478 
CALENDARIAL MEMORANDA FOR DECEMBER. 
near to the mansion-house as possible. If no such circumstances offer, 
then fix on some dry spot, where a clump of trees and shrubs would be 
no eye-sore. Here, instead of digging a deep well, clear away the sur¬ 
face-spit of loose earth, till a firm subsoil is found, and on this the 
building is to be erected. The size must be in proportion to the 
demands of the family. If one pail of ice be wanted daily for six 
months, the house should be capacious enough to hold one hundred and 
fifty cubic feet of ice, or from fifteen to eighteen large cart loads beaten 
fine. A parallelogram ten feet wide and fifteen in length, with side 
walls four feet high, and arched over, will hold this quantity, as well 
as a lining of straw under, at the sides, and over the entire body of ice 
when deposited. The ends of this arch are built up, except the door¬ 
way, five feet by four, at the outer end. An arched passage, eight feet 
in length, and four feet wide, connects the inner with the outer door. 
The walls and arches should be all fourteen-inch work, all carefully 
and well bedded in strong stone-lime mortar. The floors of the main 
vault and passage are paved smoothly, and laid with a descent out¬ 
wards, so that the drainage may flow into a dip at one side of the inner 
door, where an opening through the wall of the passage will permit its 
escape into a cesspool on the outside. In front of the door, a paved 
area, twelve or fifteen feet square, surrounded by low walls, should be 
added to complete the building. 
The structure only requires now to be protected from the heat of 
the sun, the soaking in of rain water, or the entrance of air. A coat 
of fine clay is laid over all the brickwork, and then covered with a 
mound of earth, the thicker the better, and which is afterward planted 
with evergreen shrubs, and surrounded by trees. 
Some practical men think that, instead of earth, a very thick coat of 
dry litter and thatch repels air and heat much more effectually than 
any covering of earth, and in which case the house only requires the 
shade of trees. 
When the north brow of a hill can be taken advantage of, a cave dug 
horizontally into the bank (and the farther the better) to admit the 
brickwork, may be made an excellent ice-house; because the ice, being 
deposited so far from any atmospheric influence, will remain long 
unmelted ; and the floor from the front area inwards to the further end 
being on a gently inclined plane, makes both the getting in and getting 
out the ice a very easy affair. 
Snow may be used when ice cannot be had; and if well trodden 
together and watered a little, if dry and powdery, it soon becomes a 
solid mass of ice. Some add sprinklings of salt along with the ice when 
