of the first freezing process; for the more slowly ice freezes, the more slowly it melts. The grand thing, however, in favor of English ice, is that it lies at English doors, and in a favorable winter costs us little but the storage room and trouble of collection. In dairy farms, ice is a necessary article, and ice-houses are constantly connected with them. The construction of an ice-house is sufficiently well known; the general idea corresponding to that of the Roman icewells which we just now talked about. But," exclaims the farmer or dairyman," I can't afford to build ice-houses." Perhaps not; though it would pay you well if you could; but poverty need not deprive you of ice all the summer; for it may be preserved quite well without ice-houses.

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Ice may be stacked-plain English ice, or snow well beaten down into a mass, after the Roman fashion, which answers for all economic purposes every bit as well. This is the mode of stacking ice or snow which has been found to succeed most thoroughly at Chatsworth;-in the first place, let the owner of the dairy-farm select, not the coolest and shadiest spot, as he inevitably would do without better instruction, but the openest and sunniest, because driest, bit of ground he can find the sunnier the better. At Chatsworth the first trials were made in shady places, and proved far less satisfactory, because a dry place is required, and the dryness which the sun occasions more than compensates for the temperature of its beams. The platform having been judiciously selected, dig all round it a sufficient trench, which is to contain the water that will, more or less, inevitably drain from the completed stack; let the bank of the trench be lower on the outer side, and, if necessary, a siphon tube may be put in to drain off any excess. The object of the trench is, firstly, to prevent any of the drainage water from spreading over the platform; therefore to keep the platform

dry; and secondly, to preserve this drainage water, which is very cold and can be used for making butter. Then lay over the whole platform a bed of straw, six or nine inches thick. Straw is a sufficient and convenient non-conductor, and ice wrapped in straw is tolerably well protected from external influence. Upon the straw bed make your stack, building it with sides perfectly upright. The sides are to be thus perpendicular, in order that whatever melts may flow at once into the trench, and not soak into and spoil the ice which remains otherwise unmelted. If the stack happen to be long, partitions of straw should be inserted at convenient distances, for the protection of one part while another portion is in use. The stack being erected in this manner, coat round the whole out side of it, and thatch it with a straw defence of eighteen inches thick. If you build the stack of snow, build in the same manner, but take care to batten it well down. A stack of ice or snow, so made and so defended, will remain good through the hottest summer, and will obviate necessity for any ice-house. Remember that all this will be done in mid-winter, when your laborers have comparatively nothing to do; when your horses are eating their heads off, and your cart-tires are rusting from idleness.

It is not only to the confectioner and dairy farmer that ice is an important article. The fishmonger, the butcher, and many more who deal in perishable articles, should press it into service. Ice is an effectual antiseptic. How thoroughly it acts as a preservative is illustrated by the oft-told tale of the mammoth, which made its appearance fifty years since, in his body, as he lived perhaps before the birth of Adam. "In the latter part of the summer of 1799, a Tungusian fisherman"—I am now quoting from Professor Ansted's "Ancient World"-"A Tungusian fisherman, who

was in the habit of collecting tusks for sale from among the blocks of ice and rubbish which had fallen from the cliffs, on the banks of Lake Oncoul, near the mouth of the Lena river, saw projecting from the cliff a mass of unusual form; but, from its shapeless appearance, he could make nothing of it. The year after, proceeding to his usual haunt, he noticed that this lump was somewhat disengaged, and had two projecting parts; and, towards the end of the summer of 1801, when he again looked at it, he found it to consist of the whole side of a gigantic animal, having large tusks, one of which projected from the ice. So slowly do changes take place in these districts, that the next summer, being rather cold, no alteration was to be noted; but in 1803 part of the ice between the earth and the monstrous animal was somewhat more melted than before, till the whole at length fell by its own weight on a bank of sand. Next year our fisherman came in the month of March, and cut off the tusks, which he soon sold for about the value of fifty roubles, (about seven pounds, ten shillings)." Two years after this, in 1806, being the seventh year from the discovery of the carcass, these distant and desert regions were traversed by Mr. Adams, an employé of the Court of Russia; and his account of the rest of the history of this mammoth, the ancient elephant of northern Europe, is as follows:-" At this time I found the mammoth still in the same place, but altogether mutilated. The prejudices being dissipated, in consequence of the Tungusian (who had fallen sick with alarm on first hearing of the discovery, because it was considered a bad omen,) having recovered his health, there was no obstacle to prevent approach to the carcass. The proprietor was contented with his profit for the tusks; and the Jakutski of the neigborhood had cut off the flesh, with which they fed their dogs. During the scarcity, wild beasts, such as white

bears, wolves, wolverines, and foxes, also fed upon it; and the traces of their footsteps were seen around. The skeleton, almost entirely cleared of its flesh, remained whole, with the exception of one fore-leg. The head was covered with a dry skin; one of the ears, well preserved, was fur nished with a tuft of hairs. All these parts have necessa rily been injured in transporting them a distance of seven thousand three hundred and thirty miles (to St. Petersburg); but the eyes have been preserved; and the pupil of one can still be distinguished."

I will not quote the description of that mammoth, because his whole story has been told so very often; but I fix him here as the best known illustration of the preserving powers of ice. Decomposition requires three conditions,warmth, air, and moisture. A body surrounded completely by dry ice has none of the three conditions properly fulfilled. That is the philosophy of the matter; but it is too hot to philosophize at present, or to discuss any subject-even that of Ice. One can only glance at it while the thermometer is-I dare not go and ascertain where. At last, having attained a summer luxury (rather an expensive one, by-thebye, in the long run), to wit, idleness-the dolce far niente -surely it would be insanity to add another syllable. Any one who is capable of so much exertion, is at liberty to think a little of these things, and of the mode of stacking Ice especially.

Some Account of Chloroform.

THE globe whereon we live, called habitable, has now pretensions to that epithet which it could not boast of, in former times. Science, continually developing its capabili ties, is daily rendering it a more eligible residence for a gentleman-a more commodious dwelling-place, indeed, to all. Say that the path of life is thorny still; yet, what with gutta percha-for soles and other things-steam, electricity, and other helps and appliances, it has become a decidedly more passable thoroughfare than it was. Philosophers, by simply giving their minds to the study of Nature, have obtained results more valuable than the considerations for which, according to the myths of the middle ages, their predecessors were glad to dispose of their souls. The amount of human comfort has been greatly augmented; the sum of human wretchedness has been diminished by a very large figure. Among the reductions of this kind that have been accomplished in modern times, the most signal, unquestionably, is the abolition of physical pain, in so far as it has been effected by the discovery of the anesthetical property of chloroform; that is, of the remarkable power possessed by that substance when inhaled, of annulling, for