HOW “ARTIFICIAL ICE” IS MADE. 
PRINCIPLE OF COLD STORAGE EXPLAINED. 
The Wonderful Work of Ammonia. 
We have been asked by a number of readers to ex¬ 
plain how artificial ice is produced, and how cold 
storage houses are kept at a low temperature. There 
are several methods of securing a low temperature by 
artificial means. The one we describe is largely used 
in this city. We are indebted to The Fruitman’s 
Guide for the illustrations. 
When heat is transferred from one object to another 
one is made hotter and the other is made cooler. Sup¬ 
pose we boil a kettleful of water over the fire. The 
heat which enables the water to expand into steam 
must be supplied by the combustion of fuel of some 
sort. We transfer the heat from the coal or wood to 
the water. The steam, in passing from water, may 
be said to “cool the fire”. We heat our house by 
burning a ton of coal. We might easily reverse the 
statement by saying 
that we cool the ton 
of coal by heating the 
house. A simpler 
illustration than the 
evaporation of water 
as steam may be seen 
in the cooling pro¬ 
duced by evaporating 
water from the hand. 
Take the little de¬ 
vice known as an 
“atomizer”, shown 
at Fig. 301, charge 
it with ordinary per¬ 
fume or with ether. 
Hold the back of the 
hand before the noz¬ 
zle and compress the 
bulb. A fine spray 
of the volatile liquid 
is thrown upon the 
flesh and rapidly 
evaporates, produc¬ 
ing the sensation of 
cold ; and if the pro¬ 
cess be kept up suf¬ 
ficiently long, the 
flesh may be frozen. 
Just such an appar¬ 
atus as this is used in 
freezing small speci- 
mens in scientific 
laboratories, and this 
“atomizer” shows 
exactly the principle 
employed in the 
great refrigerator machines, which turn out 100 tons 
of ice per day, or cool thousands of cubic feet of 
storage space. The hunters dip a hand in water and 
hold it up to tell which way the wind blows, know¬ 
ing that the side next to the wind will be coldest, be¬ 
cause evaporation takes heat away—in other words, is 
a cooling process. 
Ammonia has a very low boiling point under at¬ 
mospheric pressure. It is also very volatile, and for 
many reasons is the best liquid for use in ice making. 
In a general way the plan for using it is about as fol¬ 
lows : Liquid ammonia is allowed to feed slowly into 
a coil of pipe, where it boils away into a gas, rapidly 
abstracting heat from all surrounding objects. To 
render the cooling effect available, the coils of pipe 
into which the ammonia expands may be submerged 
in a tank containing a saturated solution of common 
salt. This brine is speedily reduced to any desired 
temperature, down to zero, and thus becomes a store¬ 
house of cold, so to speak, which can be drawn upon 
by circulation through other coils of pipes running 
through cooling rooms, in the case of refrigeration ; 
or cans of water may be submerged in the brine in 
the manufacture of an inferior quality of artificial 
ice. Another method of refrigeration is the direct 
expansion of the liquid ammonia into the coils in the 
cooling room, but in either case the underlying prin¬ 
ciple of the absorption of heat is precisely the same. 
As the ammonia expands into the pipes in the form 
of gas it takes up the heat from surrounding objects 
just as, on a small scale, the ether, blown out of the 
atomizer, cools the hand. Blow the ether through 
small metal pipes, and they would soon be cold. After 
passing into the pipes, the ammonia gas is not per¬ 
mitted to escape. A machine known as a “ com¬ 
pressor ”, which is really a large suction pump, is used 
to pump the gas back. It is hot after taking up the 
heat of the rooms through which the pipes run. It is 
cooled by running it through a coil which is kept in 
cold water. Thus the gas is liquified and made ready 
to send on its journey again. The process goes on 
over and over. The liquid ammonia is kept cold. It 
boils at a low temperature and the gas expands 
rapidly through the pipes, drawing away the heat 
from surrounding bodies. Having served this pur¬ 
pose it is pumped out and cooled to the form of a 
liquid and sent over the same road once more. Thus 
by its expansion as gas it takes the heat out of what¬ 
ever is placed near it, and gives the heat up when it 
passes out of the cooling room. 
In the manufacture of ice several systems are used. 
In one a can or case of natural water is nut into lime, 
through which run coils of ammonia pipes. This re¬ 
tains in the ice all the air and impurities that are in 
the water. Another way is to freeze the water on the 
surface of metal plates which are kept cold by a coil 
of pipe. Fig. 300 shows how such ice is made. The 
plates were arranged in a short tank which is filled 
with filtered water. These plates or coils are arranged 
about 27 inches apart. The coils are cooledoby ad¬ 
mitting the ammonia, and the ice forms slowly directly 
on the surface of the coil, freezing outwardly from 
both sides, and continuing till there is a thickness of 
10 or 12 inches on either side. Ordinarily it requires 
five or six days to freeze the ice in this way. It is 
then lifted out as shown in Fig. 300, and cut up into 
any desired size by means of a steam saw, which is an 
edged hollow tool which delivers hot steam along its 
edge and cuts rapidly down through the ice. 
APPLE GROWING IN EGYPT, ILLINOIS. 
A COLD STORAGE PLANT. 
(Concluded from vasje 7 06 ). 
A man who has the energy and push that will 
rapidly bring him into the front ranks as an apple 
buyer and shipper, is John E. Hanon, of Flora. He 
and his associates have just completed a large cold 
storage house with a capacity of 5,000 barrels. They 
have 275 acres of orchards of their own, and are mak¬ 
ing arrangements to 
buy and ship all the 
apples grown in the 
immediate neighbor¬ 
hood of their storage 
plant, which holds 
thousands of bushels. 
This cold storage 
plant is located be¬ 
side a deep cut on 
the line of the 0. & 
M. K. B,., and the 
building is sunk into 
the ground so that 
its lower floor is five 
feet above the track. 
From this lower floor, 
a tunnel is cut to the 
railroad, through 
which the fruit can 
rapidly be loaded on 
to the cars. Generally 
the apples are as¬ 
sorted and barreled 
in the orchard and 
then hauled direct to 
the storage house 
where they are kept 
until their destina¬ 
tion is ascertained. 
As soon as Mr. Hanon 
is informed of a good 
market in any part 
of the country, for 
one or several car¬ 
loads, the cars are 
called for and the 
fruit shipped direct and without a moment’s delay. 
Any one can readily see the great advantage this ar¬ 
rangement gives Mr. Hanon, and it is safe to pre¬ 
dict that his example will be followed by many 
other extensive orchardists in the apple belt. 
To an outsider, it seems rather strange that the 
people who have lived here and tried to farm for half 
a century or more, should need to have strangers come 
among them to show them what their soil is good for, 
and how to do business profitably. If the country had 
been left in sole possession of the easy-going old set¬ 
tlers, the apple belt, the strawberry belt and the nut¬ 
meg melon tract would still be unknown quantities. 
But it is remarkable how these old settlers—this gen¬ 
eration, at least—are waking up and “ catching on ”. 
It is very evident that they are determined to get 
good positions in the procession, and to keep up with 
the march of progress. 
One of the uses to which a cold storage plant, with 
its barreling and temporary storing annex, can be 
HOW ARTIFICIAL ICE IS MADE AND CUT. Fig. 3 00. 
