After being cooled, the compressed air is then admitted to the expansion cylinder, but as it still contains a large quantity of water in solution, which, if expansion was carried immediately to atmospheric pressure, would, from the extreme cold, be converted into snow and ice, with a positive certainty of causing great trouble in the valves and passages. It is got rid of by a process invented by Mr. Lightfoot, which is at the same time extremely simple and beautiful in action, and efficient. Instead of reducing the compressed air at once to atmospheric pressure, it is at first only partially expanded to such an extent that the temperature is lowered to about 35 deg. to 40 deg. Fah., with the result that very nearly the whole of the contained aqueous vapor is condensed into water. The partially expanded air which now contains the water as a thick mist is then admitted into a vessel containing a number of grids, through which it passes, parting all the while with its moisture, which gradually collects at the bottom and is blown off. The surface area of the grids is so arranged that by the time the air has passed through them it is quite free from moisture, with the exception of the very trifling amount which it can hold in solution at about 35 deg. Fah., and 30 lb. pressure. The expansion is then continued to atmospheric pressure and the cooled air containing only a trace of snow is then discharged ready for use into a meat chamber or elsewhere. In small machines the double expansion is carried out in one cylinder containing a piston with a trunk, the annulus forming the first expansion and the whole piston area the second, but in larger machines two cylinders of different sizes are used, just as in an ordinary compound engine. To compensate for the varying temperature of the cooling water the cut-off valve to the first or primary expansion is made adjustable; and this can either be regulated as occasion requires by hand, or else automatically. The temperature in the depositors being kept constant under all variations in cooling water, there is the same abstraction of moisture in the tropics as in colder climates, and the cold air finally discharged from the machine is also kept at a uniform temperature. [Illustration: Expansion Cylinder. Scale 1/60.92° F. temperature of entering air. Cooling water entering in at 86° F.] [Illustration: Expansion Cylinder. Scale 1/60. 68° F. temperature of entering air. Cooling water entering in at 65° F. 125 revs. per minute, or 312 ft. per minute per piston speed.]