One interesting phase of the dry-cleaning process deserves mention, if only to bring home the assiduity with which the reclamation of grease from every conceivable source is now being prosecuted. Some of the firms are devoting attention to the separation of the grease removed from the clothes by the benzine. Seeing that the only likely contribution of grease is that removed from the hands or other part of the body coming into contact with the fabric, and that the grease in question is only natural perspiration, it will be seen that, under the most favourable conditions, such deposit must necessarily be exceedingly trifling. That it should be deemed worthy of recovery seems almost incredible. But it is being done, though the yield is low, and it is proving profitable. Probably no other waste is to be found in such a multiplicity of forms and in such unexpected quarters as that capable of yielding grease, but that it should pay to recover natural perspiration to assist in the lubrication of a railway locomotive, or some other piece of machinery, serves to emphasize the extremely fine limits to which fat-reclamation science has been carried. It is admitted that, in the majority of cases, the possible yields are so small as to render reclamation absolutely impossible by any but the solvent extraction process, which undoubtedly constitutes the highest testimony to the efficiency and value of this wonderful British invention it is possible to advance. CHAPTER VI SAVING THE SCRAP FROM THE SEA If the human race be extravagant in one, more than in any other direction, it is undoubtedly in connection with the utilization of the harvests of the sea. It is a failing as strongly asserted by the primitive as by the cultured races. The aborigine, when there is a big run, will trap as many fish as he can, not for consumption, but apparently for the mere sake of catching his prey. He will select what he requires and leave the remainder to rot. His civilized brother pursues a broadly similar course, only in this event decomposition may not be permitted to run its course without fulfilling a beneficial purpose. The process can be harnessed, as it were, to a more or less useful function. Improvidence in the consumption of fish is particularly noticeable among those nations which are able to point to an extensive salt-water front, combined with a densely-settled population within a relatively small area. It becomes accentuated when the country is possessed of an intricate and excellent system of rapid inland transportation, allowing the prompt movement of the catches from the points of landing to the centres of consumption.