The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-08-03
NEW HAVEN MORNING
SOMETHING ABOUT ICE.
How it is Made, How it is Handled and
 How to Husband it.

But few people know anything about ice" said a gentleman who IS connected with one of the plants in this city. How it is made, how it is ham died and the way to get the best results out of a given quantity are things that the average person knows but little about. There is in the first place cu- rious difference in the way natural and manufactured ice is formed, Natural ice is frozen from the top down. It IS a matter of displacement. It begins with the first thin surface of the water and freezes down into the water, the depth or thickness depending on the prevail ing temperature. Manufactured ice IS frozen from the sides, Ammonia, or course, does the freezing, and the brine that is used acts as a sort of reservoir, holding the cold which is to crystalize the water in the cans. The streaks so frequently found in blocks of ice are due to the fact that the freezing is from the side There is frequently found in lake ice small spaces of various shades and describing many different lines, and these are due to small quantities or air which are imprisoned during the freezing processes, These spaces are not so common in manufactured ice, because the air is not allowed to take the same liberties with the water that is to be frozen. The processes of man. ufacturing ice are simple enough, but the construction of tanks such as are used around factories and cold storage plants is a rather complex business. They are built in layers, so that air can neither get cut nor come in. There are generally two or three spaces that are filled with dead air, air that Will take up neither heat nor cold There are several layers of paper and one space is filled WiSh q non conducting moss which is really made of finely crushed granite. These spaces and layers form perfect insulation so far as heat ana cold are concerned, and these clements cannot pass to and from the tank It costs a world of money to properly con- struct these tanks, and really persons not familiar with the facts have no sort of idea of the responsiveness ot it. If they had they would not hurl so many slurs at the ice man. The song about the policeman applies with dou- ble force to the iceman, for his lot cet- tainly is not a happy one, and yet in these days he is a much sought after tellow.
 But there is another thing l had in mind he continued, and it relates to a matter which may be of more concert to tha consumer Few persons uneer- stand handling ice in way to get the best results. Icemen are required to figure the thing out on a scientific ba- sis They know just how much ice it will take to cool given space. They can figure it down to the square inch But we must remember, in the first place. that ice will not cool anything until it begins to melt. It it were pos sible to cram an ordinary room full Of ice and keep it in condition where It would not melt particle, the walls or the room would not cool because of the presence of the ice. But the very mo- ment the ice b,gins to melt the walls will begin to cool The ice must give off some of it's cold before having any sort of influence on the things around 1t, and it does this when it begins to |. fact which the merest tyro would un- derstand if he stopped long enough to think about it. There is another fact which is overlooked with the same per sistance by the acreage person who uses ice. Of course, persons who have large refrigerators have mastered these simpler principles, yet they can be used with equal advantage in the ordianry ice box. Heat, as l started to say, travels one way and cold another. Heat goes up. It expands. It is fluff fy, light and airy, and is capable of floating away on the atmosphere So in the case of ice, the cooling influences are downward. In cooling room the ice should be placed at the top of the room to get the best results. If vents are run down at the sides of the room so the cold thrown off by the ice can fall from both sides, forming sort of circle it will soon drift around in cir cular form and the room will cool much more rapidly, These are some of the things overlooked by the vast ma iority of persons who use ice, and con- seuuently they do not get the best re- SultS. By lD1lbNiHS lIE SlllplCl llCtlb~ ral laws in such matters the average man would not only get more good out of the ice he buys, but the chances are that the ice bill would be much smaller.
 But speaking of the great care taken in insulating the tank" the iceman continued, "calls to my mind the fact that wood is a pretty hot article, and this is another thing which has inn pressed itself with peculiar force on the mind of the iceman. Since embarkinG in the ice business l have often Won- dered what the difference in tempera- ture was in the different kinds of woods There is of course some differ ence and it would be an interesting thing if some fellow could find out just about what it is. But this is not the point All wood is hot from the view point of the iceman The fellow who figures on cooling spaces that are in- closed by wood must figure on the units