The Daily Telegraph. SATURDAY, JULY 14, 1883.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3743, 14 July 1883, Page 2

The Daily Telegraph. SATURDAY, JULY 14, 1883.

The refrigerating works, the property of the Australian Frozen Meat Export Company, recently established at Williamstown, are about aa perfect as science can make them, and a short sketch of the buildings and appliances, that appears in the Melbourne Age, will prove interesting at the present time. The establishment has been planned to enable the employes to kill, dress, and freeze 500 sheep a clay, but up to the present only 300 aday have been operated upon. The sheep are deliA r ercd by trains, and turned into well grassed paddocks. On the day prior to slaughtering the number of sheep to be operated on are driven into a small paddock adjacent to the slaughter yard. In this enclosure the sheep obtain a limited supply of feed, just enough to keep them from "fretting," but little enough to reduce the temperature of their blood, as it has been found undesirable to kill sheep immediately after they come off good pasture. On the evening before the day on which the sheep are to be killed thoy are driven into a Avell fenced yard covered with substantial sheds. AVhen once in this yard the sheep obtain no more feed, the fasting process reducing them to a condition that makes their treatment easier, and in every way better for dressing. From the enclosure above mentioned the slaughter-men can take the animals as they require them. The arrangements for slaughtering, for cleaning the premises, and the means for disposing of the offal, &c, are then described, but Avhich we need not follow. After being killed and dressed the sheep are suspended in the hanging shed longenoughto set the carcases, which aro then taken away on trucks running on rails and conveyed to the refrigerating house. Here they are suspended in the chilling room. This intermediate process has been found to bo absolutely necessary, as a sudden xeduction of the 'temperature has been found to have * very detrimental effect on the mutton, After being suspended for a re-

quisito length of time in the chilling room the carcases are taken into the freezing rooms, there being tAvo capable of holding 600 carcases each. From the freezing rooms the carcases are taken, each carcase being enclosed in a neAV calico bag. AVhen thus covered they are stacked on battens in the store rooms, of which there are three capable of holding 20,000 carcases. The temperature in tho chilling room varies from 40 to 45 deg. above zero, and the temperature in tho freezing and store rooms A-aries from zero up to 15 deg. aboA-e zero. All tho above mentioned rooms and stores are lighted with incandescent lights. By this system of lighting the air is not vitiated, and the temperature is not raisod to any appreciable extent. The plan of constructing the chilling room, freezing rooms and stores is very ingenious. The floor is made of sand and pitch asphalt, while tho walls and roofs are composed of corrugated galvanised iron, tho joints of which have been soldered together so as to make the rooms air tight. Behind the galvanised iron casing there are several inches of charcoal. No avoocl whatcA-er can be seen in the freezing rooms or stores. The directors have been induced to adopt this plan for the purpose of avoiding the recurrence of an evil that Avould have ruined the trade. It Avas found that in several shipments the meat, on being landed in England, presented mildew patches which either greatly deteriorated or entirely destroyed its value. Some authorities ascribed I this groAvth of fungi to the presence of Avood in the freezing chambers, and the company, in building their new Avorks, determined to prevent a recurrence of this evil by avoiding the use of Avood in the inner part of the chambers. AATiether wood was the origin of tho mildeAV or not Avill perhaps never be knoAvn Avith certainty, for the company managed to send home sound meat from the chambers partly constructed of Avood, both before and after tho shipment of cargoes that Avere tainted with mildew. HoAvever. in constructing the new Avorks, the company did Avisely in adopting a plan that has very many great recommendations besides the security it may give against a recurrence of the mildew taint. Tho double doors of all the rooms are made air tight by the use of india-rubber padding. Tlie most recent shipment made by the company was the despatch of 2GOO carcases of tho A-ery- best sheep per the Orient steamship. The refrigerating room is furnished Avith three refrigerators, Avith space for a fourth, already on the ground. The tAvo smaller machines are each capable of creating 20,000 cubic feet of frozen air per hour, and the larger one is capable of discharging 60,000 cubic feet per hour. Tho machine yet to bo erected is a sister machine to the larger one iioav in use. They Avere made by Robinson Bros, and Co., and arc as compact and perfect as marine engines. AVithont troubling our readers with technical details it may be shortly explained that the process, knOAyn as Giffard's dry air process, is simply this. The compression'of air generates heat. Its expansion produces cold. The large machine in question has three compressing cylinders and three expanding cylinders. In the process of compression tho air is kept cool by keeping a constant fIoAV of water in the pockets of' the compressing cylinders, and further by making the air pass through an infinite number ""or tubes "surrounded by water kept in constant circulation. The passage of the air through the three compressing cylinders and through the three expanding cylinders is sufficient to reduce it to a temperature from 30 to 40 degrees beloAV zero. The machine is driven by two oscillating 25 in. cylinders, with a 20 in. stroke, the steam for Avhich is supplied from two multitubular boilers 6 feet each in diameter. The two smaller refrigerating machines are on the same principlo as the larger one, but they are less compact in form and of less capacity. AA r hen the air passes out of the refrigerator it enters what is called the suoav pit. In this chamber all the mosituro in the air falls to tho ground in the form of suoav flakes, so the air that enters tho froezing chambers is dry as well as intensely cold. The direction and force of the air to any chamber or particular part of a chamber can be regulated to a nicety by opening or closing the valves of tho largo tubes which conduct the air from the snoAV pit to the various pa.rts of the several chambers.