Seo. 15.] CELLARS, CHIMNEYS, AND ICE-nOCSES. 293 



in place. ISTow board these studs on the inside, and batten the cracks with 

 rough boards, and serve the under side of the joists in tlie same way. This 

 makes a tight boarded room, eight feet wide, eight feet high, and twelve 

 feet long. The floor must be laid upon timber bedded in gravel or charcoal, 

 to cut off any currents of air, but so that all water from melted ice will 

 drain off immediately. Divide off four feet of the end in which you intend 

 to have the door, for a cooling-room, and you will have room for a cube of 

 ice eight feet, less the straw or sawdust all around between the ice and 

 boards, and this will last anj' family through the hot weather, with most liberal 

 use of it for all needed purposes. 



ISTow for the protection of the ice to prevent its melting. Set up another 

 "balloon frame" outside of the first, from one to two feet off, the widest 

 space being the best, boarded perpendicularly with rough boards battened. 

 The top of the outer frame must be tied firmly to the inner one by strips of 

 boards nailed from plate to plate, and the space between the walls com- 

 pactly filled with charcoal, sawdust, or straw, provision being made for a 

 narrow doorway in one end, to be closed with shutters inside and out, which 

 must be made to shut tight, and will bo greatly improved by lining them 

 with a coat of straw two inches thick, fastened on by lath nailed across. 

 About the roof. This must be made in the same way as the sides, with two 

 sets of rafters, boarded and filled between with straw, with good shingling 

 outside, or some other tight roofing. It will be necessary to make a traj) in 

 the roof, or a door in the gable end, opposite the usual entrance, with a slide 

 leading to the interior, for the coiivenience of filling, and there must be a 

 suitable ventilating chimney, six inches square, from the ice up through 

 the roof, which at times may be partially closed by a wisp of straw. The 

 space between the joists and the rafters, if filled with straw, will assist in 

 the preservation of the ice, and need never be removed, except the portion 

 around the door made for putting in ice. 



The expense of such an ice-house it will be easy to calculate upon the 

 local cost of lumber. 



Such a building as we have described will take forty-eight studs 8 feet 

 long, 2 by 4 inches in size, which is quite strong enough, and sixteen inside 

 rafters of same size, 8 feet long; twenty rafters of same size, 9 feet long, for 

 outside; two sills 2 by 6 inches, S feet long each; two ditto 13 feet long 

 each for inside frame; two ditto IG feet and two ditto 12 feet for outside 

 sills, and some short pieces of stuff for gable-end studs ; for plates two 

 boards G inches wide, 13 feet long; two ditto 8 feet long; two ditto 12 feet 

 and two ditto IG feet each ; and this constitutes the timber of the franio, and 

 will not exceed 700 feet, board measure. In fact, this whole frame could be 

 made of straight poles, or split stuff, which would cost but a trifle on some 

 farms. The boarding of sides, roots, floors, partition, measures in all, we be- 

 lieve, 1,620 feet of surface and bat;tens, so that 2,500 feet of lumber and 2,000 

 shingles appear to be ample for an ice-house to stow a cube 8 feet square, 

 with a cooling-room i by 8; and two men can build it in four days. >«'oW 



