THE MODERN REFRIGERATOR AS USED BY NEANDERTHAL MAN--BEFORE FRED AND BARNEY.

This Method

 For shorter periods, back woods or survival refrigerators need not be constructed.

If a stream runs by your camp; you can put perishable foods in a pail or a large cooking pot

 and place this in the  cool running water, in the shade.

Evolved too This

A little more work, and suitable for longer periods,

 a hole in the ground three feet square and three feet deep, 

lined with stones and covered is another good refrigerator.

Then too This

Or, an evaporation cooler--THE FIRST REFRIGERATOR-- devised by Neanderthal man.

Two buckets, or water tight baskets  are required.

 One with your perishable foods and the other water.

Drape a large piece of cloth or other absorbent material over the two buckets,

 the water bucket with the absorbent material immersed in it above the food basket.

The water evaporates and creates a cool temperature for the food below.

The hotter the day the higher the rate of evaporation

 and therefore the cooler it will be below the cloth.

Refrigeration is the process of removing heat from an enclosed space, or from a substance, to lower its temperature. A refrigerator uses the evaporation of a liquid to absorb heat. The liquid, or refrigerant, used in the modern refrigerator of today evaporates at an extremely low temperature, creating freezing temperatures inside that refrigerator. But, it's all based on the following physics, first discovered by Neanderthal man – when any liquid is rapidly vaporized (nowadays through compression) - the quickly expanding vapour requires kinetic energy and draws the energy needed from the immediate area - which loses energy and becomes cooler. Cooling caused by the rapid expansion of gases (water vapour, in the Neanderthal version) is the primary means of refrigeration today.

Then, After Several Thousand Years,

too This.

Which Became

The two commercial type modern refrigerator images from:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refrigerator

Although the refrigerator is thought to be a relatively recent, modern,invention--

 in reality, it is not.

 The principles of refrigeration were known to NEANDERTHAL MAN. Refrigeration is simply another of the many, many, countless, gifts that "The Mother"has provided--not only to create the very necessary challenge, and stress--but to make the game of survival very much easier--for all of HER CREATION. 

The modern version of the ancient refrigerator replaced the icebox (not shown), which (in modern civilization) had been in common usage for almost a century and a half prior. For this reason, a refrigerator is sometimes referred to as an icebox.

Before the invention of the refrigerator, Neanderthal Man and more recently Canada's Inuit peoples commonly used ice-houses to provide cool storage for most of the year. Placed near freshwater lakes or packed with snow and ice during the winter, they were once very common. 

These natural means are still used to cool foods today. On mountainsides, run off from melting snow is a convenient way to cool drinks, and during the winter one can keep milk fresh much longer just by keeping it outdoors.The first known artificial refrigeration was demonstrated by William Cullen at the University of Glasgow in 1748. The US inventor Oliver Evans, acclaimed as the "father of refrigeration," re-invented the vapour-compression refrigeration machine in 1805. Heat would be removed from the environment by recycling vaporized refrigerant, where it would move through a compressor and condenser, where it would eventually revert back to a liquid form in order to repeat the refrigeration process over again. However, no such refrigeration unit was built by Evans.
 In 1834, Jacob Perkins modified Evans' original design, building the world's first refrigerator and filing the first legal patent for refrigeration using vapour-compression. John Gorrie, a doctor from Florida, invented the first mechanical refrigeration unit in 1841, based on Evans' original invention to make ice in order to cool the air for yellow fever patients. Gorrie's mechanical refrigeration unit was issued a patent in 1851. Professor Alexander C. Twining of Cleveland, Ohio patented an early vapour-compression refrigerator in 1853 that was fully capable of producing a ton of ice per day.

In 1856, James Harrison, an immigrant from Scotland living in Australia, developed an ice making machine using ammonia and an ether compressor.^]It was used in the brewing and meat packing industries of Geelong, Victoria. Ferdinand Carré of France developed a somewhat more complex system in 1859. Unlike earlier, prehistoric, refrigerators which used air as a coolant, Carré's equipment contained rapidly expanding ammonia. In 1913, refrigerators for home and domestic use were invented by Fred W. Wolf of Fort Wayne, Indiana with models consisting of a unit that was mounted on top of an ice box. A self-contained refrigerator, with a compressor on the bottom of the cabinet was invented by Alfred Mellowes in 1916. Mellowes produced this refrigerator commercially but was bought out by William C. Durant in 1918, who started the Frigidaire Company in order to begin the first mass-production of refrigerators The absorption refrigerator was invented by Baltzar von Platen and Carl Munters from Sweden in 1922, while they were still students at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. It became a worldwide success and was commercialized by Electrolux. Other pioneers included Charles Tellier, David Boyle, and Raoul Pictet. Carl von Linde was the first to patent and make a practical and compact commercially produced refrigerator.

These home units usually required the installation of the mechanical parts, motor and compressor, in the basement or an adjacent room while the cold box was located in the kitchen. There was a 1922 model that consisted of a wooden cold box, water-cooled compressor, an ice cube tray and a 9-cubic-foot (0.25 m³) compartment, and cost $714. (A 1922 Model-T Ford cost about $450.) In 1923 Frigidaire introduced the first self-contained unit. About this same time porcelain-covered metal cabinets began to appear. Ice cube trays were introduced more and more during the 1920s; up to this time freezing was not an auxiliary function of the modern commercial version of the refrigerator.

The first commercially produced refrigerator to see widespread use was the General Electric "Monitor-Top" refrigerator introduced in 1927, so-called because of its resemblance to the gun turret on the ironclad warship USS Monitor of the 1860s. The compressor assembly, which emitted a great deal of heat, was placed above the cabinet, and surrounded with a decorative ring. Over a million units were produced. As the refrigerating medium, these refrigerators used either sulfur dioxide, which is corrosive to the eyes and may cause loss of vision, painful skin burns and lesions, or methyl formate, which is highly flammable, harmful to the eyes, and toxic if inhaled or ingested. Many of these units are still functional today. These cooling systems cannot legally be recharged with the hazardous original refrigerants if they leak or break down.

©Al (Alex, Alexander) D. Girvan. All rights reserved.