See that article, *Encyclopaedia*. Professor Beckmann, in the third volume of his History of Inventions, has proved clearly that the ancients were well acquainted with what served the purpose of ice-houses.

"The art (says he) of preserving snow for cooling liquors during the summer, in warm countries, was known in the earliest ages. This practice is mentioned by Solomon*, and proofs of it are so numerous in the works of the Greeks and the Romans, that it is unnecessary for me to quote them, especially as they have been collected by others. How the repositories for keeping it were constructed, we are not expressly told; but it is probable that the snow was preserved in pits or trenches.

"When Alexander the Great besieged the city of Petra, he caused 30 trenches to be dug, and filled with snow, which was covered with oak branches; and which kept in that manner for a long time. Plutarch says, that a covering of chaff and coarse cloth is sufficient; and at present a like method is pursued in Portugal. Where the snow has been collected in a deep gulph, some grass or green sods, covered with dung from the sheep pens, is thrown over it; and under these it is so well preserved, that the whole summer through it is felt the distance of 60 Spanish miles to Lisbon.

"When the ancients, therefore, wished to have cooling liquors, they either drank the melted snow, or put some of it in their wine, or they placed jars filled with wine in the snow, and suffered it to cool there as long as they thought proper. That ice was also preserved for the like purpose, is probable from the testimony of various authors; but it appears not to have been used so much in warm countries as in the northern. Even at present snow is employed in Italy, Spain, and Portugal; but in Persia ice. I have never anywhere found an account of Grecian or Roman ice-houses. By the writers on agriculture they are not mentioned."