Let us now direct our attention to other properties of solid water or ice.

The antiseptic power of ice is extraordinary, as the following remarkable natural example will prove: in the year 1803, at Yakoust, on the banks of the river Lena, in Siberia, the body of a mammoth slowly appeared from a mountain of ice in which it had been. entombed and preserved from decay, according to all probability, from the time of the Deluge; the animal was sixteen feet in length, nine feet in height, and the flesh was in such excellent preservation, that not only did the bears and wolves devour it with eagerness, but the inhabitants of the district actually cut it up as food for their dogs.

Knowledge of this antiseptic power of ice is of great importance to us for the artificial preservation of animal food; such provision packed in ice will not undergo decomposition, because the water that it naturally contains as a leading proximate constituent, is rendered solid or frozen by the low temperature; and in such state, although still consisting of Oxygen and Hydrogen, it is incapable of promoting those changes or new arrangements of the ultimate elements of organic matter which are called putrefactive, as it is capable of doing in the liquid form.

Such frozen provision, if very slowly thawed, and immediately submitted to culinary operations, becomes wholesome food; if not, it rapidly putrefies, as it would in a recent state.

During the Winter in Russia, large and beautifully transparent blocks of ice are quarried from the surface of the frozen Neva, and stored up in cellars for the preservation of food; oxen and sheep are slaughtered, dismem

bered, and allowed to freeze; the joints are afterwards packed in casks and sent to market; and although so hard as to require an axe to break them, the flesh softens by the thawing of the ice when immersed in cold water, and is fit for cooking.

Large quantities of salmon are shipped from Scotland packed in boxes with ice; indeed so important are its antiseptic powers, that of late years it has been imported from some of the lakes of North America ; the chief employment of ice is by fish-merchants, for the preservation of their stock during the heat of Summer, because the animal fibre of fish is exceedingly prone to putrefy, by a very moderate elevation of natural temperature.

Confectioners, likewise, employ large quantities of ice for obtaining a sufficiently low temperature for making ice-creams, water-ices and other luxuries of the table, which are so grateful during the heat of Summer; and the collection of ice for all the above purposes affords active employment for many poor yet industrious persons, during the chill season of Winter.

Accordingly, upon the first intelligence that ponds are frozen over in the vicinity of London, folks who are stirring at daybreak may see parties of men and boys, proceeding with crow-bars, forks, rakes, poles, ropes and nets; in carts, wagons, and vans of every grade and denomination, in search of ice; a luxury to the rich, but a treasure to the poor; as by its collection, although a chilling, comfortless, and hazardous task, they earn a small pittance, which carefully expended upon the necessaries of life, will enable them to keep distress and famine from their cheerless abodes, for a short time at least, during the Winter that brings no festivity within their walls.

The ice thus collected is carted to the shops of fishmongers and confectioners, and received in their "icehouses;" the construction of these receptacles for the preservation of the ice, throughout the Four Seasons, depends upon strictly scientific principles, and therefore demands a general description in this inquiry.

The sole object is to prevent the accession of heat to the ice, and therefore an "ice-house," or "ice-well," is generally formed at a considerable depth in the nonconducting earth, especially in the metropolis, where the surface is of such great value.

To construct an "ice-house," or, more correctly speaking, an "ice-well," a cavity is dug in the earth, in the shape of an inverted cone, and then built around with thick brick-work, like a well as shown in the accompa nying sectional engraving.

At the bottom of the cone, a cart-wheel is laid flat, to serve as a grating, and immediately beneath this, proceeds a small brick drain, sloping gradually towards the main sewer or larger street drain.

About the middle of the small drain, as shown above, a small tank is placed, and a large flat paving tile, or slab of stone, descends from the upper part of the course

of brick-work constituting the small drain, to within a few inches of the bottom of the small tank, and this is half full of water.

The upper part of the cone is covered with a dome of brick-work, in the centre of which is an aperture, of any size most conveniently suited to the whole structure; and the horizontal part of the engraving, which proceeds from the white space on the left hand, denotes a brickwork passage, having two or three doors, by which access can be gained to the interior of the "ice-well;' this is charged with ice, as follows.

The aperture in the dome of the well is opened, as also the doors of the passage, and a truss of clean straw unbound and thrown down evenly upon the cart wheel; the cart loads of ice are then emptied upon the street pavement, and the ice is rapidly broken by clubs and mallets, into fragments small enough to pass through the aperture in the dome; these fragments are rapidly shoveled down, and when a sufficient quantity has thus fallen, one or two men, according to the size of the well, descend, and beat the ice firmly together with heavy wooden rammers, something like pavers' rammers; more ice is then shoveled down and beaten; and so on, until the well is perfectly and compactly filled; the workmen then pass out through the side door.

The aperture of the dome is then accurately closed by a slab of stone, which rests upon a ledge, formed for its reception; the shaft above this is several feet in extent; and its top, or mouth, is covered with another slab of stone, level with the pavement; thus, a considerable column of air is closely imprisoned or rendered stagnant, between the upper and lower slab; and this air,

by its non-conducting power, cuts off the access of heat to the dome of the ice-well.

The door in the brick-work of the ice-well is then closed, and the space between it and the next door, closely filled in with straw; this second door is then closed, and the space between it and the third door similarly filled, and so on until all are closed; the air, and the straw thus confined, cut off the access of heat to the ice in this direction; and thus the operation is finished.

Notwithstanding all these precautions, a portion of the ice will thaw; but the water from this thawing filters down through the remaining ice, through the straw, and between the spokes of the wheel into the small drain, and as it accumulates in the small tank, it overflows and passes to the sewer; at the same time, the slab of stone or paving tile, forms an effectual barrier against the admission of warm air from the sewer, so that by all these contrivances the ice is kept as perfectly as possible from obtaining heat, and the chief mass of it remains throughout the Summer.

A considerable thawing of the ice takes place when the doors are opened for obtaining such portions as may be required for use; on this account, and also of the great trouble that is required for removing the straw barriers, and shutting one door before another is opened, the proprietors of these "ice-wells" never open them more frequently than is absolutely necessary.

A small quantity of ice may be preserved, by placing it in a thick wooden box with a tight cover, and having four wooden clump-feet, about two inches high, to stand within another box, so that a space of two inches may intervene between its sides and cover; this