OUR ICE-SUPPLY AND ITS DANGERS. 681 



other abominations, by the vigilance of our health-officers. But we 

 smilingly swallow the dirt which the horse-car companies order thrown 

 upon our streets to save themselves the expense of roughening the 

 roadway in a legitimate manner ; we allow the elevated railroads to 

 rain dust and cinders down into our eyes, and drop oil and water upon 

 our heads and shoulders ; we stumble over boxes and baskets stored 

 upon our sidewalks ; we permit political tricksters to juggle with our 

 lives, even with Asiatic cholera staring us in the face ; we breathe, in 

 some of our most popular, expensive, and fashionable theatres, air 

 which, from lack of adequate ventilation, rivals that of crowded tene- 

 ments and the steerage of stuffy steamships ; and in innumerable other 

 ways are the victims of the money-making and money-saving instincts 

 of our fellows. But, after all, the complacency with which we swallow 

 the frozen filth which some of the ice companies at times deliver at our 

 doors — albeit often very clear and harmless in appearance — because it 

 is cheaper for them to harvest it where the sewers empty than else- 

 where, affords a spectacle of self-abasement as melancholy as it is dis- 

 gusting. If the householder be not brave enough to encounter the 

 scorn of the ice-dealer, or is too tender-hearted to witness the picture 

 of injured innocence which he often presents when the details of his 

 business are called in question, the ice which is used for drinking pur- 

 poses may be put in a separate receptacle, so as not to come directly 

 in contact with the w^ater. 



Our space does not permit us to consider the growing importance 

 of the manufacture of artificial ice. But it seems probable that the 

 sanitary problems which the use of natural ice for drinking purposes 

 presents, especially in large cities, may find their solution in the increas- 

 ing employment of artificial ice made from distilled or otherwise puri- 

 fied water. 



And now, at last, as we look at the old Ice age and the ncAV to- 

 gether, we find that, while in some respects alike, they differ widely in 

 their significance and in their relationship to man. The mysteries of 

 the old ice-crystals perished with them ; the grandeur of the great 

 glaciers passed unseen, leaving desolation. What hardy germs were 

 caught up by the ice as the last cold period came on, and were swept 

 from one part of the continent to another, we can only conjecture. 



The new Ice era came in response to the intelligence and the 

 growing refinement of the material needs of man. Petty as it is in 

 its physical proportions, when set in fancy beside the old, it over- 

 tops it in significance, because it owes its very existence to the com- 

 fort and healing which we compel it to bear. Our blocks of ice can 

 to-day be made to yield up their secrets of marvelous physical consti- 

 tution, and we can read out of their inmost recesses the dainty records 

 of the elemental warfare which silently went on, as now heat and now 

 cold was victor in the water where it slowly formed. We can nurse 

 back to life the delicate organisms which were sporting in the water 



