IMPROVEMENTS IN THE PREPARATION AND PRESERVATION OF FOOD
Year: 1875

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Donald Nicoll at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 28th June
1875.
I, DONALD NICOLL, of 15, Clement's Inn, Strand, London, W.C.,
Justice of the Peace, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention
for "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE PREPARATION AND PRESERVATION OF FOOD," to be as
follows:-
The first part of this Invention consists of preparing food for human
beings. I take biscuits of any suitable thickness (and made of flour of
any kind of grain) of the shape of the tin or vessel in which the food is
to be kept, but I prefer the square shape as most convenient for
packing, and before placing the biscuits in the vessel I lay thereon to
the thickness of about half an inch meat which has been preserved by
any of the known processes, and I add thereto mustard, flour, pepper,
salt, and sliced or chopped burnt onions; when this is done I take the
farina of potatoes baked sufficiently to expel all the water of the potato.
I place a layer on the last named to the thickness of about one inch,
and I then renew the layers till the tin is full, when by hydraulic or

page_text: other pressure 1 condense its contents as much as possible, fill the tin,
then pour molten fat on the top, and solder down the lid of the vessel in
the usual way.
For the preparation and preservation of food for animals I take oil
cake while in a moist state and in the course of manufacture, to which I
add the skins of the potatoes from which the farina has been partially
abstracted for the purpose above described, and I prefer to grind up
such skins, and in some cases to add thereto crushed beans or peas, maize,
or other grain, with salt or other drug or other medicine required to
remedy any malady or disease the animal the animal may be affected
with, and which may be more conveniently administered with food than
by any other medium, thus I produce a food for human beings which is
ready for use cold at any moment, or which may be mado into a soup by
boiling with hot water. For cattle I produce a food made cheap from
what would otherwise be wasted. When food is not required for stores
or long voyages I prefer not to solder down the tin vessels, but to cause
their lids to adhere by applying india-rubber liquified by naptha to the
parts where the lids and the other parts of the vessel adhere. I prefer to
make these vessels in sizes graduating down, that is to say, so that after
they are emptied of their contents the leds may be fitted on to the
bottoms of the vessels, and they may be placed inside each other.
Another part of my Invention consists of the preparation and preser-
vation of food for soldiers. I take all the ingredients described in
the foregoing description of food for human beings except biscuit,
and substitute for the same pulverised dried peas, and in place of
Australian or other such meats I prefer to take bacon or pork which I
chop up into fine sausage meat, and mix the whole together by means
of a centrifugal machine as much depends upon a complete mixing of
the several ingredients; I then form moulds of metal strong enough to
resist great pressure; these moulds I make in parts which I join together
temporarily, leaving the centres hollow and open top and bottom; I then
stretch over this mould an elastic skin or I may use a compound of
which Macintosh's swimming belt is made, and when this is done I fill
the metal moulds with the food prepared as I have described, and
condense it in heavy pressure, and I fasten up the ends of the sausage
and hermetically seal it with india-rubber solution, and I thus produce a

page_text: more nutritious food than that used by the Prussian army in the late
war with France.
The covering for my form of concentrated food is moreover not only
air-tight and more preservative, but being waterproof and strong it is
not liable to be damaged by rain while the troops are upon their
march.