J tieufifit J-m.etitau. [FEBRUARY 12, 1898. lIEDIUJ[ AND SlIALL INDEPENDENT REFRIGERATING machines suitable to the requirements of a single store of refrigerating adopted by the Atlantic Refrigerating PLANTS. or dwelling were made by the makers of large machin-Company, of Springfield, Mass. , who are devoted ex-It is only within the last four or five years that the ery, and were not satisfactory. Although the laws of clusively to the manufacture of medium and small makers of refrigerating

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... ery have turned their artificial refrigeration are unvarying, the rules govern-sized plants of the kind above referred to. The re attention to the production of ref rigerating plants ing its application will vary greatly. It is one thing frigeration is accomplished by the compression, conden- A REFRIGERATING PLANT, SHOWING REFRIGERATING MACHINE AND REGULATOR AND COILS IN REFRIGERATOR. suitable to the needs of small users. Previous to this period, the whole attention of manufacturers was given to the construction of large machines, which are rlo; quired for refrigeration on an extended scale, and while the design and equipment of large cold storage plants has been brought to a high state of perfection, and its theory and practice are well understood, the moderate user, in the person of the small manufacturer, the store keeper, the householder or "mine host of the inn," has been left to the tender mercies of the door-to-door ice vender. The first attempts to produce small refrigerating to refrigerate a single unit in the shape of a great room in a brewery, and quite another thing to refrigerate a number of single units represented by a score of sepa rate refrigerating boxes, in the various fiats of an apart ment house; hence the earlier attempts to introduce small plants were almost invariably marked by failure. Of late years, however, the work has been taken up as a specialty by various firms, with the result that it is now possible for artificial refrigeration to be secured in small units for about the same figure as the ice is sup plied by the ice companies. The accompav'jing engravings illustrate the methods sat ion and expansion of a highly volatile gas in a con tinuous cycle of operations, the compression and con densation taking place in a small and compact ma chine ;which may be located in any convenient spot, and the expansion, with its attendant refrigeration, taking place in a coil of pipes located in the refriger ating room or "box." The machine is of the ammon ia compression type, the gas used being pure anhydrous ammonia, which is composed of 14 parts of nitrogen and 3 parts of hy drogen by weight. At ordinary temperature it is a gas, and at a temperature of about 30 degrees below