J^o. 144.] 403 



the ends so as to secure the square in its place without nails or 

 pinsj the interstices of the logs crowded fall of soft clay to make 

 it tight, I have volunteered my labor with others on the Oronee 

 river, fifty-three years ago, to build such a house for a new comer 

 and family; and we made it in one day; and the new citizen 

 and his wife and children were inaugurated there the next morn- 

 ing, with boiled ham, some venison, a corn cake about the diame- 

 ter and thickness of a good-sl^ed grindstone, with a good lot of 

 light wood (old naked pine canes and knots, mere lumps of pitch) 

 to warm and light the family. From this to dwellings of sawed 

 timber and boards, and now to balloon houses, best of all for 

 people like us in a hurry. 



Solon Robinson read the following letter : 



Windsor Locks, Conn., Tuesday^ Jan. 9, 1855. 

 Dear Sir — Will you not give in the Tribune some little de- 

 scription of the " Balloon Frames of Buildings" referred to in 

 the notes of the Farmers' Club Meeting in your number for Janu- 

 ary 5. It would be acceptable to many readers of the Tribune. 



In regard to ice houses, I think you are mistaken as to the im- 

 possibility of keeping ice in houses of small dimensions. I have 

 an ice house of the capacity of an eight feet cube. I fill it only 

 to a depth of six or seven feet, and it lasts me through the sea- 

 son. Another house a few rods distant, a thirteen feet cube 

 (more than four times the capacity of my own), is uniformly 

 spent by the 1st of September. My ice house is nearly one-half 

 underground, the soil a heavy clay loam, with hard clay at a 

 depth of two and a half or three feet. There is standing water 

 not more than twenty feet distant, and one foot below the bottom 

 of the ice house. My walls above ground are about twenty inches 

 thick, filled in with sawdust, the bottom gravelled, no planking, 

 and a blind drain to take off the water on account of the imper- 

 vious nature of the earth. I fill by freezing the water discharged 

 in spray from a single jet from a half inch pipe. I have used 

 this method now five years. It is less convenient in respect to 

 cutting out ice for use, but it saves the expense of filling, and the 

 objection is not considerable. The plan would hardly answer, 



