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 inaniler of keeping it, and of. cut-
tingt and securing it in America, may prove interesttienf,olo_
our readers ; and we, therefore, avail ourselves of h
ttloewilinagegpuaaritaicteudla,arsi,thdetrhievetdrafdreo,manadn Awnhioerhicaasni,giemnsteleymtaen.
cenletelyiiiamsphoereteemd ae
alagrgteeaqtueatottieitlye ferfoemxpßootsttonnom:
Boston
diferso,m&c. ; and as
thousand
the ton
East and
nn uN.aNlleys.
`Vest
sentlndies,
southern Sixty
pTachleiipiege-iht,oau.sleas.rr
netarardteheislaaklseos
carried on
and ponds, are immense wooden buildings, capable of
nisinsotteal solely
article.use d
holding 10,000 to 20,000 tons each: some of them, in-
deed, cover half-an-acre of ground. They are built with
double walls,—that is, with an inner wall all round, two
feet from the enter one; and the space between is filled
with saw-dust—a non-conductor—making a solid wall,
Theini penir vai oelui
ist teos
ehnelapti
eaynedd afai rt,
cuttingand of t theen
icef ee
at
rien
ye khneeasas:
follow aning manner
tiful, dte work is done by men and horses, in the
The ice that is intended to be cut is kept clear of snow,
as soon as it is sufficiently thick to bear the weight of the
men and horses to be employed, which it will do at six
inches ; aid 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.fted 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
etao tfhreeswt e; ati erinavery
comparativelyco softerl d day.
Ice is verybrittle
weather it is more ductile and resistible.
made in the ice, with an iron slide reaching
Platforms, or low tables, are placed neartlfiteeompetnhieneag
`With but made of
ice-hook, very much like a boathook,.
into the water ; and a man stands on each side with an
steel with fine sharp points. th these the ice is hooked
each sent
spinning along, although they weigh two
with a jerk that throws it on the plat oeramid
doany
ety
the slides,
which are of the same height. On a
becomes covered with ice, and the blocks aret as
if
they
weighed only a pound. The slides are
It
largecwt.,
attice-work
platform to a
id
open a platform
Bow the ice tothdermainh,yaneclaethh ireetese.i
tons can
thus be easily run in one of s
then carried to the ice-houses, discharge
in front of the doors, and hoisted into the Ipoinldrmogdsbya
horse. A wooden frame running upon two ca-
pable of containing one block slides up and ?gown in
hfraosnat
of each door, and is hoisted by a single pulley. It
small trap lever in the bottom, and when it strikese't
which is regulated by the height of the icein he a ba
r
which ar
house,
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. As everything is
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 tobe 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,
the work is continued until the pure ice is reached, and a
few nights 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