FIG. 59. A POPULAR ICE WAGON.
FIG. 60. ANOTHER ICE WAGON.
The use of coupon tickets is a great convenience. The customer is furnished with a book at the beginning of the season, and for each delivery of ice he receives, a ticket is given back to the ice dealer. These tickets, having the name and quantity indorsed on them, avoid errors and disputes.
Strength of Ice.—Two inches in thickness of ice will usually bear up a man, four inches in thickness a horse, and ice five inches thick is generally safe for a team of horses and a loaded wagon weighing two tons.
Eight inches in thickness will bear up 150 pounds per square foot of surface, if distributed over an entire field.
Ten inches in thickness will support 250 pounds per square foot of surface. It is usual to estimate that ice eighteen inches thick will support a railway train.
Weight of Ice.—One cubic foot of ordinary ice will, on the average, weigh fifty-seven and one-quarter pounds, while a cubic foot of water weighs sixty-two and one-half pounds.
Thirty-six cubic feet of ice weigh 2,000 pounds. But as stored in the house, it is reckoned that forty-two to fifty cubic feet of space is required per ton of ice, depending upon the thickness of the ice and the care with which it has been cut and stored.