New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1854-02-23

WIS, thirty inchc apart are cut IN the same
manner When field has been marked and cut u Is noses
AIRY 10 dctAch and oxircato from the surrounding ice
This Il 1ono by cutting oot strip OF ice abouta 1901 IN
width nom ore Of the sides this cutting elected by
If saws a. when cut the strip Is sunk beneath the
field Tho separation Of the field from the main body Of
Ice Is then cs.y effected by application Of the ice chsel
Th, ips,um, nj s an iron bar four feet in length With
ANAL and shup chel OF the fines. steel cnd and
bro,d HUNT one on the other by inserting the broad
,uds of four or Eve chses the strength Of the ZANE nun
her Of men will readily separate acre Of ice from the
rst Of tho covering OF the lake When separated 10 di
vided into ,mar pieces and oaed through canals cu' IN
the co 10 the ice houses These canals aked out and
their cs boarded TO render The passage Of the Ice more
easy when he large cakes Of ice arrive a. the
canal parallel with the ice houses, they are separated
by the chisels into squares as cut by The plough
and pushed with long steel shod textbooks up through
canals Of thirty Eve inchts in width to the ioo'
Of tho slides Here they are fed in sideways single cake
AZ time and taken up from the water by series oil steel
pointed tongs or grapne strung upon an endless cham
han rms around toothed wheels the hooks in descend
inc are folded back and reaching the bottom OF the run
fall over and grasping the cakes of ice drag them upon
wooden eide to the top Of the building whence they are
DISCHARGED into grooved slides Of wood and distributed
wherever required all through the building, and slowed
away by men in the interior.
There are two modes of hosting ice into the house ons
nv Tho steam machine above described the other by
what is termed the single whip Tie former Is me mod
ern mode the LAT or the old fashioned Both in at
Rocklsnd lake The single whip is ordinary ice tong'
az the end Of rope large grooved wheel at the
ton Of the scaoding in front Of the opening in the build
ing and through a smaller wheel near the bottom To the
other nd of the rope horse is harnessed and the cakes
are lifted in the tongs at time TO the top OF the build
ing whence they are distributed and packed as before de-
,orbcd At every feet ofe front Of building is either
steam run or single whip windlass. steam machine
lifts goo peces of ice into the house per hour while by the
single whip only 40 cakes hosed in the same time
An acre Of ice averaging ten inches in thickness will
yield 1000 cakes equal to 900 tuns or thereabous Each
cake Of solid ice OF 2x3 inches and ten inches IN thickness
being estimated 200 pounds. The largest house at Rock
land Lake is owned by the Knckerbocker Company its
external dimension, aye 24Ox24O feet and 80 feet in hight
lis capacity is about 900 tuns This house has steam
elevator capable of taking in $40 uns per hour 54OO
tuns in day Of ten hours and at this rate would require
but little more than days and $4,000 cakes of ten inch
ise to Gil il.
From the prevalence of cold weather since collected
the above aggregate of the ice harvest then garnered it
safe TO compute the quantity in house at 100000 uas
equal 100000 of cakes the product of over 22 acres
We have now got the ice safely packed away but how
10 keep with the east amount Of waste until the parched
throat Of summer shall call il into another, and still
more important matter.
The foundation of an ice house should be of brick or
stene with sand rammed down inside TO level with its top
Cpon the sand floor Of hemlock boards should be laid
one LAYER of boards athwart and the other Upon
the foundation double frame Of pine is raised These
frames should be about eighteen inches apart and secured
TO each other by iron clasps The insides are to DO
boarded up this leaves clear space of sixteen inches
between the two houses This space is stuffed with such non
conductors as pine sawdus rice chaf and charcoal Char
coal the best non conductor but il is also the most
extensive material and out the boards of the house
in aboutfve years When the boards taken off char
coal stuffed house the vitality Of the wood found to DO
entirely destroyed the charcoal having scorched the wood
almost TO burning Below the roof Of ice house it is
usual to consruca garnet floor whch covered with sailed
hay bog soil The cost of these houses in construction
is about dollar tun When ice house is filed, the
openings are all boarded up and stuffed in the same way
as the rest of tie building An ice house is entirely dest
,ue of windows but the ice sezes every little ray of light
and reflects thousand fold To stand upon ice stack
of Is or feet in hight and look down into it before the
house boarded up like standing upon the arches
of rainbow When the house is so full that men cannot
readily move about in it the top covered with pine shay
ings which freeze to the ice almost touching and the
house s hermetcaIy closed
Ice breught to the City by water the tive companies at
Rockand employing nine bages whose aggregate tunns.e
amounts 1850 From Rockland Lake to the North
River is about mile and oil the ice has to be carted this
distance over the mountain at cost Of 2s cents per tun
Formerly the ice raised from the Lake to the top ofthe
mountain by means of slides and an immense endlem
chain 1900 feet in length and discharged into slides on
the other side These slides conducted the ice down in
cline into spiral slides of which there six seven
between the top Of the mountain and ths houses the
This mnprnoth md ch ain found be
too complicated and after years trial finally taken
dowa The Of thin the impossibiy Of checking
the ice in il: descent For instance il the ice came into
the houses faster than it could be slowed the machine
could be stopped but the 500 or GOO cakes Of ice in the
aides which could be checked would dash into the ice
houses pe NELL and perhaps knock holes in their sides
This much Of the mode Of getting the ice and keeping it.
Now, for the operations Of the dealers.
When the ice harvest pretty well over the dealers and
specu!stors in the frigid article may be seen travelling
from point poin; the river and around the lakes
where ice is put up When one of them gets alongside Of
ice house out comes rule note book and pencil With
thr,e feet strides he the length and width Of
house then clambering up the stationary ladder, down
drops hs tape and the hight of the building is
tanned Next he finds the quantity already in the house
notes the weather asceraas the amount Of erchantabe
ice on the lake river and also if the has eombed
IT, or Otherwise unound and by these means and by
carefully netting the subsequent weather be able to cal
culae within twenty five trns the amount OF ice which
each company and each locality will send into the market
susion is then held between certain leading dealers
and compromise is made Small dealers cozened into
selling cut cheap. Then statements are furnished to the
public journals and the dealers shuekls the dust thus
unwuingy tbrevn into the public eye The usual sn-
nounctment Of large crops having been promulgated,
small dealers think it is of for them secure any
more the abundance Of the crop has already made ice
drug in the market This goes rntil April when ice