VIII.] ICE-HOUSES. 149 



246. The roof is now raftered, and it is to receive 

 a thatch of clean, sound, and well-prepared wheat or 

 rye straw, four feet thick, as at h h in FIG. 2. 



247. The house having now got walls and roof, the 

 next thing is to make the bed to receive the ice. This 

 bed is the area of the circle of which a is the centre. 

 You begin by laying on the ground round log's, eight 

 inches through, or thereabouts, and placing them 

 across the area, leaving spaces between them of 

 about a foot. Then, crossways on them, poles about 

 four inches through, placed at six inches apart. Then, 

 crossways on them, other poles, about two inches 

 through, placed at three inches apart. Then, cross- 

 ways on them, rods as thick as your ringer, placed at 

 an inch apart. Then upon these, small, clean, dry, last- 

 winter-cut twigs, to the thickness of about two inches ; 

 or, instead of these twigs, good, clean, strong heath, 

 free from grass and moss, arid from rubbish of all sorts. 



248. This is the bed for the ice to lie on ; and as 

 you see, the top of the bed will be seventeen inches 

 from the ground. The pressure of the ice may, per- 

 haps, bring it to fourteen, or to thirteen. Upon this 

 bed the ice is put, broken and pummelled, and beaten 

 down together in the usual manner. 



249. Having got the bed filled with ice, we have 

 next to shut it safely up. As we have seen, there is 

 a passage (e). Two feet wide is enough for this 

 passage; and, being as long as the wall is thick, it is 

 of course, four feet long. The use of the passage is 

 this : that you may have two doors, so that you may, 

 in hot or damp weather, shut the outer door, while 

 you have the inner door open. This inner door may 

 be of hurdle-work, and straw, and covered, on one of 

 the sides, with sheep-skins with the wool on, so as to 

 keep out the external air. The outer-door, which 

 must lock, must be of wood, made to shut very close- 

 ly, and, besides, covered with skins like the other. 

 At times of great danger from heat, or from wet, the 

 whole of the passage may be filled with straw. The 

 door (p. FIG. 3) should face the North, or between 

 North and East. 



13* 



