396 [Assembly 



Mr. A. S. Lyman, the inventor of this improvement, he said, 

 maintained that the very best plan to keep gun powder, when not 

 protected by proper packages, was in one of his ice houses, it 

 affording the dry est atmosphere to be found in our climate, and yet, 

 as it was at such a low temperature that it was not one to desic- 

 cate and ruin the articles stowed in it. At the same time, what- 

 ever gases arose from articles placed within it were arrested and 

 absorbed. 



He said, that to arrange an ice house after the plan of Mr, Ly- 

 man it was necessary to make such a division of the vault or in- 

 terior of the house as would give separate chambers for the ice 

 and the articles to be preserved by it. This division might be 

 horizontal or vertical, as suited the circumstances of the builder, 

 but a horizontal division was regarded the better of the two. 

 Suppose that in a house of the size described, four feet be separ- 

 ated by a vertical partition as high as the top of the ice when 

 filled, and that the ice be kept from the two sides of the house by 

 a rock or stud partition, one foot from each side, so as to leave a 

 well of one foot in width at each of the two opposite sides of the 

 ice. A hole of some two cubic feet should communicate from 

 near the bottom of those wells to the space partitioned off for the 

 conservatory. A rack containing fresh charcoal should cover 

 these apertures. Now, supposing that suitable arran:^ements 

 have been made to collect and conduct off the water formed by 

 the melting ice, so as tj keep the floor dry, and we have the 

 house completed unless we wish the conservatory supplied with 

 shelves, &c., which may be done as necessity may dictate. 



Now it is evident that the air in immediate contact with the 

 ice is the coldest, and so most dense, and therefore finds its way 

 through the rock partition into the wells at the side, there passing 

 through the charcoal into the conservatory, the rarified and vi- 

 tiated air rising up and over the partition into contact with the 

 ice, where it deposits its moisture upon the ice, and then falling 

 in its turn into the well, and through the antiseptic strata of char- 

 coal, thus keeping up a current or circulation ad infinitum. 



Wh^re it is desirable to take ice from the ice house it will be 

 necessary to make one or both of the wells of suffi-cient width to 

 allow an entrance by means of a door. 



