Home › I › Ice (ARTIFICIAL with an elaborate)

Ice (ARTIFICIAL with an elaborate)

ARTIFICIAL with an elaborate system of apparatus.

The ice is cleared trom snow by means of an implement called the snow-plane.

An ice-plow, drawn by horses, and driven by a man riding on it, or propelled by steam, is then made to cut deep parallel grooves in the ice, and these are again crossed by other grooves at right angles, so that the whole of the surface is deeply marked out into small squares measuring a little more than three feet.

A few of these square blocks being de-- tached by handsaws, the remainder are easily broken off with crowbars, and floated away to the ice-storehouses, which are usually built of wood, on the borders of the lake or river. The blocks of ice are covered up with sawdust, a layer being placed between each tier of blocks.

Many of these ice-houses are made large enough to hold from 40,000 to 80,000 tons of ice. Throughout the States, except in the extreme N., the manufacture of artificial ice is extensively carried on.

The building of ice-edifices was, and perhaps still is, a winter amusement in Russia; and in the New World, Montreal sets the example of an annual ice-carnival, one of the features of which is the building of a great ice-palace, and of icemonuments of various kinds.