ICE TRADE. A remarkable traffic has sprung up within the last few years ; viz.,1 the transport of ice from America to various parts of the world. In the East Indies the artificial formation of ice has been long carried on, as the only means of cooling be verages and food. The ground near Hoogley, about 40 miles from Calcutta, is formed into shallow troughs; into these troughs, on a layer of straw, are placed pans of porous earthenware. Shortly before midnight in the winter months, and when the wind happens to be blowing from the north-west, a little water is poured into each vessel or pan; and if all the circumstances are favourable, a film of ice is found in each pan on the following morning ; and this ice is collected and stored with the utmost care. The selling price of this ice at Calcutta is about sixpence per pound; but the Calcutta inhabitants were surprised by the arrival, in 1833, of a ship from the United States, laden entirely with ice, which was offered for sale at three-pence per pound, and was understood to yield a good profit even after paying all the expences of a long voyage. Since then the price has been much lowered; and ice has become a regular article of ship:tent from America.
This remarkable trade is in the hands of the Wenham Lake Company. The company purchased a lake of pure water, and the sur rounding land, at Wenham, about 18 miles from Boston; they built storehouses, and formed a railway from Wenham to Boston. The lake is very deep, and is supplied solely by springs, which issue from its bed. During winter the ice which forms on it is very thick, clear, and compact. When the ice is about a foot thick, a number of men, horses, and machines are set to work. The surface is first swept scrupulously clean ; an ice-plane is drawn over it, to cut away a layer of loose or imperfect ice; an ice-plough is drawn over it, to cut a groove across the lake; and other machines are successively employed, until the ice is removed from the lake, in solid blocks weighing from one to-two ewts. each. They
take two acres of lake surface into operation at one time ; this will yield, at the average thickness, about two thousand tons of ice; and forty men, assisted by twelve horses, will cut and stow four hundred tons of this in a day. = The company's store-house, near the lake, is built of wood, and has double walls two feet apart : the intervening space being filled with saw-dust: twenty thousand tons of ice can be stored in this building at one time. The company bring the ice to Boston on their own railway, and thence transmit it to various parts of the world. Large store-houses have been formed in many parts of the United States, as well as in London and Liverpool.
Whether procured from Wenham, or from our own streams and ponds, ice may be con veniently kept in portable ice-houses or refrige rators, which are now much Used' in England and America. This consists of a box with two lids, and with perforated- sliding shelves ; ice is placed under the shelves, meat or other provisions is laid on the shelves, and the box is closed; being air-tight, it allows the ice to cool the other contents of the box with great rapidity. A new form of apparatus has been recently patented by Mr. Ling, under the name of ice-sr:/e. The ice is placed in a distinct chamber, in a way that is intended to economize that material. The smaller size, for families,. is planned so as to cool two gallons of water at a time, besides meat, the.