Improvements in Fixed and Portable Structures or Magazines for Storing Fish and the like.
Year: 1888

page_text: Date of Application, 2nd May, 1888
Specification Accepted, 8th June, 1888
Improvements in Fixed and Portable Structures or Magazines for
Storing Fish and the like.
I ERIK ALFRED VIGGO STEENBERG, of No. 5 Roadhusstrade Copenhagen Denmark
Manufacture do hereby declare the nature of this invention and in what manner the.
same is to be performed to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the
following statement :—
By the use of magazines constructed according to my invention fish and the like
may be stored for a long time at the fishing towns and villages, at the place of sale
and during transport, thus avoiding the great fluctuations in the price of the goods
which are caused by circumstances of climate and of take and whereby the fishermen
lose so much of their earnings that their calling becomes unprofitable. These
magazines may be made fixed or portable.
In the accompanying drawings I have shown such a magazine arranged as a railway
carriage but they may also be arranged in the form of other carriages, or as ships and
other floating vessels or as stationary buildings on shore.
.
Figure 1 is a sectional elevation as regards the right half according to the line D₂
figure 4 and as regards the left half according to the broken line A in figures 2 and 3.
Figures 2, 3 and 4 are vertical cross sections respectively on the lines B, C and D
figure 1.
The magazine consists mainly of a room made with heat insulating walls and con-
taining a box K of heat conducting material such for instance as sheet iron, this box
filling nearly the whole room but leaving suitable narrow spaces for air circulation
all round at the sides and at top and bottom, and also provided with an interior
space for an ice chamber I₁. As here shown there are two such magazines arranged
as one carriage and with an intermediate travelling compartment O for the attendants.
The side walls and ceiling of the magazine are made heat insulating being double
with an intermediate layer of felt. The boxes K terminate at the top in a narrow
or neck part H passing up through the ceiling of the magazine and having lids a
through which the boxes of the magazine are charged and discharged. For charging
the magazine the goods are laid in wooden boxes b with openworked or grid walls.
Figure 5 is a vertical section through such a box b, and figures 6 and 7 part and

page_text: view and part side view of same. One end wall turns on hinge pivots, in the
side wall so that it may be turned down for the charging or discharging. When the
end wall, is turned down, the lid ≈, of which only a small part is shown, can be
raised being held on only by pins which take into recesses z in the side walls bayonet
joint like. At each end of the box there are eye brackets for hooking into the
hooks of the lifting apparatus or crane and provided with roller for rolling the boxes
along easily.
When the magazine is to be charged with killed fish as mostly the case the goods
are placed in layers in the boxes 6 with intervening cane platting to keep the fish
apart. In the bottom of the iron box K and in the middle as shown in right half of
Figure 1 and in Figure 4 I place a box r filled with ice and provided with open
worked or grid bottom and sides, and by the side of it 1 place stools s.
Upon these I
pile the boxes containing the fish as shown. There will thus be free air circulation
under the boxes, and there will also be suitable spaces up between the box piles, and
also up between the box piles and the sides of the box K. The cold from the ice in
the box will therefore be conveyed through the whole of the box K, and the air
therein can be cooled by opening the valves i in the side wall towards the ice
chamber I¹.
The box K will also be cooled from without by the air in the spaces around it, the
air therein being cooled by ice on the box shaped shelves o in the ice chamber I.
Moreover in this latter there is an ice chamber I, closed all round and containing a
reserve of ice partly for supplying the ice shelves o and partly for direct cooling of
the air in the box K and of the air around it, viz: by the opening of the valves i and h.
The cooling of the air in the last named two places may be furthered by attenuating it.
For this purpose the cocks fand g are at times alternately connected with an air
pump for thinning the air there as much as circumstances will admit. The water
from the ice in the boxes r runs through their grid bottoms to the bottom of the
box K where it gathers in the cistern y and runs off by the trap shaped pipe 1. The
water from the ice shelves o runs off through the tin troughs q, and gutters therefor
which lead to a large tin trough 9, extending under the grid bottom p in the closed
ice chamber I, and also receiving the water therefrom. The trough q, may be emptied
occasionally through the trap shaped pipes l. The ice is put into and removed from
the ice chambers I, and I, through the close fitting doors e. The temperature in the
ice chamber I, and in the box K is observable on thermometers therein through
panes from the attendant's compartment O.
P
Several kinds of "fish" such as eel and lobster may also be kept alive for a con-
siderable time in such magazine. Instead of the ice box and stools & I provide at
the bottom of the box K as shewn in the left half of Figure 1 a box w with openworked
or grid bottom upon which I form a filter consisting of a bottom layer of Piassavas
straw. and then a layer of felt c. Upon this is laid a grid v whereupon I pile the
boxes b. To keep the "fish" therein sufficiently moistened with fresh water I employ
a water spray appliance consisting of a number of perforated pipes d at the top of the
box K these pipes being supplied by a pump P in the attendants room to produce a
constant rain upon and through the boxes b, this water finally passing down through
the filter w and gathering in the cistern y from whence it is pumped up by the pump.
through the pipes u, and u, and into the cistern m which has a pipe n to the open air.
From the cistern m the water passes again to the pipes d through the pipe u, which
first goes down and up through the ice chamber I, for thus cooling the water. In
other respects the magazine is tended as when used for killed fish. The first charging
of the cistern m is also done by the pump P which then draws water up through the
pipe t, the cock t, on the pipe u, being then closed and a cock t, on the junction pipe
between the pump P and the pipe t, opened. In the railway carriage shewn there is
a pump P for each magazine, both pumps being connected to the same suction pipe t₁
and driven by shafting a running along the top of the carriage and provided with
wind wheels which are worked for instance by the blast produced when the carriage
is in motion. In magazines where this mode of driving is not available, for instance
in stationary magazines other motors must of course be provided. .

page_text: Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of my said inven-
tion and in what manner the same is to be performed I declare that what I
claim is :-
First Magazines for storing and transporting killed fish consisting of a box K
with sheet iron or other heat conducting walls, provided with upper charging neck H
with lid, and with lower water gathering cisterns y and trap outlet I, the box K being
so arranged in a room with heat insulating walls as to leave suitable spaces for air
circulation between them, and having a space I, therein at one side of the box K for
suitable shelves o for application of ice to cool the space outside the box K and to
cool the latter from without, and with chamber I, for reserve of ice, the killed fish
being packed in boxes with grid sides and bottom and with lid, these boxes being
piled up in the box K upon ice charged boxes r and stools s on the bottom of the
box K, substantially as set forth.
Second-In magazines constructed as firstly claimed the application of cocks fand g
which can be connected with air pumps for thinning the air in the box K and in the
space around it to further the cooling.
Third: In magazines constructed as firstly claimed the application in the upper
part of box K of perforated spray pipes d connected with a water cistern m by one
or more pipes u, which are carried down and up in the ice chamber I for cooling
the water in them, the cistern m being supplied by a pump P either with fresh
water drawn in through the pipe t, or with the water which has passed down through
the boxes b after it has passed through a suitable filter c w in the lower part of the
box K and which was drawn in by the pump P from the cistern y through the pipe u₁,
substantially as set forth.
Fourth The construction of "fish" storing magazine shewn on the drawing.
1000
ERIK ALFRED VIGGO STEENBERG.
By Jensen & Son,
77, Chancery Lane, London, W.C.,
Patent Agents.