Morning journal and courier., 1893-03-16
MAKING ICE ARTIFIoIALLY.

A Visit to the Works or the Hygeia
 Ice Company-An Interesting Chat |
 With MT. Shell, the Secretary-De.
 tails Concerning the Processes.
 "We can'tvery well refrigerate our wag- ons," said MT. F. H. She'll, secretary of the Hygeis Ice company, to COURIER rep reeentaiive whom he was escortiDg over the works of the company yesterday, "but we come as near to 1t as possible"
 When making the above remark MT. Shell was standing in the immense storage room, and as he pointed towards the ceil- ing, close to which and extending the en- tire length were lines of iron pipes, each with circular projections almost touching their nearest neighbors on either side, he continued:
 'sThe idea of cooling a room in which Ice is stored seems to many people very much like carrying coals to Newcastle, but ] 1t gives us this great advantage-at what ever temperature we produce our ice. and | it is 8 very low one, at that temperature 1t l remains until it Is placed in the delivery l wagons. We prefer to have the storage house keep the ice cold rather than have the ics do the cooling and lose that amount | | vantage to the consumers"
 The storage room is so large that @ hun dred people might dance in 1t without in- l convenience. The floor Is of Trinidad | asphalt and the walls which are to be seen, 1 the inner and the outer, are but two of the | six which form the houee, there being air | spaces between each two of the walls to keep in the cold and to keep out the heat. ] This is the place where one of the inished products of the company will be seen, the | great transparent blocks which seem to be A inches, as much ss sn ordinary family
 would need in three or four weeks. On | the delivery wagons these are cut into l whatever ei2ed pieces consumers may de- 1 sire
 l To follow the steps through which the ! water passes before changing from normal l temperature to a temperature less than
 twenty degrees above zero, is very inter-
 esting, but by the average newspaper
 reader knowledge of results rather than
 of means is preferred
 Distilled water Is merely water convert
 ed into steam-which cannot carry impuri-
 ties present in the liquid stste-and then.
 by cooling, converted back to water. This
 is ordinary distilled water, but an even
 greater degree of purity is obtainable, and
 this greater degree is obtained at the plant
 which has so recently been added to the
 industries of New Haven.
 The steam is filtered, the water reboi'sd
 after being condensed, and the hot water after having been cooled, is forced up
 wards through some ten feet of charcoal
 specially prepared from hard wood. Afte,
 havi- g been carried to this point it is prac
 tioally comparable to nothing else, but be comes standard of comparison for what
 ever else may have been carried to the las
 possible limit of puri6cstion.
 "Are chemicals used in making artificial
 icea" is question often asked. Every
 thing ia a chemical, even water itself. The
 only agent outside of power, water, sslt charcoal and others with which every body
 is familiar, used by the Hygeia company, i
 ammonia, familiarity with which is almos
 as widespread, the word "household" hay ) ing become one suggested by the word am
 monis. If gas fixtures, with which sl houses are fitted, had between them ant the freely circulating atmosphere two me diums through which the gas could no pass, and if they were closed so tightl
 that to make an opening in them would
 take hours of work, then they might be a
 free from any possibility of losing any par , l of their contents as are the pipes contain
 ing the ammonia used in making arti6cis ice.
 This ammonia is received at the work in liquid form. Being allowed to pas through very small openings, into tn three and half miles of pipes in tn
 freezing tank, it beoomes an expanded gat
 From these pipes 1t passes to two cou f pressors which are worked by pistors fror 2 an engine of 150 horse power. With it :, density increased thoussndfold it passe , to stacks of iron pipes, on the outside c . which water is constantly flowing and, b a it's coolness, converting the compresse 7 gas into liquid, ready to become again 8 ss 1 expanded gas, then again 8 compresse f gas and then again a liquid, this succel a sion of changes continuing without cesss 1 I tion.
 The water is placed in galvanized fro s cans, sunk to within few inches of the $ brinls in the great brine filled tank, throua a which run the pipes in which is the e ,. banded ammonia gas, sucking heat frol f. every directiou, and in sixty hours soli
 ics is produced, the capacity of the pls,
 being sixty tons day.
 From the e-storase tank distilled water d taken into ths one and two gallon stor !. jugs, In which it is to bs delivered to col
 sumers Delivery of ice and water wi @ begin about April 1.