MENTS IN AND APPERTAINING TO REFRIGERATING, AND TO THE TRANSPORT OF DEAD MEAT AND OTHER FRESH PROVISIONS."
Year: 1878

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Charles Phillips Edney at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents on the 9th May 1878.
CHARLES PHILLIPS EDNEY, of Waterloo, in the County of Lancaster.
"IMPROVE-
MENTS IN AND APPERTAINING TO REFRIGERATING, AND TO THE TRANSPORT OF
DEAD MEAT AND OTHER FRESH PROVISIONS."
For the transport of dead meat in the meat rooms, cold chambers, or refrigerators
of ships, two systems or methods have been hitherto chiefly, if not exclusively,
relied on.
The first system is the circulation of the air of the meat room (which is made as
far as possible air-tight) through an ice box or chamber by means of a fan or blower
constantly in action, so that the temperature of the meat room shall be maintained
at from 36° to 40° Farenheit throughout the voyage.
The second system is to place around the inner walls of the meat chamber a coil
of piping, through which a solution (or brine) of salt in ice water is made to
circulate by means of a pump or its equivalent, thus maintaining the air
in the meat chamber at the desired temperature by surface contact with the
chilled pipes.
By either of these systems the meat is sometimes and under favorable conditions
brought and delivered in good order, but frequently it comes in a musty state, the
cause of which is undoubtedly the fact that in both systems the air of the meat
chamber is saturated with moisture, so that the meat is constantly surrounded by a
damp atmosphere, favourable to the production of mould or mustiness.
Taking as a point of departure the fact that, when natural ice can be obtained at
a reasonable price, as in countries where the winters are severe, no artificial means
of refrigeration hitherto devised can compete with it; the object of my present
Invention is to employ such natural ice, so that while availing myself of its poten-
tiality for the production of cold (or abstraction of heat) the said natural ice shall
be used in combination with an artificial refrigerating or cold-producing machine or
apparatus in such manner that the air of the meat room shall be deprived of its
moisture, arising either from the melting of the ice, or from the evaporation of the
...

page_text: joint of the meat itself, or both combined, and be maintained in such a condition of
dryness (as well as of cold) as may be desired.
According to my Invention I accomplish this preferably by passing a solution of
ice in salt water, either from the sea or by the introduction of common salt into a
tank containing ice and water through a system of piping running round the walls
of the meat room, regulating the temperature thereby produced by the degree of
rapidity of the circulation of the cold brine, as may be desired, either by a pump or
its equivalent, or by means of gravity controlling the rate of flow through
the pipes by means of a cock or valve, or its equivalent, as is well known and
understood.
But the essential point or part of my Invention is the complete or partial drying
of the air in the meat chamber by constantly drawing it off, and passing it through
a refrigerating or cold-producing machine, so that the moisture therein contained
shall be precipitated in the form of ice, or frozen out of it and returned to
the meat chamber after having the moisture and impurities derived from the
meat abstracted from it in a condition of purity, and in such a state of dryness as
may be desired.
In carrying out my Invention, I do not confine myself to the use or employment
of any particular form of refrigerating machine or aparatus which may be one of
many well-known, such as ether, sulphurous acid, ammonia, air-compressing
machines, &c., the essential point of my Invention being the dessication and purifi-
cation by freezing the air circulating in the meat chamber, whether the cold of
the said chamber is produced by natural ice, used as above described, by the
blowing of air through it, or by the pipe system, or by the refrigeration of the ment
chamber by artificial means.
I claim as the distinctive principle of my Invention the privation of the air in
the meat chamber (when cooled by the use of natural ice in any form of aparatus),
or by the employment of artificial cold, if the moisture and impurities taken up
from the meat, or from the ice and meat combined, by the employment of a cold-
producing machine, whereby the air is desicated and purified, so that the meat is
kept in an atmosphere not only sufficiently cold to preserve it, but in such a condition
of dryness and purity as is necessary to prevent mustiness or mould.