PRESERVED PROVISIONS. The chief articles employed for the preservation of organized sub stances are salt, sugar, oil, charcoal, acetic acid, or pyroligneons acid, and alcohol and salt is used in the curing of fish of different kinds, bacon, hams, etc., in the pickling of pork, and in the corning of beef. Salt possesses great affinity for water, which it abstracts largely from the substance to which it is applied, and to which affinity its power as a preservative agent is mainly due. Sugar is prin cipally employed for preserving fruits, either entire or in the state of jam or marmalade. In the condition of syrup, it operates partly by the barrier which it interposes to the free access of the atmosphere to the surface of the fruit, and partly in consequence of its being a nou-nitro genous substance.
Sardines and anchovies are nearly the only articles put up in oil. It appears to operate in the same manner as sugar. The powerful effect of charcoal retarding putrescence in meat, and even in restoring tainted meat to a state of sweet ness, is well known. Its action is due to its property of absorbing gases and effecting their oxidation as rapidly as they are developed from the decomposing meat, and which is made to preserve at least the appearance of freshness. The use of dilute acetic acid or vinegar is con fined to the preservation of vegetable substances, and is employed principally by pickle-makers.
Pemmican is the muscular fibre of beef or mutton baked on hot iron plates and reduced to a coarse powder, but in India it is-fibrons meat cut into long stripes, and dried in the sun. Vege tables and fruits are now largely preserved freed from their fluid constituents. When vegetables thus prepared are immersed in water for some time, they swell up, become soft and tender, and restune to a very great extent the appearance, colour, and flavour proper to them in the fresh state. In another mode, the article to be pre served is placed sometimes in the raw state, but generally cooked in a tin canister, the lid of which is soldered down, but is perforated with a small aperture or pin-hole. It is then subjected to the action of either steam, boiling water, or a muriate of lime bath, until the contents of the canister, if not previously dressed, have become about two thirds cooked. The aperture in the cover is then closed, and the canister and its contents are once more submitted for a shorter period—that is until the article is completely dressed—to the operation of heat. As soon as it has become cold, the canister is covered over with a coating of paint ; its preparation is then complete.—Hassell.