Reformed

3953

Refrigeration

Reformed Churches, those Protestant;
bodies which are, in their standards and con-
fessions, markedly Calvinistic, and which,
generally speaking, adhere to the presbyterial
in preference to the episcopal form of church
government.

Reformed Church in America, The, a
body of Protestant Christians in the United
States, known until 1867 as the Reformed
Protestant Dutch Church; composed origin-
ally of settlers from the Netherlands. The
first church was organized by Jonas Michaeli-
us on Manhattan Island in 1628, and the
first church edifice was erected in 1633. It
is a distinctively Calvinistic body. The polity
is Presbyterian. The government of the local
church is under the control of a consistory,
comprised of the elders and deacons; dea-
cons and pastors from individual churches
make up the classes for a district; Particular
(provincial) Synods and the General Synod,
the highest court of the church, complete
the ecclesiastical organization.

Reformed Church in the United
States, The, known for many years as the
German Reformed Church, traces its origin
to German, Swiss, and French families who
settled in America in the i8th century. They
established themselves in the South, in New
York, and in Pennsylvania, and being gener-
ally religious in character, soon organized
churches. At length, after a period of con-
troversy, a number of churches withdrew to
form the Synod of the Free German Re-
formed Congregations of Pennsylvania, later
known as the German Reformed Synod of
Pennsylvania and Adjacent States. In doc-
trine and polity the Reformed Church in
the United States is wholly in accord with
the Presbyterian Church.

Reformed Episcopal Church, a religious
body organized, in the city of New York,
Dec. 2, 1873, under the leadership of Bishop
George David Cummings, D.D., Protestant
Episcopal bishop of Kentucky, to perpetuate
the old evangelical or low* tendency, as op-
posed to ritualistic teachings, in the Protes-
tant Episcopal Church. It differs from the
present Protestant Episcopal Church funda-
mentally in government and doctrine. The
highest governing body is a General Council
of clerical and lay deputies meeting trien-
nially. The bishops do not sit separately, as
in the Protestant Episcopal Church, and are
elected by the General Council and not as
diocesan conventions. It does not require
confirmation, though practising it, and al-

ows open communion. The Prayer Book
ooks for its foundation to the second Prayer
Book of Edward the Sixth, compiled prin-
cipally by Archbishop Cranmer, which was
in evangelical or low-church revision of the
first Edwardine Book set forth in 1549.

Refrigerants, in medicine, are means for
.owcrint? the body temperature and relieving
thirst. Baths, wet packs, and sponging are
'xtcrnal refrigerants; and fluids in general,
whether taken by the mouth or injected into
the bowels, tend to cool the body.

Refrigeration is the act of reducing the
temperature of a substance to a point lower
than the surrounding environment. It may
be produced by processes either primarily
chemical or primarily mechanical in nature.
In the first class, melting ice, mixtures of salt
and ice, and mixtures of various soluble salts
.nd water, constitute means of producing
cold. The second or mechanical class includes
the compressed gas machines, compression
machines in which the gas is condensed dur-
ing the cycle, absorption machines, and
vacuum machines. The ordinary household
refrigerator, or ice box, constitutes the simpl-
est refrigeration plant. There are two principal
methods of producing refrigeration by com-
pression machines, differing primarily in that
the refrigerating medium is simply com-
pressed and expanded in one case, whereas
in addition to this, liquefaction and vaporiza-
tion occur in the other case. In the first or
cold air method, the air or gas is first com-
pressed in a compressor and the heat gener-
ated is removed by passage through the tubes
in water. The cold compressed air is then
allowed to expand, working against a piston
which absorbs heat, thus reducing the tem-
perature. The chilled air or gas is then used
as the refrigerating medium. In the second
type of compression machine, the refrigerant,
which has a low boiling point, passes through
a cycle in which it is first compressed in a
pump, then condensed by a cooling medium,
such as air or water, and collected in a re-
ceiver, then vaporized in the refrigerating
coils after passing a regulating valve and
finally passing into tbe pump for use over
again. Ammonia, carbon dioxide, sulphur
dioxide, methyl chloride and ethyl chloride
are the principal substances employed in re-
frigeration by this compression process.

In the absorption system a substance is
used which is capable of absorbing large
quantities of the refrigerant -at low pressures
and at the temperature of the cooling medi-