1 
720 I C 
ornamented with firs and pines. Each perfon, being 
provided with a (ledge, mounts the ladder; and having 
attained the fummit, he fets himfelf upon his Hedge at 
the upper extremity of the inclined plane, down which 
he flitters it to glide with coniiderable rapidity, poifing 
it as he goes down ; when the velocity acquired by the 
defcent carries it above one hundred yards upon the 
level ice of the river. At the end of this courfe, there is 
ufually a fimilar ice-hill, nearly parallel to the former, 
which begins where the other ends; fo that the perfon 
immediately mounts again, and in the fame manner glides 
down, the other inclined plane of ice. This diverfion he 
repeats as often as he pleafes. The boys all'o are conti¬ 
nually employed in lkaiting down thefe hills; they glide 
chiefly upon one Ikait, as they are able to poile them- 
lelves better upon one leg than two. Thefe ice-hills 
exhibit a pleafing appearance upon the river, as well from 
the trees with which they are ornamented, as from the 
moving objects which at particular times of the day are 
defceuding without intermiflion. 
What may be executed in ice was Ihown by the ice- 
palace which the emprefs Anne caufed to be built on the 
bank of the Neva in 1740. It was conftrufted of huge 
quadrats of ice hewn in the manner of free (tone: the 
edifice was fifty-two feet in length, fixteen in breadth, 
and twenty in height. The walls w'ere three feet thick. 
In the feveral apartments were tables, chairs, beds, and 
all kinds of houfehold furniture, of ice. In front of the 
palace, befides pyramids arid flatues, flood fix cannons 
carrying balls of fix pounds weight, andtwo mortars, of ice. 
From one of the former, as a trial, an iron ball, with 
only a quarter of a pound of powder, was fired off. The 
ball went through a two-inch board, at fixty paces from 
the mouth of the cannon; and the piece of ice artillery, 
with its lavette, remained uninjured by the explofion. 
The illumination of the ice-palace at night had an afto- 
nifliingly grand effeft. 
Another frozen fpebtacle of wonder at St. Peterfburg 
Is the ice-market, a place for the fale of provifions in a 
(late of congelation. Here the aftonifhed fight as arrefted 
by a vail open fquare, containing the bodies of many 
thoufand animals piled in pyramidal heaps; cows, fheep, 
bogs, fowls, butter, eggs, rifh—all flattened into granite. 
See the article Frost, vol. viii. p. 80. 
The fifh are attractively beautiful; pofleffing the vivid- 
nefs of their living colour, with the tranfparent clcarnels 
of wax imitations. The beads prefent a far lefs pleafing 
lpeCtacle, molt of the larger fort being fkinned, and 
clafled according to their fpecies; groupes of many hun¬ 
dreds are feen piled up on their hind legs againft one 
another, as if each were making an effort to climb over 
the back of its neighbour. The motianlefs apparent 
animation of their feemingly ftruggling attitudes (as if 
ludjJenly feized in moving, and petrified by froft) gives a 
horrid life to this dead lcene. Had an enchanter’s wand 
been inftantaneoutty waved over this lea of animals, 
during their different actions, they could not have been 
fixed more decidedly. Their hardnels, too, is fo extreme, 
that the natives chop them up for the purchalers like 
wood, and the chips of their carcafes fly off in the fame 
way as lplinters do from in a lies of timber and coals. The 
provifions collected here are the product of countries 
many thoufand verlts beyond Molcow, Siberia, Archangel, 
and ltill remoter provinces furniih the merchandife, which, 
during the froft’s feverity, is conveyed here on ,(ledges. 
Iif confequence of the multitudes of thefe commodities, 
and the fliort period allowed to the exiltence of the 
market, they are cheaper than at any other part of the 
year, and are, therefore, brought in large quantities to 
be laid up as winter flock. When depolited in cellars,, 
they keep good for a length of time. - ' 
At certain hours every day, the market, while it lalts, 
js a falhionable lounge. There you meet all the gaiety 
of St. Peterfburg ; even from the imperial- family down 
to the Ruffian merchant's wife. Incredible crowds of 
I 
E. ‘ 
fledges, carriages, and pedeltiians, throng the place; and 
the different groupes of fpeftators, purchafers, vendors, 
and commodities, form fuch am extraordinary fpeitacle 
as no other city as known to equal. Sir R: K. Porter’s 
Travels. 
To break the To make the firft opening to any 
attempt.—Thus have I broken the ice to invention, for the 
lively reprefentation of floods and rivers-neceffaryTor our 
painters and poets. Peacham. 
After he’d a white look’d wife. 
At lalt broke filence and the ice. Hudibras, 
To make Ices. The feveral gradations, in bringing 
this greatefl luxury of warm climates to perfedtion, were 
perhaps the following: firft, preferving fnow in pits, 
which probably was pradtifed in very early ages, and 
mixing it with the beverage; next, boiling the water and 
placing it in a veil'd in the midlt of f'now, which is men¬ 
tioned (at leaft the principle is recognized) by Ariftotle- 
and Galen ; then, the aid of evaporation was called, by 
which artificial ice is procured throughout Hindooftan f 
laftly, nitre was employed to refrigerate the water con¬ 
taining the liquor to be ufed. The lalt difeovery is 
claimed by Villa Franca, a Spaniard, in 1550: but we 
think it more probable that the Portuguele found it in 
their Indian polleffions. 
In many countries the warmth of the climate renders 
ice not only a defirable, but even a necefl'ary, article ; lb 
that it becomes an objedt of fome conlequence to fall 
upon a ready and cheap method of procuring it. Though 
the cheapelt method hitherto difeovered feems to be that 
related under the article Cold, vol. iv. p. 766, by means 
of ,fal ammoniac or Glauber’s fait, yet it may not be 
anvils to take notice of fome attempts made by Mr. Ca- 
vallo to difeover a method of producing a fufficient de¬ 
gree of cold for this purpofe by the evaporation of vola¬ 
tile liquors. He found, however, in the courfe of thel'e 
experiments, that ether was incomparably fuper-ior to any 
other fluid in the degree of cold it produced. The price 
of the liquor naturally induced him to fall upon a method 
of ufing it with as little walte. as polfible. The thermo¬ 
meter he made ufe of had the ball quite detached from 
the ivory piece on which the fcale was engraved. The 
various fluids were then thrown upon the ball through 
the capillary aperture of a fmall glafs veil'd lhaped like a 
funnel; and care was taken to throw them upon it fo- 
(lowly, that a drop might now and then fall from the 
under part, excepting when thole fluids were ufed which 
evaporate very flowly; in which cafe it was fufficient 
barely to keep the ball moilt, without any drop falling 
from -it. During the experiment the -thermometer was- 
kept ver.y gently turning round its axis, that the fluid 
made ule of might fall upon every part of its ball. He 
found .this method preferable to that of dipping the ball 
of the thermometer into the fluid and taking it out again 
immediately, or even of anointing it conlfantly with a 
feather. The evaporation, and canfequently the cold 
produced by it, may .be increafed by blowing on the 
thermometer with a pair of bellows ; though this was 
not ufed in the experiments now to be related, on account 
of the difficulty of its being performed by one perfoq, 
and likewife becaufe it occaiions much uncertainty in 
the refults. 
The room in which the experiments were made was 
heated to 64° of Fahrenheit; and with water it was re¬ 
duced to 56°, -viz. S° below that of the room, or of the 
water employed. The elfeft took place in about two 
minutes; but though the operation was continued fora 
longer time, it did not fink lower. With Tpirit of wine 
it lunk to 48°. The cold was greater with highly refti-- 
fled 1 pirit than with the weaker fort; but the difference- 
is lefs than would be expefted by one who had never feen.- 
the experiment made. The pure fpir.it produces its 
etfeft much more quickly. On ufing various other fluids 
which were either compounded of water and fpirituous 
liquors 
