2 4 
ICE HOUSES. 
all the melted ice. Beneath the floor, a ditch may 
be dug, running the entire length of the house, and 
leading to a lower level, perhaps of the adjoining 
lake or neighboring stream; or, instead of this 
ditch, a deep cel¬ 
lar may be form¬ 
ed with proper 
drains, and one 
of Kephart’s fruit 
preservers substi¬ 
tuted for the floor 
of the house. The 
entrance doors, 
one at each end 
of the building, 
should be double, 
with a foot space 
between each, 
and trap doors to 
be opened when 
the weather is 
dry, and always 
to be closed when 
the air is damp or 
moist. The di¬ 
mensions of the 
house should not 
be less than 13 
by 20 feet with 6 
foot posts. 
Fia. 5. 
EXPLANATION. 
a, a, b, b, c, c, Ditch or drain, partially or entirely 
filled with rubble or loose stones. 
a, d, Planking of the main body of the house. 
c, e , Entrance door. 
/, Trap door. 
Preparatory to filling the ice house, the floor 
should be covered with a bed of straw about a foot 
thick for the ice to rest upon. The operation of 
■storing may commence as early in the season as the 
thickness of the ice will admit. The blocks may 
be sawed out about two feet square,-and laid up 
like masonry, in a solid mass, impenetrable to the 
sun and air ; and when the house is filled, the ice 
should be carefully covered up with a thick coating 
as they are thrown in, and thus make the whole 
into a compact mass. 
For the benefit of our readers, we give the fol 
lowing plan for the construction of ice houses, fron 
Fortune’s China, which confirms in a measure, the 
principles as advocated above. The trees in our 
engraving are not designed as requisite for the per¬ 
fection of the plan, but are only added by the artist 
to give effect to the scene. 
On the left bank of the Ning-po River, proceed¬ 
ing upwards from the town and forts of Chingbai, 
and in various other parts in the north of China, I 
have met with these ice houses. When I inspected 
them for the first time, in 1843, their construction 
and situation differed so much from what I had 
been accustomed to consider the essentials of an ice 
house at home, that I had great doubts of their effi¬ 
ciency ; but at the present time, which is the end 
of August, 1844, many of these houses are yet full 
of ice, and seem to answer the end most admirably. 
You are probably aware, from my former descrip¬ 
tions of the country, that the town of Ning-po is 
built in the midst of a level plain, from 20 to 30 
miles across, [in latitude 30° N., or about the same 
parallel as that of New Orleans.] These ioe houses 
stand on the river sides, in the centres of this plain, 
completely exposed to the sun—a sun, too, very 
different in its effect from what we experience in 
England—clear, fierce, and burning—which would 
try the efficiency of our best English ice houses, as 
well as it does the constitution of an Englishman in 
China. 
The bottom of the ice house is nearly on a level 
with the surrounding fields, and is generally about 
20 yards long by 14 broad. The walls, which are 
built with mud and stone, are very thick, 12 feet in 
height, and are, in fact, a kind of embankment 
rather than walls, having a door through them on 
one side, and a kind of sloping terrace on the other 
by which the ice can be thrown into the house. On 
the top of the walls or embankment, a tall span roof 
is raised, constructed of bamboos thickly thatched 
with straw, giving the whole an appearance exactly 
resembling an English haystack. And this is the 
simple structure which keeps ice so well during the 
summer months, under the burning sun of China ! 
The Chinaman with his characteristic ingenuity, 
manages also to fill his ice house in a most simple 
way, and at a very trifling expense. 
Around the house he has a small 
flat, level field, which he takes 
care to overflow in winter before 
the cold weather comes. It then 
freezes, and furnishes the necessary 
supply at the door. Again, in 
spring these same fields are plowed 
up, and. planted with rice ; and any 
water which comes from the bottom 
of the ice house is conveyed into 
them by a drain constructed for the 
purpose. Of course here, as in 
England, the ice is carefully covered 
up with a thick coating of straw 
when the house is filled. Thus the Chinamen, 
with little expense in building his ice house, and 
an economical mode of filling it, manages to secure 
an abundant supply for preserving his fish during 
the hot summer months. This, I believe, is the 
Chinese Ice Houses.—Fig. 6. 
of sawdust, or straw. In filling the house, if it be 
inconvenient to saw the ice into exact blocks, to 
match and lay up smooth within, like mason work, 
the lumps may be beaten down with heavy mallets, 
