The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1890-06-09
ICE GETTING CHEAPER.
TITS NO LONGER THE HIGH-PRICED
LUXURY IT ONCE WAS.

Supply the Demand-The Natural
Ice Trade Gone and Machine les the
Entire Supply Now-The Advan-
tages of Ice Factories in the South
A New Brewery In Prospect-The
Cost of Machine ice and Its Market
Price.
1t is some satisfaction TO know, when the
mercury is up in the nineties, that ice is
selling lower in Savannah than in the north
and west. The day of high prices for ice
has disappeared, and ice syndicatas, it is
predicted, will soon be thing of the past
as the machines for manufacturing ice have
revolutionized the trade in the south. 1t has
been only within the last few years
that Savannah and the interior de-
pended wholly on natural ice brought
in vessels from the north. When the ice
crop was failure the prices went out of
reach of even those in moderate circum-
stances, and the poorer classes had to do
without ice altogether. Northern cities, TO
a large extent, still depend on the natural
ice supply. and the open winter being
unfavorable, and the ice output light, ice
is wholesaling in New York at $40 per ton
and in Cincinnati at $50 per ton.
THE PRICES OF ICE.
A MORNING NEWS reporter was COM
missioned to get the ruling prices in Sa-
vannah. Ice by the ton ranges from S. per
ton to 81 so, the highest figure, and while
the demand exceeded the supply last week,
there is no danger of an ice famine, or of
high prices Ice retails all the way from
2-5ths of q cent per pound TO ID cents per
pound. IN to 30 pound lots, ard nearly
every corner grocery and little shop through
t1f fhQ 0ff toIlG faa hat hxarn
large amount OF ice consumed daily
The Gorrie Ice Company quotes ice per
ton at 81 so, with an increase down TO small
5 to so pound lots at "a cents per
pound or SIS per ton. and ia 100 pound,
500 pound and 1,00J pound lots at Sl2, $40
and IS per ton,
The Savannah Cold Storage and Ice
Manufacturing Company, which started up
last week, does not deliver ice, but sells in
lots from 100 pounds up at the works at the
uniform rate of $5per ton. This ice is de-
hvered to the purchaser at the works only
on the presentation of an ice ticket. Ice is
not sold at the factory.
THE BREWERY coMPANY's OUTPUT.
The Savannah Brewery Company does
not sell ice directly. Indirectly 1t supplies
very large city, Tybee and Suburban
sold by the company the purchaser
is entitled to ticket for 100 pounds of ice
upon the payment of 25 cents. 1t is in this
way the retail groceries get their ice, which
they retail from 40 to 60 cents per hundred.
the latter figure when delivered to their
customers. Many saloon keepers do not
have use for all the ice which they are en-
titled to and they let their customers
have the surplus tickets aud the
benefit of low prices. This plan has worked
so WELL and the demand for ice has been so
continuous and pressing, that the brewing
company is now putting in another plant
which will turn out from twenty to twenty
five tons daily. and will enable them 10
turn out, exclusive of their cold storage ice,
about forty to fifty tons of ice daily. The
machinists are on their way here from New
York TO put up the plant, which is here.
The boilers are in place, and the concrete
foundation for the monster fly wheel will be
completed to-day. John G. Main, manager
of the brewery, says the new plant will be
in operation not later than the middle of
July.
100 TONS DAY
The are no less than 100 tons daily COM
bined capacity in the three plants now in
operation IN the city, and with the new
plant added to the brewery there will be
something like 1875 tons of ice manufactured
in Savannah daily. 1t is thought that the
Savannah Cold Storage and Ice Manufact-
uring Company will double its present
IT,.
The process of ice manufacture is both
simple and comparatively inexpensive; the
original cost of the plant being the greater
expense, and the larger the plant the less
expensive is the ratio of cost of manufact-
ure. coil of pipes is immersed in vat
of brine; between these coils galvanized iron
cans containing water are lowered, and the
opening to the vat closed and ammonia in a
rarified and expanded form forced through
the coils of pipe, producing intense cold,
the salt water bath often going as low as
IL, and this low temperature must neces-
sarily rapidly solldify the water in the cans
or ice mold
ICE IN FoRTY-EIGHT HOURS.
The time employed in freezing the ice
well is from thlrty-two to forty-eight hours.
One man can operate the crane which lifts
the mold and block out of the salt water
bath. The mold is given quick bath in
hot water, to loosen the ice from the sides
of the mold, and drawn out. the mold
turned down and the block of ice slips out
These molds in Savannah plants range from
lO0-pound molds to 300, but in some of the
large plants of the north, by what is known
as the plate system, blocks are frozen each
OF which will weigh ton or more
There Is no apparent reason why ice will
ever be considered one of the high-priced
Iuxurles, said the agent of an ice machiue
manufacturing firm. as the cost of manu-
1acture is brought so low that the profits are
very great at even SO per ton, and he ex-
planned that the ammonia is a cheap chem
ical, and, having once charged the pipes, the
liquid is alternately condensed and expanded,
doing continuous duty day after day with
hardly any appreciable waste.
MACHINE ICE IN DEMAND
1t is claimed by the manufacturers of ice
plants that the demand is SO heavy for
them that with present orders, working
day and night. they cannot catch up before
fall. Not only is the demand co-extensiye
with this country, but the American ice ma
Chimes of which there are some half dozen
patents, are being put up in the Central and
South American states, and in Mexico. The
ice machines have made it possible to operate
breweries in warm climates as the cold
storage costs less is more reliable and more
easily regulated. A MORNING NEWS re-
porter is informed that the stock has been
subscribed for brewery at Jacksonville,
and one is to be established at Havana.
ANOTHER BREWERY IN SAVANNAH
There is talk of establishing another
=. brewery in Savannah, and while the pro-
Jectors are non-committal, it is believed
that they are in earnest. There is petition
on file in the superior court praying for a
charter for the Central Brewing COMPANY.
The mcorporators are Louis p Hart g 7