Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1852-07-14
From Dickens Household Words.

| From Dickens Household Words.
Solomon n appreciated ice in sumner
Gas the cold Of snow in the time Of hal
vest" he says, $50 is faithful messenge
to those who send him; for he refreshe
the soul of his masters" My soul want
something colder than proveFb; and | ar
more refreshed by reading what the Re
mans man did in the iceway. They understoO
the luxury of ice and snow in; SUMNER
They preserved them in pits. and hawke'
them about their streets. Even. now,
little above Rocca di Papa. ION the ancien
Mons Albanus y is plain, called Hannibal
camp, from which snow is collected annu
ally for the use of Rome. On this dry plair
they dig pits, about fifty feet deep, and
Twenty-Five broad at top, in the, form Of Z
sugar.loaf or cone. The larger the pit, nc
doubt the snow will preserve the better
About three feet from the bottom, they com,
monty fix wooden crate, which serves fol
a drain should any of the snow happen to
melt, which otherwise would stagnate, and
hasten the dissolution of the rest. The pit
thus formed, and lined with straw and
prunings of trees, is filled with snow, which
is beaten down as hard as possible, till 1t
becomes solid body. 1t is afterwards COW
cred with more prunlngs Of trees, and a
roof is raised in form of low cone, well
thatched over with straw. A door is left
at the side, covered likewise with straw, by
which men enter and cut out the ice (tor
such it becomes) with mattock. The
quantity daily demanded is carried to Rome
in the nighttime, in carts well covered
with straw. 1t is found by experience that
snow, thus pressed down, is not only cold
er, but preserves longer, than cakes OF ice
taken from ponds and ditches. This is IN
structive and consoling. shall show you,
by-and-by. what effectual weapons snow
and straw are against the arch foe. For the
South of Italy and Sicily snow Is preserved
in several caverns of Etna, and brought
down to purchasers, who compete ior res
pite with the eagerness of roasting men.
In Lima, cheap ice, from the. Cordileras, is
a cry kindred to our own cheap bread
The public mind makes about six revolu-
tions year in any state OF South America,
but in all tunults the Ice-mules bear sa-
cred burden. Nobody dares meddle with
the peoples ice, The Chine Sc, understanp!dd
the use flee very well indeed--As for
Wenham Lake, folks at Boston talk about
the state Of the ice crops as we talk about
the state of wheat.-In European capitals,
ice is not only an article of amusement, but
of trade. Who has net heard OF the de-
lights Of the sleigh, galloping over ice and
snow at twenty miles an hour Then there
is the Russian version of the ice palace on
the Neva, built at the marriage OF Prince
Gallitzin, with ice masonry that blunted all
the chisels, ice chars. ice dining.ta5les, and
ice cannons that fled hemPen bullets
But am sitting upon horse-hair, writing
upon leather; and | arm not consoled. Here,
however, | turn to glowing Kohl, and find
relief in a delicious extract from his book
OH RUSSIA You may take off your neck
erchief and sit at ease, for here you have
bit of Kohl thoroughly cold: -
San immense quantity Of ice is consam-
ed in Russian housekeeping. Throughout
the summer, ices are sold in the streets Of
eyery Russian town and. not only iced
water, iced VINE, and iced beer, but even
iced tea is drunk in immense ,auantlnesiW,.
The short but excessively hot summer would
spoil most of the food brought to market,
had not the winter provided in abundance
the means for guarding against such rIapic
decomposition. An ice-house, IS, there
fore, looked upon as an indispensable ap-
pendage, not merely 10 the establishments
of the wealthy, but even to the huts OF the
peasant. In st. Petersburg alone there are
said to be ten thousand ice-houses, and 1T
may easily be supposed, that to fill all these
cellars is task of no triaing magnitude
It is not too much to calculate that each
ice-house on an average, requires flfty
sledge-loads Office to fill it. The fshmon-
gers, butchers, and dealers in quass have
such enormous cellars that many hundreds
of loads will go into them and the brewe-
RES, dstilleries &C., consume incalculaoie
quantities. According to the above calcu-
lation, five hundred thousand sledge-loads
of ice would have to be drawn out OF the
Neva every year but this calculation is
rather under than overt the mark. It's, cer-
tainlv, the merchandise in which the most
extensive traffic is carried on during WIN
ter. Whole professions of sledges laden
with the glittering crystals may then be
seen ascending from the Neva; and thou
sands of men are necessarily at work raIs-
ing the cooling produce from ITS parent nv
or The breakino of the ice is carried on
in this way: The workmen begin by clear.
ing the snow away from the surface, that
they may clearly trace out the form OF the
blocks to be detached. They then meas
ure off large parallelogram, and mark the
outline with hatchet. The parallelogram
is subdivided into number Of squares, OF
size to suit the capacity OF their sledges'
When the drawing is complete, ihe more
serious part of the work begins. a regular
trench has to be formed round the parallel
opram in question. This is done with hatch
cts and, as the ice is frequently four OF
FIVE feet thick, the trenches become at last
20 deem that the workmen are as complete.
lv lost to the eve as if they had been labor.
inc in mine. Ofcourss sufficient thick
ness of ice must be left in the trenches to
bear the workmen, which is afterwards
broken with bars of iron. When the para!!-
telegram has thus been loosened, the subdi-
v;s;on is effected with comparative ease
A number of men mount the swimming
mass, and with their pointed lce-breakers'
thew all strike at the same moment upon
the The line that has been marked out. A few
volleys of this kind make the ice break just
.lons tbe desired line and each of the OBJ
iouo Sins thus obtained is broken up again
into square pieces after similar fashion
To draw the fragments out OF the wafer {
- 10 ho In