until it is thick enough to be cut; that process commences when the ice is a foot thick. A surface of some two acres is then selected, which at that thickness will furnish about 2000 tons, and a straight line is then drawn through its centre from side to side each way. A small hand-plough is pushed along one of these lines, until the groove is about three inches deep and a quarter of an inch in width, when the ‘Marker’ is introduced. This implement is drawn by two horses, and makes two new grooves, parallel with the first, twenty-one inches apart; the gauge remaining in the original groove. The marker is then shifted to the outside groove, and makes two more. Having drawn these lines over the whole surface in one direction, the same process is repeated in a transverse direction, marking all the ice out into squares of 21 inches. In the meantime, the ‘Plough,’ drawn by a single horse, is following in these grooves, cutting the ice to a depth of 6 inches. One entire range of blocks is then sawn out, and the remainder are split off toward the opening thus made with an iron bar. This bar is shaped like a spade and of a wedge-like form. When it is dropped into the groove, the block splits off; a very slight blow being sufficient to produce that effect, especially in very cold weather. The labour of ‘splitting’ is slight or otherwise, according to the temperature of the atmosphere. ‘Platforms,’ or low tables of frame-work, are placed near the opening made in the ice, with iron slides extending into the water, and a man stands on each side of this slide, armed with an ice-hook. With this hook the ice is caught and by a sudden jerk thrown up the ‘slide’ on to the ‘platform.’ In a cold day everything is speedily covered with ice by the freezing of the water on the platforms, slides, &c., and the enormous blocks of ice, weighing some of them more than two cwt., are hurled along these slippery surfaces, as if they were without weight. Beside this platform, stands a ‘sled’ of the same height, capable of containing about three tons; which, when loaded, is drawn upon the ice to the front of the store-house, where a large stationary platform of exactly the same height, is ready to receive its load; which, as soon as discharged, is hoisted block by block, into the house.
Forty men and twelve horses will cut and stow away 400 tons a day. In favourable weather 100 men are sometimes employed at once. When a thaw or a fall of rain occurs, it entirely unfits the ice for market, by rendering it opake and porous; and occasionally snow is immediately followed by rain, and that again by frost, forming snow-ice, which is valueless, and must be removed by the ‘plane.’ The operation of ‘planing’ is somewhat similar to that of ‘cutting.’ A plane gauged to run in the grooves made by the ‘marker,’ and which shaves the ice to the depth of three inches, is drawn by a horse, until the whole surface of the ice is planed. The chips thus produced are then scraped off; and if the clear ice is not reached, the process is repeated. If this makes the ice too thin for cutting, it is left in statu quo, and a few nights of hard frost will add below as much as has been taken off above. In addition to filling their ice-houses at the lake and in the large towns, the company fill a large number of private ice-houses during the winter, all the ice for these purposes being transported by railway. It will easily be believed, that the expense of providing tools, building houses, furnishing labour, and constructing and keeping up the railway, is very great; but the traffic is so extensive, and the management of the trade so good, that the ice can be furnished, even in England, at a very trifling cost412 (it is retailed at twopence per pound).]
