F THE 



UNIVERSITY 



OF 



XI. 



HOW TO BUILD ICE-HOUSES. 



December, 1846. 



THE ICE-HOUSE and the HOT-HOUSE, types of Lapland and the 

 Tropics, are two contrivances which civilization has invented for 

 the comfort or luxury of man. A native of the Sandwich Islands, 

 who lives, as he conceives, in the most delicious climate in the world, 

 and sleeps away the best part of his life in that happy state which 

 the pleasure-loving Italians call "dolce far niente" (sweet do no- 

 thing) smiles and shudders when he hears of a region where his 

 familiar trees must be kept in glass houses, and the water turns, now 

 and then, into solid, cold crystal ! 



Yet, if happiness, as some philosophers have affirmed, consists 

 in a variety of sensations, we denizens of temperate latitudes have 

 greatly the advantage of him. What surprise and pleasure awaits 

 the Sandwich Islander, for example, like that we experience on en- 

 tering a spacious hot-house, redolent of blossoms and of perfume, in 

 mid-winter, or on refreshing our exhausted frames with one of " Thom- 

 son and Weller's " vanilla creams, or that agreeable compound of 

 the vintage of Xeres, pounded ice, etc., that bears the humble name 

 of " sherry-cobbler ;" but which, having been introduced lately from 

 this country into London, along with our " American ice," has sent 

 into positive ecstasies all those of the great metropolis, who depend 

 upon their throats for sensations. 



Our business at the present moment, is with the ice-house, as a 

 necessary and most useful appendage to a country residence. Abroad, 

 both the ice-house and the hot-house are portions of the wealthy 



