ICE-HOUSES.
236. First begging the reader to read again paragraph 149, I proceed here, in compliance with numerous requests to that effect, to describe, as clearly as I can, the manner of constructing the sort of Ice-houses therein mentioned. In England, these receptacles of frozen water are, generally, under ground, and always, if possible, under the shade of trees, the opinion being, that the main thing, if not the only thing, is to keep away the heat. The heat is to be kept away certainly; but moisture is the great enemy of Ice; and how is this to be kept away either under ground, or under the shade of trees? Abundant experience has proved, that no thickness of wall, that no cement of any kind, will effectually resist moisture. Drops will, at times, be seen hanging on the under side of an arch of any thickness, and made of any materials, if it have earth over it, and even when it has the floor of a house over it; and wherever the moisture enters, the ice will quickly melt.
237. Ice-houses should therefore be, in all their parts, as dry as possible: and they should be so constructed, and the ice so deposited in them, as to ensure the running away of the meltings as quickly as possible, whenever such meltings come. Any-thing in way of drains or gutters, is too slow in its effect; and therefore there must be something that will not suffer the water proceeding from any melting, to remain an instant.
238. In the first place, then, the ice-house should stand in a place quite open to the sun and air; for whoever has travelled even but a few miles (having eyes in his head) need not be told how long that part of a road from which the sun and wind are excluded by trees, or hedges, or by any-thing else, will remain wet, or at least damp, after the rest of the road is even in a state to send up dust.
239. The next thing is to protect the ice against wet, or damp, from beneath. It should, therefore, stand on some spot from which water would run in every direction; and if the natural ground presents no such spot, it is no very great job to make it.
240. Then come the materials of which the house is to consist. These, for the reasons before-mentioned, must not be bricks, stones, mortar, nor earth; for these are all affected by the atmosphere; they will become damp at certain times, and dampness is the great destroyer of ice. The materials are wood and straw. Wood will not do; for, though not liable to become damp, it imbibes heat fast enough; and, besides, it cannot be so put together as to shut out air sufficiently. Straw is wholly free from the quality of becoming damp, except from water actually put upon it; and it can, at the same time, be placed on a roof, and on sides, to such a degree of thickness as to exclude the air in a manner the most perfect. The ice-house ought, therefore, to be made of posts, plates, rafters, laths, and straw. The best form is the circular; and the house, when made, appears as I have endeavoured to describe it in Fig. 3 of the plate.
241. Fig. 1, a, is the centre of a circle, the diameter of which is ten feet, and at this centre you put up a post to stand fifteen feet above the level of the ground, which post ought to be about nine inches through at the bottom, and not a great deal smaller at the top. Great care must be taken that this post be perfectly perpendicular; for, if it be not, the whole building will be awry.
242. b b b are fifteen posts, nine feet high, and six inches through at the bottom, without much tapering towards the top. These posts stand about two feet apart, reckoning from centre of post to centre of post, which leaves between each two a space of eighteen inches, c c c c are fifty-four posts, five feet high, and five inches through at the bottom, without much tapering towards the top. These posts stand about two feet apart, from centre of post to centre of post, which leaves between each two a space of nineteen inches. The space between these two rows of posts is four feet in width, and, as will be presently seen, is to contain a wall of straw.
243. e is a passage through this wall; d is the outside door of the passage; f is the inside door; and the inner circle, of which a is the centre, is the place in which the ice is to be deposited.
244. Well, then, we have now got the posts up; and, before we talk of the roof of the house, or of the bed for the ice, it will be best to speak about the making of the wall. It is to be made of straw, wheat-straw, or rye-straw, with no rubbish in it, and made very smooth by the hand as it is put in. You lay it in very closely and very smoothly, so that if the wall were cut across, as at g g, in Fig. 2 (which Fig. 2 represents the whole building cut down through the middle, omitting the centre post,) the ends of the straws would present a compact face as they do after a cut of a chaff-cutter. But there requires something to keep the straw from bulging out between the posts. Little stakes as big as your wrist will answer this purpose. Drive them into the ground, and fasten, at top, to the plates, of which I am now to speak. The plates are pieces of wood which go all round both the circles, and are nailed on upon the tops of the posts. Their main business is to receive and sustain the lower ends of the rafters, as at m m and n n in Fig. 2. But to the plates also the stakes just mentioned must be fastened at top. Thus, then, there will be this space of four feet wide, having, on each side of it, a row of posts and stakes, not more than about six inches from each other, to hold up, and to keep in its place, this wall of straw.
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245. Next come the rafters, as from s to n, Fig. 2. Carpenters best know what is the number and what the size of the rafters; but from s to m there need be only about half as many as from m to n. However, carpenters know all about this. It is their every-day work. The roof is forty-five degrees pitch, as the carpenters call it. If it were even sharper, it would be none the worse. There will be about thirty ends of rafters to lodge on the plate, as at m; and these cannot all be fastened to the top of the centre-post rising up from a; but carpenters know how to manage this matter, so as to make all strong and safe. The plate which goes along on the tops of the row of posts, b b b, must, of course, be put on in a somewhat sloping form; otherwise there would be a sort of hip formed by the rafters. However, the thatch is to be so deep, that this may not be of much consequence. Before the thatching begins, there are laths to put upon the rafters. Thatchers know all about this, and all that you have to do is, to take care that the thatcher tie the straw on well. The best way, in a case of such deep thatch, is to have a strong man to tie for the thatcher.
246. The roof is now raftered, and it is to receive a thatch of clean, sound, and well-prepared wheat or rye straw, four feet thick, as at h h in Fig. 2.
247. The house having now got walls and roof, the next thing is to make the bed to receive the ice. This bed is the area of the circle of which a is the centre. You begin by laying on the ground round logs, eight inches through, or thereabouts, and placing them across the area, leaving spaces between them of about a foot. Then, crossways on them, poles about four inches through, placed at six inches apart. Then, crossways on them, other poles, about two inches through, placed at three inches apart. Then, crossways on them, rods as thick as your finger, placed at an inch apart. Then upon these, small, clean, dry, last-winter-cut twigs, to the thickness of about two inches; or, instead of these twigs, good, clean, strong heath, free from grass and moss, and from rubbish of all sorts.
248. This is the bed for the ice to lie on; and as you see, the top of the bed will be seventeen inches from the ground. The pressure of the ice may, perhaps, bring it to fourteen, or to thirteen. Upon this bed the ice is put, broken and pummelled, and beaten down together in the usual manner.
249. Having got the bed filled with ice, we have next to shut it safely up. As we have seen, there is a passage (e). Two feet wide is enough for this passage; and, being as long as the wall is thick, it is of course, four feet long. The use of the passage is this: that you may have two doors, so that you may, in hot or damp weather, shut the outer door, while you have the inner door open. This inner door may be of hurdle-work, and straw, and covered, on one of the sides, with sheep-skins with the wool on, so as to keep out the external air. The outer-door, which must lock, must be of wood, made to shut very closely, and, besides, covered with skins like the other. At times of great danger from heat, or from wet, the whole of the passage may be filled with straw. The door (p. Fig. 3) should face the North, or between North and East.
250. As to the size of the ice-house, that must, of course, depend upon the quantity of ice that you may choose to have. A house on the above scale, is from w to x (Fig. 2) twenty-nine feet; from y to z (Fig. 2) nineteen feet. The area of the circle, of which a is the centre, is ten feet in diameter, and as this area contains seventy-five superficial feet, you will, if you put ice on the bed to the height of only five feet, (and you may put it on to the height of seven feet from the top of the bed,) you will have three hundred and seventy-five cubic feet of ice; and, observe, a cubic foot of ice will, when broken up, fill much more than a Winchester Bushel: what it may do as to an “Imperial Bushel,” engendered like Greek Loan Commissioners, by the unnatural heat of “Prosperity,” God only knows! However, I do suppose, that, without making any allowance for the “cold fit,” as Dr. Baring calls it, into which “late panic” has brought us; I do suppose, that even the scorching, the burning dog-star of “Imperial Prosperity;” nay, that even Dives himself, would hardly call for more than two bushels of ice in a day; for more than two bushels a day it would be, unless it were used in cold as well as in hot weather.
251. As to the expense of such a house, it could, in the country, not be much. None of the posts, except the main or centre-post, need be very straight. The other posts might be easily culled from tree-lops, destined for fire-wood. The straw would make all straight. The plates must of necessity be short pieces of wood; and, as to the stakes, the laths, and the logs, poles, rods, twigs, and heath, they would not all cost twenty shillings. The straw is the principal article; and, in most places, even that would not cost more than two or three pounds. If it last many years, the price could not be an object; and if but a little while, it would still be nearly as good for litter as it was before it was applied to this purpose. How often the bottom of the straw walls might want renewing I cannot say, but I know that the roof would with few and small repairs, last well for ten years.
252. I have said that the interior row of posts is to be nine feet high, and the exterior row five feet high. I, in each case, mean, with the plate inclusive. I have only to add, that by way of superabundant precaution against bottom wet, it will be well to make a sort of gutter, to receive the drip from the roof, and to carry it away as soon as it falls.
253. Now, after expressing a hope that I shall have made myself clearly understood by every reader, it is necessary that I remind him, that I do not pretend to pledge myself for the complete success, nor for any success at all, of this mode of making ice-houses. But, at the same time, I express my firm belief, that complete success would attend it; because it not only corresponds with what I have seen of such matters; but I had the details from a gentleman who had ample experience to guide him, and who was a man on whose word and judgment I placed a perfect reliance. He advised me to erect an ice-house; but not caring enough about fresh meat and fish in summer, or at least not setting them enough above “prime pork” to induce me to take any trouble to secure the former, I never built an ice-house. Thus, then, I only communicate that in which I believe; there is, however, in all cases, this comfort, that if the thing fail as an ice-house, it will serve all generations to come as a model for a pig-bed.