The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-07-30 00:00:00

AMERICAN ICE.

As we are henceforth to have this cooling luxury regu-
larly supplied to us, and its great superiority both in
clearness and thickness over the home article towing to
the precarious nature of our winters and other causes) is
already acknowledged by all who have tried it, a short
notice of its uses, the manner of keeping it, and of cut-
ting and securing it in America, may prove interesting to
our readers ; and we, therefore, avail ourselves of the fol-
lowing particulars, derived from an American gentleman
well acquainted with the trade, and who has himself re-
cently imported a large quantity from Boston :
Ice has become a great article of export from America.
Sixty thousand tons are annually sent from Boston to
southern parts, the East and West Indies, &e.: and as
saw-dust is solely used in packing it, a large tradteheis
also
carried on in that article. The ice-houses, near lakes
ahnodidipnognldos,,oo aoreto u
someil di n g s,
of ctahpeamb
in-
deed,o all round, two
double walls,—that is, with an inner wall
filled
immense
tons each:
cover half-an-acre of ground. They are built with
wall,
impervious saw-dust—a non-conductor—making a solid
feet from the onter one ; and the space between is
impervious to heat and air, and of ten feet in thickness.
The machines employed for cutting the ice are very beau-
tiful, arid Hie work is done by men and horses, in the
following manner :
The ice that is intended to be cut is kept clear of snow,
as soon as it is sufficiently nick to bear the weight of the
men and horses to be employed, which it will do at six
inches ; and the snow is kept scraped from it until it is
thick enough to cut. A piece of ice is cleared of two
acres in extent, which, at a foot thick, will give about
2,000 tons. By keeping the snow off, it freezes thicker,
as the frost is freely allowed to penetrate. When the
time of cutting arrives, the men commence upon one of
these pieces, by getting a straight line through the centre,
each way. A small hand-plough is pushed along the
line, until the groove is about a quarter of an inch in
width, and three inches deep, when they commence with
" the marker"—an implement drawn by two horses—
which makes two new grooves parallel with the first, 21
inches, the guage remaining in the first groove. It is
then sh fled to the outside groove, and makes two more.
The same operation goes on, in parallel rectangular lines,
until the ice is all marked out into squares of 21 inches.
In the meanwhile the plough is following in these grooves.
drawn by a single horse, a man leading it ; and he cuts up
the ice to a depth of six inches. The outer blocks are
then sawn out, and iron bars are used in splitting them.
These bars are like a spade, of a wedge form. In drop-
ping them into the grooves the ice splits off, and a very
slight blow is sufficient to separate them ; and they split
easy, or hard, according to the weather in a very cold day.
Ice is very brittle in keen frost ; in comparatively softer
weather it is more ductile and resistible.
Platforms, or low tables, are placed near the opening
made in the ice, with an iron slide reaching from them
into the water; and a man stands on each side with an
ice-hook, very much like a boat-hook, but made of
steel with fine sharp points. With these the ice is hooked
with a jerk that throws it on the platform on the slides,
which are of the same height. On a cold day everything
becomes covered with ice, and the blocks are each sent
spinning along, although they weigh two cwt.,
as
tons weighed only a pound. The slides are large
platform to allow the ice to drain, and threela lattice-work
can-worki
thus be easily run in one of them by one horse. It is
then carried to the ice-houses, discharged upon a platform
in front of the doors, and hoisted into the building by a
horse. A wooden frame running upon two iron r
in ods ca-
pable of containing one block slides up and down frontaaa
of each door, and is hoisted by a single pulley. It
house,
small trap lever in the bottom, and when it strikes a bar
which is regulated by the height of the ice in the
the blow is sufficient to slide the ice out on the runs for
receiving it across the building. The whole operations
proceed with astonishing rapidity.is
covered everythings
covered with iron, the ice slips along almost of itself;
and a horse properly trained will hoist ten blocks a-minute.
At the same time, a gang of men are employed in stow-
ing it away, which is very easily done, as the blocks are
perfectly square and only require to be placed. In this
manner 40 men and 12 horses will cut and stow away 400
tons a day. If the weather be favourable, 100 men are
sometimes employed at once ; and, in three weeks the
ice crop, about 200,000 tons, is secured. Some winters
it is very difficult to secure it, as a rain or thaw may come
that will destroy the labour of weeks and render the ice
unfit for market; and then it may snow and rain upon
that, before those employed have time to clear it off;
and if the latter freezes, the result is snow-ice, which is
of no value, and has to be planed off.
The operation of planing proceeds in nearly the same
manner as that of cutting. A plane gaged to run in the
grooves made by " the marker,' and which will shave the
ice to a depth of three inches at one cut is drawn by a
horse, until the whole piece is regularly planed over. The
chips are then scraped off. If the ice is not then clear,
thewgic is continued until the pure ice is reached, and a
few niOlts of hard frost will make it as thick below—inch
for inch—for what has been taken off above.
The ice is transported on railways ; each ice-house has
a branch railway from the main line ; and is conveyed in

properly constructed box-waggons to Boston—a distance
of (as the locality may be) 10 to 18 miles. The tools, ma-
chinery, &c. employed, and the building the houses, and
constructing and keeping up the railroads, &c. are very
expensive ; yet the facilities are such, through good ma-
nagement, that ice can be furnished at a very trifling cost
per pound—and a failure of the ice crop in America would
be a great calamity.
It would appear that for the procuring, preserving, and
use of this new article of import—though but water in its
natural state in the frigid zones—a variety of mechanical
and scientific operations are brought into play. The
gaging, squaring, and (sometimes) the planing appear to
belong to the joiner, aided by the mathematician ; the
ploughing to the agriculturist ; the transport over land to
the civil engineer ; the import to our navigators ; the pre-
servation to our philosophers ; and the use and economy
to our medical men and our house-wives.

CORRESPONDENCE.

BRADFORD MURDER CASE.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.
was not a little surprised to see in the charge
to a jury by one of our judges, in a case where the pri-
soners were charged with murder, something like an at-
tempt to extenuate the crime, on account of tunes being
played by an Orange band which did not please the fancy
of the assassins.
The following is from his Lordship's charge :—" With
respect to the nature of the process:on, and the tunes
that were played, for the purpose of exhibiting some sort
of triumph over a certain class of the inhabitants of Brad-
ford, it was impossible for any one to doubt that the tune
of " the Boyne Water" was played with such intention,
although one of the witnesses, who was a member of one
of the Orange lodges, had at first stated that it was played
because it was a merry tune. The same party, however,
afterwards admitted that the tune was played in comme.
moration of William passing the Boyne Water, a remem-
brance of which circumstance was very offensive to a large
portion of the Irish people."

. .
Indeed, my lord ; and what sort of subjects of Queen
Victoria can this large portion of the Irish people be?
Would they openly declare their regret at the success
which it pleaQed the Almighty to vouchsafe to the British
arms, under King William ; for if so, let them never again
hurrah to the toast of Queen Victoria of England. It is
vain to attempt to please the rebel feelings of a large por-
tion of the Irish people, except by the utterance of dis-
loyalty. God preserve the memory of King William, and
may the Battle of the Boyne never be forgotten.
I am, Sir, yours, &c.
AN ORANGEMAN.