REFRIGERATION.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2483, 22 March 1882, Page 4

REFRIGERATION.

As was stated in yesterday’s issue, an offieia inspection, so to speak, ot the arrangements on board tho N.Z.S Co.’s barque Mataura for carrying to the old country tho surplus sheep and cattle of tho colony ia a frozen state, was made by the directors of the company yesterday afternoon. Mr J. L. Ooater, the managing director, accompanied by Mr John Anderson, Ur A O. Wilson, directors of the company, the Hon, G, McLean, and a number of other gentlemen interested in the .shipping and export trade, boarded the Mataura soon after one o’clock by tho steam launch Lyttelton. The party were received by the master, Captain Greenstroet, and were at once introduced into tho ante-room of what may be well named tho polar region of the Mataura. In this room, which ia in the forward part of the ’tween decks of tho ship, are located the already celebrated Haslam’s dry air refrigerating engines. Under the guidance of Mr Scott, the chief engineer, a gentleman possessing the moat thorough and intimate knowledge of the new invention, they were shown through the machinery compartment, and were witnesses ot the oapa bility of tho en.incs in full running order. Several gentlemen present, who were conversant with the style of the BeliOoleman refrigerating machinery, expressed their surprise and satisfaction at the compactness of the engines, one gentleman stating that in point of space they did not occupy over a third ot tho room on board that he believed the Bell Coleman engines and machinery did. Surprise was also expressed at the insignificant space, so to speak, occupied by the two boilers on tho deck of the vessel. It was thought that they would be so cumbersome with the smokestack that it would be prejudicial to the sailing of tho ship, whereas, with the exception ot the projecting chimney, a visitor on board might readily pass by tho “ stoke hole ” under the impression that he would be intruding upon the privacy of a cook’s galley or a sailor’s forecastle, were he to venture to look into that particular house cn deck. A word or two in description of tho completeness of the machinery on board the Mataura may be cf interest. The engines, as stated, are down the fore hatchway, and are supplied with steam power from above, from the boilerhouse or s'oke hole already mentioned. They work remarkably smooth and comparatively noiselessly, and accomplish the work about as follows : One steam cylinder of 21 Am diameter when started, sets the two air compressing chambers going. These air squeezers, as they oould be called, as the piston rod ia eaoh works backwards or forwards, fulfil the business of receiving the atmosphere from the engine room through valves, and after the air is admitted it is compressed to a pressure of 40 to SOlbs to the square inch. As may be supposed, the chambers have to be of great strength, and they are therefore tested by tho patentee before leaving the foundry to a pressure of 75lbs. The air thus received and pressed finds an escape from tho compressor chambers, through a pipe into a chamber underneath, passing thence into a second chamber, and so on through a third out along tho bed of the engine, and into what is termed the cooler. Pressed up to the state described it rashes, as stated, through the three chambers beneath. In these chambers a steady rush of water is kept round the sides of each, the water being forced up by pumps from the ocean. From these it rushes to the cooler. This cooler is situated a short distance from tho engine, and would readily bo mistaken for a wooden partition of the engine room. It consists, however, ot a wooden box specially lined for the purpose, and containing several hundred pipes. The air flies through these pipes with all the speed which air compressed as this is might be expected to do in search of expansion and freedom. By the time it emerges from the last of tho copper tubes in tho cooler it has lost any heat it ever possessed, and, passing from there to the expansion chamber, a massive mahogany chest, it rushes in there at a temperature of something like 50 degrees below Fahrenheit’s zero, duo to the sudden expansion it there undergoes. From the expansion chamber it flies along the exhaust passage out into the meat room, or refrigerating abode of the beef and mutton carcases. Here another pipe’s mouth ia open to receive it. and after circulating amongst the whitened forms of the frost-stiffened occupants of the Mataura’s arctic chambers, it returns again to the compressor chambers, to bo once more forced into confined limits. From this it will be seen that the returned •cold air is made to do duty ad infinitum, but the chief, indeed the real purpose, it is intended to compass is to add its coolness to the other air inhaled by the oompressers from the surrounding atmosphere, and thus by mingling with that air reduce it* temperature. This husbanding of the valuable forces of the refrigerating machinery is also followed in respect to the fresh water used in tho boilers. The steam exhaust, instead of discharging to waste, ia carried down to a condenser, where a pump worked simultaneously with the engine above forces water from tho ocean around the pipes containing the steam, and before the pipe gets back to the boilers on deck, whither it is continued, the steam has gone back into its original form of fresh water, to be used in the boilers de novo.

Mr Arthur Facer, the second engineer, and who was chief on board the e.s. Q-aronne in charge of the Haslam refrigerator there, gave a very interesting description of the trials and difficulties which tho inventor had encountered in perfecting this splendid patent, and pointed out what he termed the “ indicators.*’ These novel additions to tho machinery are so constructed that, by placing a piece of white paper upon them, and fixing a lead pencil in position, a tracing is made on the paper showing how the internal portions of the air compressors are working. The complete success of the refrigerating machinery the experience of a voyage of 94, days has sufficiently proved. Not a hitch, not a stoppage occurred that was not asked for by the engineer, throughout the voyage. It may be an assurance, however, to know that had a break down on the voyage occurred, it could have been speedily set to rights, as every part of tho machinery is duplicated. The following extract is taken from the engineer’s log book. It represents the daily work done and the temperature of the meat chamber daily while the vessel was passing through the tropical belt. Tho small number of hours worked each day will be no less surprising to the reader than is the daily register of cold in the meat room, and this in the very hottest of latitudes :

would be simply to state that the visitor quickly found himself so unbearably cold that he was glad to be let out of it. ThoPiejs representatives, who were let into the sanctum sanctorum yesterday, engaged for a short time—a very short time—in a snowball match beneath the frozen forms of English grouse, partridges and Labrador salmon. The engine, which forces 50,000joub;c feet of ioy air per hour into the chamber, was hushed in silence. What the experiences of a living human being would be to bo shut in there were it otherwise can only be imagined. Nobody has oared to try so far. In the meantime the shareholders of the enterprising company that own the Mataura have the pleasure of knowing that 8000 or more carcases of mutton can bo put on board and delivered in “like good order and condition ” to the London consumer, a satisfaction and a pleasure which will be shared by the exporting sheep farmers throughout the colony.

Date. Jan. 5 Ship’s Position. 23,17 N. Hours Worked. 4i Temperature of Boom Below Frost. 44 6 18.30 3d 52 7 14 40 3 42 8 11.48 3 47 9 8.40 35 41 10 6.4 3J 43 11 4.59 4i 42 12 3.32 , 6 52 13 2.32 4 42 14 1.19 Si 48 15 0,40 8. 45 42 16 2.53 65 40 17 5.43 6i 53 IS 8.50 6i 54 19 ... 12.33 6i 49 20 15.53 5 43 21 19.19 4J 52 22 21.19 5 40 23 22.44 51 55 To describe the visit to the meat-room