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.