repository for ice during the summer months. The aspect of ice-houses should be towards the east or south-east, for the advantage of the morning sun to expel the damp air, as that is more pernicious than warmth; for which reason trees in the vicinity of an ice-house tend to its disadvantage.
The soil for an ice-house to be made in is chalk, as it conveys away the waste water without any artificial drain; next to that, loose stony earth or gravelly soil. Its situation should be on the side of a hill, for the advantage of entering the cell upon a level, as in the drawing, Plate CCL.
To construct an ice-house, first choose a proper place at a convenient distance from the dwelling-house or houses it is to serve: dig a cavity (if for one family, of the dimensions specified in the design) of the figure of an inverted cone, sinking the bottom, concave, to form a reservoir for the waste water till it can drain off; if the soil requires it, cut a drain to a considerable distance, or so far as will come out at the side of the hill, or into a well, to make it communicate with the springs, and in that drain form a flink or air-trap, marked l, by sinking the drain so much lower in that place as it is high, and bring a partition from the top an inch or more into the water, which will consequently be in the trap; and will keep the well air-tight. Work up a sufficient number of brick piers to receive a cart-wheel, to be laid with its convex side upwards to receive the ice; lay hurdles and straw upon the wheel, which will let the melted ice drain through, and serve as a floor. The sides and dome of the cone are to be nine inches thick—the sides to be done in scented brickwork, i.e., without mortar, and wrought at right angles to the face of the work; the filling in behind should be with gravel, loose stones, or brick-bats, that the water which drains through the sides may the more easily escape into the well. The doors of the ice-house should be made as close as possible, and bundles of straw placed always before the inner door to keep out the air.
Description of the parts referred to by the letters.
a The line first dug out. b The brick circumference of the cell. c The diminution of the cell downwards. d The lesser diameter of the cell. e The cart wheel or joints and hurdles. f The piers to receive the wheel or floor. g The principal receptacle for straw. h The inner passage, i the first entrance, k the outer door, passages having a separate door each. l An air trap. m The well. n The profile of the piers. o The ice filled in. p The height of the cone. q The dome worked in two half brick arches. r The arched passage. s The door-ways inserted in the walls. t The floor of the passage. u An aperture through which the ice may be put into the cell; this must be covered next the crown of the dome, and then filled in with earth. v The sloping door, against which the straw should be laid.
The ice when to be put in should be collected during the frost, broken into small pieces, and rammed down hard in strata of not more than a foot, in order to make it one complete body; the care in putting it in, and well ramming it, tends much to its preservation. In a season when ice is not to be had in sufficient quantities snow may be substituted.
Ice may be preserved in a dry place underground, by covering it well with chaff, straw, or reeds.
Great use is made of chaff in some places of Italy to preserve ice: the ice-house for this purpose need only be a deep hole dug in the ground on the side of a hill, from the bottom of which they can easily carry out a drain, to let out the water which is separated at any time from the ice, that it may not melt and spoil the rest. If the ground is tolerably dry, they do not line the sides with anything, but leave them naked, and only make a covering of thatch over the top of the hole; this pit they fill either with pure snow, or else with ice taken from the purest and clearest water; because they do not use it as we do in England, to set the bottles in, but really mix it with the wine. They first cover the bottom of the hole with chaff, and then lay in the ice, not letting it anywhere touch the sides, but ramming in a large bed of chaff all the way between: they thus carry on the filling to the top, and then cover the surface with chaff; and in this manner it will keep as long as they please. When they take any of it out for use, they wrap the lump up in chaff, and it may then be carried to any distant place without waste or running.