and consoling. I shall show you, by-and-by, what effectual weapons snow and straw are against the arch foe.-For the South of Italy and Sicily, snow is preserved in several caverns of Etna, and brought down to purchasers, who compete for respite with the eagerness of roasting men.— In Lima, cheap ice, from the Cordilleras, is a cry kindred to our own cheap bread. The public mind makes about six revolutions a year in any state of South America, but in all tumults the ice-mules bear a sacred burden. Nobody dares meddle with the people's ice.-The Chinese under stand the use of ice very well indeed.-As for Wenham Lake, folks at Boston talk about the state of the ice crops, as we talk about the state of wheat.-In European capitals, ice is not only an article of amusement, but of trade. Who has not heard of the delights of the sleigh, galloping over ice and snow at twenty miles an hour? Then there is the Russian version of the ice palace on the Neva, built at the marriage of Prince Gallitzin, with ice masonry that blunted all the chisels, ice chairs, ice dining-tables, and ice cannons that fired hempen bullets. But I am sitting upon horsehair, writing upon leather; and I am not consoled. however, I turn to a glowing Kohl, and find relief in a delicious extract from his book on 66 Russia." You may take off your neckerchief and sit at ease, for here you have a bit of Kohl thoroughly cold:

Here,

"An immense quantity of ice is consumed in Russian housekeeping. Throughout the summer, ices are sold in the streets of every Russian town; and, not only iced water, iced wine, and iced beer, but even iced tea is drunk in immense quantities. The short but excessively hot summer would spoil most of the food brought to market, had not the winter provided in abundance the means for guarding against such rapid decomposition. An ice-house, is, there

fore, looked upon as an indispensable appendage, not merely to the establishments of the wealthy, but even to the huts of the peasants. In St. Petersburg alone there are said to be ten thousand ice-houses, and it may easily be supposed, that to fill all these cellars is a task of no trifling magni tude. It is not too much to calculate that each ice-house on an average, requires fifty sledge-loads of ice to fill it. The fishmongers, butchers, and dealers in quass have suck enormous cellars that many hundreds of loads will go intc them; and the breweries, distilleries, &c., consume incalcu lable quantities. According to the above calculation, five hundred thousand sledge-loads of ice would have to be drawn out of the Neva every year; but this calculation is rather under than over the mark. It is, certainly, the merchandise in which the most extensive traffic is carried on during winter. Whole processions of sledges laden with the glittering crystals may then be seen ascending from the Neva; and thousands of men are incessantly at work raising the cooling produce from its parent river. The breaking of the ice is carried on in this way: The workmen begin by clearing the snow away from the surface, that they may clearly trace out the form of the blocks to be detached. They then measure off a large parallelogram, and mark the outline with a hatchet. The parallelogram is subdivided into a number of squares, of a size to suit the capacity of their sledges. When the drawing is complete, the more serious part of the work begins. A regular trench has to be formed round the parallelogram in question. This is done with hatchets; and, as the ice is frequently four or five feet thick, the trenches become at last so deep that the workmen are as completely lost to the eye as if they had been laboring in a mine. Of course, a sufficient thickness of ice must be left in the trenches to bear the workmen

which is afterwards broken with bars of iron. When the parallelogram has thus been loosened, the subdivision is effected with comparative ease. A number of men mount the swimming mass, and with their pointed ice-breakers, they all strike at the same moment upon the line that has been marked out. A few volleys of this kind make the ice break just along the desired line; and each of the oblong slips thus obtained is broken up again into square pieces after a similar fashion. To draw the fragments out of the water, a kind of inclined railroad has to be made on the side of the standing ice. This done, iron hooks are fastened into the pieces that are to be landed, and, amid loud cheers, the clear, green, crystalline mass is drawn up by willing hands. As the huge lumps lie on the snow, they appear of an emerald green, and are remarkably compact, without either bubble or rent. As soon as the sledge is loaded, the driver seats himself upon his merchandise, and thus, coolly enthroned (ah, enviable fellow !) glides away to the cellars of his customers, enlivening his frosty occupation with a merry song. It is by no means without interest to visit the ice-shafts of the Neva, and watch the Russian laborers, while engaged in a task so congenial to the habits of their country. In the cellars the ice is piled up with much art and regularity, and all sorts of shelves and niches are made, for the convenience of placing milk, meat, and similar articles there in hot weather. Such a description at least applies to what may be called a tidy, orderly icehouse; but tidiness and order do not always preside over Russian arrangements, and in the majority of cellars the ice is thrown carelessly in and broken into pieces, that it may be packed away into the corners, and that as little space as possible may be left unoccupied. The consistency and durability of the ice do not appear to suffer from this

breaking process; on the contrary, the whole, if well packed, will soon freeze into one compact mass, that is afterwards proof against the warmest summer. The Russians are so accustomed to these ice-houses, that they are at a loss to understand how a family can do without them; and their housewives are in the greatest trouble when they think they have not laid in a sufficient supply of ice during the winter or when in summer they fancy their stock likely to run short. It may safely be estimated that the ice consumed in St. Petersburg during the summer, costs the inhabitants from two to three millions of roubles." That is to say, three hundred thousand pounds to four hundred and fifty thousand pounds.

Alas! how can I enjoy thinking about the popularity of ice in Russia, when I reflect how it is with us at home? We have abundant use for ice; yet, its use, instead of being general, is exceptional. Except at pretentious dinner-parties, and in confectioners' shops; with a lump or two to be met with now and then as a preservative for fish and meat, we see little of it in England. What I want, is to have it more generally applied to domestic purposes amongst the poor as well as rich. I would be a propagandist from the frigid zones- -an ice missionary. I want to show that it is practicable for ice to be a great deal more brought into play than it is.

Let me begin at the beginning-and, first of all, what is ice?

Ice, we all know, is water that beyond a certain point has parted with its heat, and it must get its heat back in some way before it can return into the state of water. Whatever warmer substance comes into its neighborhood, it robs, and so it robs creams of the confectioner, converting them into ice, as it converts, with the stolen warmth, a few drops

of its own substance into water. The freezing point of water is at thirty-two degrees, but it is at thirty-nine degrees that the freezing process has commenced. Down to the temperature of thirty-nine degrees water becomes denser as it cools, in common with the law that regulates all other substances; but, from that point, as it cools, it becomes lighter, and the water, when solidified, is enabled thus to float. This is not caused by air inclosed within the solid substance; for water that has been boiled, from which, therefore, air has been expelled, makes better ice than water with air in it.

It

It is the peculiar arrangement which the ice crystals take among each other from which ice derives the lightness of its structure. Why it is light, is obvious; for, if it were heavy, and sank to the bed of the water, no summer's sun would penetrate to melt it; year by year it would accumulate, and thus our waters would be rapidly blocked up. Upon the land, when the moisture on the rock or in the soil is frozen, the expansion of its innumerable particles is a mighty power that assists in preparation of the soil for human purposes. Very well; ice forms at thirty-two degrees, then; but it need not stop at that temperature. remains solid; but in cold latitudes, more and more of that heat may be abstracted from it, until not only all the thirty-two degrees are gone, but a few besides upon the minus scale; until it becomes cold beyond all calculation, for no thermometer can register it. Now, to restore such ice to fluidity, every degree of heat has to be given back. Of Wenham ice, which is trebly cold, a great deal is im ported. Importation is, however, an expensive process; and in good truth, there are some things to be said in favor of our own ice, and its quality, which practical men tell us is superior by virtue of the greater toughness and slowness