The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1909-04-24

LnaL was suspended upon
pair of crossed sticks on the
hot sands of the Sahara des-
ert. The spot was midway between
Kasambara and Walata, and they were
500 miles from the western coast of
Africa. A little to the right of them
in the shelter of twin sand dunes stood
six camels, and grouped near were four
Touaregs who had accompanied the
party from Algiers along the coast into
Morocco, where they had struck the
path followed by Lenz in 1880, turning
off at Arawan.
The two white men were eating to-
matoes; the four Touaregs were dispos-
ing of preserved pears. Both had re-
moved them from jars bearing a New
York state label. They had been three
months on the march and would prob
ably be two more before they emerged
upon the western coast at Monravia, in
Liberia.
A few years before 1t would have
been impossible to have eaten fresh,
ripe tomatoes in the heart of the Sa-
hara desert and an unheard of thing
to have enjoyed great yellow pears
swimming in juice, 500 miles from anv
sign of vegetation. 1t was the food
chemist who made these things posi-
BILE
Ancient Preserving Methods.
No one knows just how many years
ago man awoke to the necessity of
making some provision in the summer
of plenty for lean days of privation or
when it was that he awoke to the fact
that the devil of starvation that had
pursued him from the first could be
partially outwitted by smoke, but it
must have been long ages ago.
He first tried drying his food in the
sun. then smoking it. then sailing it.
and now he adds an infinite pinch of
the product of the laboratory to his
Jar of tomatoes, seals il up and forgets
It until h9 needs it-perhaps five years
from then.
1t was not fear of reaching the edge
of the world and topping over that
caused the mutiny aboard the caravels
that Columbus piloted westward. 1t
was the fear of starvation. On almost
any day you may go down to the docks
of a seaport and watch a great ship
being laden with stores for a three
months or three years voyage-fresh
fruits, vegetables and condiments.
When Peary QUILTED the Roosevelt
for his trip to the arctic a few weeks
ago he took stores for three years
Had he wished he could have taken
them for thirty years and known with
an absolute certainty that they would
be as fresh and palatable as the day
they were picked in the vegetable gar
den or the orchard.
In the early days OF the sea and of
exploration it was the dread scurvy
that menaced the expedition or the
crew. but the modern chemist has
driven that scourge into the nothing
ness from which IN enanatad ON ono
OF Pearys trips he found a cache
among the rocks far to the north 1t
had been made by an explorer who
failed to return for his supplies. There
were cans of tomatoes. soup=, fruits
meats, and what not. The labels on
the cans showed they had been there
more than twenty years. He opened
e can of the tomatoes for curiosity's
sake, and they still had the flavor of
the garden from which they had come.
Until within the last forty years no
certain preservative method of keep
ing fruits and vegetables was known.
Nan depended to a great extent upon
such methods of boiling as were known
TO him. upon such uses of heat as he
could apply and upon the more or less
Imperfect ideas he had formulated up
cn the subject. In the matter of small
foods that We're intended for immediate
consumption he won a real success, but
S.ith the other products that were put
up in such size as to make them cheap
enough to compare with the natural
grown and strictly fresh products he
fell far behind.
The Modern Magician Appears.
Then came the modern magician. the
ebAnist. and showed him just what to