shops for immediate sale, and when the exporters from Australia will supply themselves with ice for this purpose from the southern hemisphere, or when the pastures of the North American continent will become our chief, as they may be our nearest, sources of supply. Canada offers unbounded facilities for this purpose, by reason of its great ice fields, its pastures and agricultural population, as well as its nearness to this country; and should the present high price of meat continue, it will induce commercial men to organise a system, both of feeding the animals and of exporting the meat in ice, which may be very profitable to the Canadians. M. Tellier of Paris, in his work before mentioned, has described a process which demands great consideration, inasmuch as he removes much of the moisture from the atmosphere. He proposes to place joints of meat in a chamber through which a current of air, charged with ether or other volatile substance, may be passed with a view to re- duce the temperature, so that the vapour in the air shall be frozen, but the temperature not reduced below — 1° Centigrade, that is about 30° F. He would not freeze the