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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