Sec. 15.] CELLARS, CHIMXEYS, AND ICE-UOUSES. 297 



the cakes close, and they come out as square as they went in. Tliere is a 

 free circulation of air in the upper part of niy ice-house, and notliing but 

 straw to exclude the air from the ice. Tlie great Hudson River ice-houses 

 are very large, and always built above ground, with double walls, lillud witli 

 sawdust. The ice is packed close, and broken ice filled in to all the cracks. 

 Some. single ice-houses hold 3,000 tuns; and most of the ice used in the city 

 is cut upon the rivei-, and not upon lakes. 



Mr. QriNx — I noticed that some of these ice-houses use salt hay. Tiic 

 roofs and sides are double, and the best of them are filled with fine charcoal, 

 making the walls eighteen inches thick. I know one person wlio had an 

 underground ice-house, and now has oue above, which he prefers; the ice 

 keeps in this the best. 



J. P. Yeeeder — I made my ice-house by digging a hole ten or twelve feet 

 sijuare, and lined it witii boards as a double wall, filled in with tan-bark. 

 My roof is a straw thatch. My ice keeps jierfoctly well. I have good 

 drainage, and I put about six inches of straw around the ice on bottom, 

 sides, and top. The house is only four feet below the surface, and the rest 

 above. I pack about twelve or fourteen tuns of ice, being careful to fill all 

 the crevices with broken ice. 



John G. Bf-rgex said that lie did not think a double roof necessary. 

 None of the ice-houses in his neighborhood had them. 



Prof. Mapes — The point settled in building ice-houses is, that the whole 

 ice-house should be above ground. This is the practice in Massaciiusctts. 

 There is no substance equal to a confined space of air for the walls of ice- 

 houses. Build of whatever substance you please, so that you have a double 

 wall, and tight enough to hold air, and you will have a perfect protector of 

 ice. As to ventilation, Jenner, who first constructed ventilated ice-boxes, 

 found that ice melted faster in ventilated than in unventilated boxes. Ventila- 

 tion is necessary when you desire to kecj) food sweet. If there is no ventila- 

 tion, the confined air soon becomes very foul iVom animal substances on ice. 

 He then gave some interesting particulars of the large refrigerators in sftmc 

 of the city packing-houses. Some arc so large that they use up a number 

 of tuns of ice a day. The temperature is kept at 42 degrees, and in largo 

 rooms thus cooled hundreds of animals can be killed and cooled every day. 

 If your object is to keep ice without use, shut up close — it needs no venti- 

 lation. 



315. How to Make and Store Ice.— H. Lyman, of John.stown, "Wis., tells 

 how to make ice for j)utting up in ice-houses, where there is no convenient 

 pond or stream, and how to store it without an expensive house built ou 

 purpose. !Mr. Lyman says: 



" I live on the prairie. On thocoldcst day of January I draw water from 

 the well and pour it into square tin pans, two feet long, nine inches wide at 

 tlu; bottom, and nine and an eighth at the top, ami about nine inches deep. 

 While I have been drawing water, Dick lias been gathering dean snow 

 and putting it into the water. The compound is frozen immediately. I now 



