USRE2038E - Improvement in preserving fruit and other perishable substances - Google Patents

Description

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Inventor'.

UNITED; STATES PATENT OFFICE.

IMPROVEMENT lN PRESERVING FRUIT AND OTHER PERISHABLE SUBSTANCES.

Specilication forming part of Letters Patent No. 21,977, dated November 2, 1858; Reissue No. 1,068, dated October 23, 1860; Reissue No. 1,960, May 16, 1865; Reissue No. 2,038, dated July 25, 1865.

DIvIsIoN No. 2.

To all whom, it may concern:

Be it known I, BENJAMIN M. Nros, of Cleveland, in the county of Cuyahoga and State of Ohio, formerly of Kingston, Indiana, have invented new and useful Improvements in the Process of Preserving Fruits and other Perishable Organic Substances; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full and exact description ot' the same, reference being had to the accompanying drawings, making part of this specification, in which- Figure 1 shows by a vertical section and in perspective a room or chamber adapted to my purpose. Fig. 2 is a horizontal section'of the icevlioor. Fig. 3 is a perspective view of a portion of the ice-reservoir, together with one ofits suppoitingfbeams. Fig. 4t is a transverse section of a supporting-beam.

My invention relates to a means for preserving i'ruits, vegetables, or other organic pvrishable substances; and it consists of a room or chamber guarded externally by walls iinpervious "to moisture or other atmospheric changes, and provided at its upper part with an insulated ice-reservoir and having within its interior a means of mechanical or chemical agitation of the contained air, thus bringing it in contact with absorbcnts ot` moisture, with which the chamber is provid ed-as chlorides, calcium, magnesium, or other similar substances-my purpose being to keep the interior ofthe chamber at a uniformly low temperature-about 34.5OFahrenheit-and at the same time the contained air to be kept as free as possible from moisture.

The preserving-chamber J should be made pratically air-tight and prooi` against thelingress of moisture and heat, and to this end its walls and Hoor may be constructed as follows:

E and g constitute, respectively, an outer and inner air-tight shell or casing, three or three and a half feet apart, the intervening space being filled with dry cha' G, short-cut straw, shavings from planing-mills, or other like poor conducting materials. The outside Vcasing of the walls may be made of brick, the inside of which is plastered and coated with roofing-cement, or any :material that is airtight, or it may be made of sheet-iron, the

edges of the sheet painted and closely nailed together to upright studding, or it may be made ot' any other air-tight substance. The ground below the bottom of the building is solid, leveled oi' even with the foundation walls, and covered over the entire surface with tar, pitch, asphaltum, or other material impermeable to the entrance of air and moisture from below it.

yAs dead air, or air without motion, is the most available poor conductor of heat, and as solid substances are all, to a greater or less degree, good conductors ot' heat generally in proportion to their density, it follows that no more chart', shavings, or other solid material should be placed between the outer and inner walls than is needed to keep the air quiet, nor should they be tightly packed, but put in just closely enough to prevent the circulation of air through them and no closer.

From the fact that warm air holds a far greater amount of moisture than cold air will be understood the necessity, especially in summer, of an outer air-tight covering of the walls. It this point be not strictly guarded, the warm air from without, more or less highly charged with moisture, will gradually but constantly approach, enter, and mingle with the chaff or other packing near the inside casing, and in consequence of the low temperature would soon deposit moisture in the chaff and generate fermentation, and passing all around the inside casing ol' the preserving-chamber, a heating-surface would be thus produced, raising the temperature of said chambers, and melting rapidly the ice aboveit.

The inside air-tight casing of the chamber J, together with air-tight doors, made also proof against the ingress of heat and moisture, make the entire chamber air-tight when closed up. When lilled with fruit, the oxygen of the air is in a few days entirely consumed in its union with the hydrogen and carbon, forming water and carbonic acid in the gradual ripening of the fruit. 'Seven pounds carbon and hydrogen from the fruit takes up, as seen from the law of chemical equivalents, all the oxygen contained in one hundred and twenty pounds of air-that is, this amount is consumed in the formation oi' water and carbonio acid. The fruit is thus nearly all the time completely surrounded by an atmosphere ofthe nitrogen of the air and carbonic acid, and hence the presenceoi' free oxygen, the great agent of p decomposition, is entirely removed. Whatevermoisture is present is taken up by the absorbents before mentioned, and the fruit is thus constantly snrrounded by an atmosphere at the uniform temperature of 34,50 Fahrenheit, that is also free from moisture or free oxygen.

In the chamber J, when illed with fruit, heat is constantly generated, first, by the fermentation of moisture and carbonic acid, thrown oi in its gradual ripening of the fruit, and second, by the condensation of moisture by chlorides or other absorbents. This heat causes the air constantly to ascend to the iceiioor above, where it is chilled and increased in density and falls to the lower or ground tloor, where the moisture is taken up by the chloride or other absorbent spread out on a surface below the ice-floor, forming the upper wall of the chamber. In this way the air is kept dry and cold, and being composed chieti y of nitrogen and carbonic acid, the elements of destruction are not present with the fruit.

The ice-floor l?, to which reference has been made, is constructed of sheet metal, so as,

. while eftectually prey-*enting any actual contact of ice with the air of the preservingchamber J, to at the same time aiford a free and equal conduction of heat through every portion of the floor. The upper surface of the ice-floor has a slight descent toward one or more discharging-pipes, Z y

P 'is a rim supporting an inner wall, w. The ice-Hoor P is supported on transverse beams T, having their upper portion, metallic, in order that there may be a free and rapid conduction of heat from the preserving chamber through those parts ofthe oor in contact with thev beams. The lower portion, u v, of the beams may be of wood.

y is a metallic trough to receive and conduct ofi` condensed vapor.

`o is a movable air-tight cover, which is made to lit snugly the sides of the ice-reservoir, so as to'insulate its lower portion containing ice from its upper portion, which, after placing of the ice-cover o, is packed with chaff or other poor conductor. The insulation of the two compartments of the ice-reservoir may be completed kby the application of tarred canvas or other luting to the edge of the cover o.

The entrance passage to the preserving apartments should be guarded by a series of doors, so that the entrance to and exit from the room can be eii'ected without direct communication between the inner and outer air. rIhese doors should be made double and packed with chaff' or other poor conductor, and the joints luted with listing saturated with tallow, thus being made air-tight.

Fans K, or other artificial or mechanical means, may be used to agitate the air within the preserving-chamber; but this I do not consider essential, as the slight variation of temperature from chemical or other cause pro duees all the circulation required under ordinary circumstances.

What I claim as my improvement, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is-

The above-described outside airtight casings of walls, when used in combination with a chamber chilled by ice on a metallic door on its upper part, with absorbents of moisture within said chamber.

, B. M. NYGE.

Witnesses:

W. H. BURRIDGE, A. W. MCGLELLAND.

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