STOWING FROZEN MEAT ON THE BRITISH KING.

Grey River Argus, Volume XXX, Issue 4618, 13 June 1883, Page 4

STOWING FROZEN MEAT ON THE BRITISH KING.

[Christchurch Press.] The train from Belfast, consisting of eight car loads of frozen sheep, numbering 1535 carcases, arrived at the port at 7.30 a.m. yesterday, being an hour later than was expected. The meat chamher was m readiness, the engineer, Mr Scott, having run the temperature down to 20deg of frost (10 above zero), and the work of putting in the whole shipment occupied two hours and a half. A second special train from Belfast went through last night, and the carcases were put immediately into the icy regions of the pioneer steamer. The railway cars that carry the cargo over the seventeen miles from the freezing works to the ship are specially constructed, and have a double lining with sawdust packing between the walls of the car. Every care was taken to make them as nearly air tight as possible. When the mutton carcases were discharged from them yesterday morning, each carcase wrapped in white calico, they certainly had all the stark and stiff characteristics that have been claimed for them, and were as hard and slippery as blocks 'of ice. The hold of the steamer in which they were stowed is also a double lined compartment, Gin of charcoal being laid between the wooden walls. There is, moreover, a lining of tin, it being necessary that the place should be not only air-proof, but vermin-proof r. The carcases are stowed fore and aft, one on top [of the other, and stacked up as close together as it is possible to pack them. The first carcase or " foundation stone of the mutton fabrication," as some one called it, was laid in the after corner of the chamber on the port side, and the first twenty or so side by side. Then came the first tier, and so on, until the eight car loads were disposed of. The lumpers who had the honor of stowing the first shipment made no sjiecial preparation for the work by putting on extra clothing, and though for the first five or ten minutes they did not feel the cold, the change of climate soon after began to impress them with the reality of its presence, and make them long for something warmer. When the room in the main hold is filled, the hatches, which are 12 inches in thickness, will be closed down, and the 8000 or 9000 sheep will become a solid, frozen mass. The filling of a smaller room with special stores for passengers will then be proceeded with, and another room with more frozen sheep, and finally the small room just off the engine room filled with ship's stores. The frigid section of the ship will then be left to the mercy of the Haslam refrigerator, which is to constantly blow into it an atmosphere that leaves the wonderful engines at 60deg below freezing poinii