476 
CALENDAR1AL MEMORANDA FOR DECEMBER. 
The house-gang of men consists of two careful hands in the house, 
to level and pack the ice as fast as it is thrown to them, first laying a 
foundation of straw on the bottom, and a rank of trusses round against 
the wall, surmounted by other ranks of trusses, as the filling proceeds. 
Two other men are stationed in the passage, passing the broken ice 
along with shovels; another, on the outside of the door, throws it 
from the breakers into the passage, as fast as the latter can break it 
up. In the meantime, cart follows cart from the field party, shooting 
their loads into or near the enclosed area, where it is broken on its 
way into the house. Thus the work proceeds until the house is full, 
and with great expedition, if the gangs be equally balanced, and the 
labour equally apportioned. Much depends on the exertions of the 
housemen ; they have to pack the straw firmly round the sides, so that 
no part of the ice touch the brick-work ; they have also to see (as they 
work by candle-light) that the body of ice be firmly and equally 
trodden, and closely rammed. 
When the house is full, the space above the ice is filled with trusses 
of straw, as well as the passage, all the way to the outer door, which is 
immediately shut and locked. 
It is to be observed that the more the ice is beaten and pounded, so 
as to resemble snow, the less air is contained in the mass, and the 
sooner and harder it congeals into a solid body ;—so solid, indeed, that 
it requires to be broken up by mattocks, when wanted for use. Loose 
ice, even in the best-constructed house, keeps but a very short time, 
because the air enclosed with it acts as a solvent, and quickly melts 
the pieces. 
The ice-houses built in this country are all on the same plan, and 
seem to be imitations of the ice-wells of Spain and Italy. They are 
an egg-shaped cavity—the small end downwards ; the walls are of 
stone or brick-work, from fourteen to eighteen inches thick. Some¬ 
times the walls are double, that is, built with a vacuity of three or 
four inches between, to act as a non-conductor of heat from the sur¬ 
rounding earth. In either case, the wall is backed by a coating of 
rammed clay, to prevent the soakage of land-springs. The size is 
always according to the demand of the family: ten or eleven feet wide, 
and fourteen to sixteen feet deep, is a middling size, crowned with a 
flattish arch. The north side of a bank or hill, or a place deeply 
shaded by trees, are situations usually chosen, but always with refer¬ 
ence to a circumstance indispensable to the efficacy of an ice-house, viz. 
a lower dip or stratum of absorbent earth to receive the drainage from 
the ice. For this purpose a little well or cess-pool, grated over, is 
