492 Miscellaneous. (Serr. 
The ponds from which the Boston ice is cut are situated within ten miles of the 
city. It is also procured from the Kennebec and Penobscot rivers in the State of 
Maine, where it is deposited in ice houses upon the banks, and shipped from thence 
to the Capital. A peculiar machine is used to cut it from the ponds in blocks of 
two feet square, and from one foot to eighteen inches thick, varying according to 
the intensity of the season. If the winter does not prove severe enough to freeze 
the water to a convenient thickness, the square slabs are laid again over the sheet 
ice, until consolidated, and so recut. The ice is stored in ware-houses construct- 
ed for the purpose at Boston. 
In shipping it to the West Indies, a voyage of 10 or 15 days, little precaution is 
used. The whole hold of the vessel is filled with it, having a lining of tan about 
four inches thick upon the bottom and sides of the hold, and the top es covered 
witha layer of hay. The hatches are then closed, and are not allowed to be opened 
till the ice is ready to be discharged. It is usually measured for shipping, and each 
cord reckoned at three tons: a cubic foot weighs 583lbs. 
For the voyage to India, amuch longer one than had been hitherto attempted’ 
some additional precautions were deemed necessary for the preservation of the ice. 
The ice-hold was an insulated house extending from the after part of the forward 
hatch to the forward part of the after hatch, about 50 feet in length. It was con- 
structed as follows : 
A floor of one-inch deal planks was first laid down upon the dunnage at 
the bottom of the vessel ; over this was strewed a layer one foot thick of tan, 
that is, the refuse bark from the tanners’ pits, thoroughly dried, which is found to 
be a very good and cheap non-conductor; over this was laid another deal planking, 
and the four sides of the ice-hold were built up in exactly the same manner, insul- 
ated from the sides of the vessel, The pump, well, and main mast were boxed 
round in the same manner, 
The cubes of ice were then packed or built together so close as to leave no space 
between them, and to make the whole one solid mass: about 180 tons were thus 
stowed. On the top was pressed down closely a foot of hay, and the whole was 
shut up from access of air, with a deal planking one inch thick, nailed upon the 
yower surface of the lower deck timbers ; the space between the planks and the deck 
being stuffed with tan. 
On the surface of the ice, at two places, was introduced a kind of float, having 
a guage rod passing through a stuffing box in the cover, the object of which was 
to note the gradual decrease of the ice as it melted and subsided bodily. 
The ice was shipped on the 6th and 7th of May, 1833, and discharged in Calcutta, 
on the 13th, 14th, 15th, and 16th September, making the voyage in four months and 
seven days. 
The amount of wastage could not be exactly ascertained from the sinking of the 
guages, because on opening the chamber it was found that the ice had melted between 
each block, and not from the exterior only in the manner of one sclid mass as was 
anticipated. Calculating from the rods and from the diminished draught of the 
ship, Mr. DixwELu estimated the loss on arrival at Diamond Harbour to be fifty-five 
tons. Six or eight tons more were lost during the passage up the river, and probably 
twenty in landing. About one hundred tons, say three thousand maunds, were 
finally deposited in the ice house on shore, a lower room in a house at Brightman’s 
ghaut, rapidly floored andlined with planks for the occasion. 
