OPERATIONS ON THE ICE POND

As a rule, ice-cutting in the United States takes place in the months of January and February, and in the early part of March. 'When ice is thick enough for operations to begin it is scraped, if covered with snow, and, if rough and wavy on the surface, is sometimes planed. When snow continues to fall the ice is often scraped from 6 to S times. This work is performed with machines drawn by teams of horses. There is no fixed rule as to-the thickness ice must attain before being cut. It depends entirely on circumstances. On the lower boundary of the frozen belt, as for instance on the Hudson river, iu Pennsylvania, Maryland, and throughout the Ohio river valley, the uncertainty of settled weather, especially if the season be late, makes it advisable to cut as soon as ice 6 inches thick is obtainable. Further north the companies usually wait for a thickness of ten or twelve inches. In Maine 15 inches is thick enough, although (luring the winter much ice is harvested from 20 to 30 inches in thickness. Ice sometimes forms 3 feet 'thick, but the cakes are then too heavy to handle economically. When the snow has been cleared away the field is " prospected" for the best point to begin cutting. Holes are bored and a measuring rod is inserted to test the thickness. The rod is marked off in inches, like a pocket rule, and the lower end is turned off at a right angle to hook on to the bottom of the ice. It pays best to cut the thickest ice,. even if a smaller quantity of it be gathered; and, all other things being equal, the preference is given to that part of the field above the ice-house, if on a river, iu order to gain the help of the stream in floating the detached ice down to the house. The further away from the house the cutting takes place the more the time, labor, and. money required to harvest the crop, especially as the channels for floating the cakes to the house are always apt_ to freeze up over night, and the longer they are the more the trouble of keeping them open.

When the scene of operations has been chosen, the field is immediately lined off into squares. Two straight lines are run as in land surveying, at right angles to each other, a surveyor's theodolite being the best instrument for the purpose. The lines are marked on the ice with the straight edge of a plank. The real work then begins.

 The first of the ice-tools proper comes into requisition. This is the marker, an implement like a low plow, with eleven cutting teeth; one behind the other, each tooth a little longer than the one in front of it. Drawn by a horse, the marker is steered by the plow handles along the course of the straight line scratched on the ice, which it sinks. at one en ug to the depth of 3 inches. The marker is then turned around, a sliding guide is placed in the line just made, and the marker is drawn back across the field again, cutting a fresh seam, 3 inches deep, at a distance of 22 inches from the first one. The guide regulates the size of the blocks, the regular width being 22 inches When the field has been lined off in one direction a fresh set of lines is run in at right angles, dividing the whole field into squares usually of 22 inches. If the ice is thin the field is often lined off in blocks 22 by 30 inches.  The favorite size for the New York market is 32 by 22 inches. In Maine and in Massachusetts the blocks are often 21 by 44 inches, and sometimes 44 by 44 for convenience in shipping to distant ports.

The next implement used is the ice-plow, the most important one connected with harvesting the crop. It rs made on the same principle as the marker, except that no guide is necessary. It is constructed of six different sizes, governed by the thickness of the ice and the depth to which it can be safely and usefully cut. The sizes are respectively 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 12 inches, and the number of teeth varies from 5 to 8. The object of the plow is to cut the ice-field to about two-thirds the depth of the ice into cakes and blocks which can be readily detached with hand-tools and floated off to the ice-houses. The work is done by horse-power, the teams being attached to the plow with about 10 feet of tug-rope. The plow is run through the grooves cut by the marker, each passage of the plow sinking the groove 2 inches. It is run back and forth until the requisite depth is reached. A channel is then opened through the field to the ice-houses, and the process of storing begins.

The ice next to the channel is, however, first planed by horse-power with a machine consisting of two parallel smooth blades, which run in adjoining grooves in the ice, and carry between them a knife, set, as in a carpenter's plane, to cut to any required thickness up to about 3 inches. A seat is rigged up for the man who drives the horses so that his weight may keep the plane steady in the grooves. This implement is made in the best possible manner, in all its parts, and care is especially taken to fit into it a knife of the best cast steel.

The favorite plan is to begin detaching the ice from the field at the farthest end of the channel. A steel saw, from 4 to 5 feet long, is used (sometimes a breaking-off bar or chisel), and a sheet consisting of about a dozen squares of ice is separated from the field and started down the channel. After a space has been cleared the ice is sawn off into large rafts, 12 by 30 cakes in size, which are separated into sheets on reaching the channel. The most approved plan of getting the rafts to the channel, and the sheets to the house, is by towing them with a team of horses, or even with a single horse; but sometimes an ice-cutter will walk out on the floating raft and pole it along to its destination with a tool called a hook, consisting of a long, light wooden handle, fitting at its extreme end with a spike on one side for pushing and a hook on the other for pulling. Sometimes the channel is lined with men armed with books, who pole the detached pieces along without leaving the main field. When horses are the motive power a tow-line is used having a grapple which catches the after end of the sheet. When the floats arrive at the ice-house they are separated by light breaking-off  bars, either into single cakes or into squares of four cakes each, for hoisting into the house and stowing away. It is a common practice with firms owning large houses to make plank walks or landings out along the sides of the channel near the shore, and at the foot of the inclined planes, for the ice-men to stand upon while wielding the tools by whose aid the ice is separated into cakes and pushed along to the planes.

The house into which the cakes are now hoisted is quite a different affair from the covered pit or cellar, or the hill-side cave of from sixty to eighty years ago. It is sometimes of brick, but usually of wood—a large, barn-like structure, planted at the edge of the pond, lake, or river, in a location which is dry and well exposed to the sunlight and air, and where also it is readily accessible by barge or schooner, if its contents are destined-Tor shipment to distant markets. Damp localities are avoided.

 One of the worst enemies of ice is moisture.. The outside of the house is painted, or whitewashed, a glaring white, to reflect as much as possible the rays of the sun in summer; and the walls and space under the rafters are so arranged as to be almost impervious to the heat of the outer. air. These long white buildings are conspicuous objects in the landscapes of the Hudson and Kennebec rivers. The size of the house is governed in part by the producing capacity of the body of water at whose edge it stands, and in part by the magnitude of its owners' business. It is usual to divide the houses into "rooms" from 30 to 35 feet square, each holding about 700 tons of ice, the rooms being 30 feet high, and a ton occupying 421 to 45 cubic feet of space. Rooms are often large enough, however, especially in Maine, where three or four are thrown into one, to hold from 2,500 to 3,000 tons of ice. In a few cases a room has been made to hold from 4,000 to 5,000 tons. A medium-sized house is one which will store 10,000 tons. A large one will accommodate 60,000 tons. As ice will waste from 10 to 25 per cent. in an ordinary house, especially after it is opened, and as there is a total waste in all of 40 to 55 per cent. before reaching the consumers, it is usual to build with a capacity a third larger than the quantity which is expected to be sold in the course of the year. The cheapest lumber that can be bought is usually employed in construction. Spruce, hemlock, and white pine are the favorite woods, with pitch pine for sills, and hard wood in the main rafters. The roof is shingled with cedar, or some other good quality of shingle. About 175,000 feet of lumber are required for a 10,000-ton house. The frame of the house is erected after the usual fashion of frame buildings, and is generally of spruce, where it can be had. It is boarded up inside with hemlock, and outside with white pine, the spaces between forming an air-chamber clear around the house, which, when ventilated as it ought to be, keeps the house dry. In the majority of houses the frame is not sided up outside at all; but experience has led, especially in the warmer localities, to the boarding up of both sides of the frame, and the practice is a growing one. The roof is built in such manner as to have plenty of loft room. On the side of the house toward the water there is a doorway in each room, extending clear from the eaves to the foundation. As the house is filled with ice this doorway is closed up, five or six feet at a time, until it is sealed clear to the eaves. Preparation is made for stowing away the ice by packing the walls of the house. Light studs, about 3 by 8 inches in thickness, are placed against the matched hemlock or pine boarding, which covers the frame of the building, and these studs are in turn boarded up to the eaves with matched stuff. In the best houses felt or manila paper is tacked over the studs, before the boards are put on, as an additional safeguard. The space between the studs is then filled with dry sawdust, charcoal, shavings, or any other non-conducting clean refuse that is easily obtainable. The floors are of earth, covered with charcoal or sawdust, and then boarded over. Proper drains are made across the floor of the building to carry oil' the drip from the store of ice. A narrow inclined plane is next built from each rocin into the lake or river for hoisting the ice into the house. The proper angle of pitch is front 40° to 450. The inclined planes are simply, but stoutly, made, with strong side timbers, secured to each other by cross-pieces, which are floored over with battens, the spaces between the battens allowing the water to drip from the cakes of ice to the ground below as they come up the plane. The battens are sometimes faced with strap iron. The elevating is done by an endless chain driven by steam-power. This chain carries a series of wooden hold-bars, or buckets, whose mission is to catch the cakes of ice, one by one, as they are poled up to the inclined plane in the channel below, and draw them steadily and swiftly up the plane until they reach the proper point for delivery into the house. Every five or six feet in height from the ground there is a delivery rim, or shoot, built like the inclined plane, open, leading from the plane into the house, and these am made use of, in turn, one after the other, as the rooms fill up, until the last one is reached at the top. The runs are usually iron on the face of the battens.

Two systems of elevator-chain are in use, the overshot and the undershot. In the overshot, the chain carrying the hold-burs moves up the inclined plane, then over a wheel, coil down perpendicularly to the ground, and thence horizontally to the water. In the undershot, the chain returns to the water down the top of the railing of the inclined plane. Both systems have their advocates. Driven by an engine of about 20 horse-power, these elevators have a capacity of raising about 175 tons of 12-inch ice an hour, which is as fast as one man can feed from the channel and 20 men stow away in the house. The chain moves at the rate of 100 to 110 feet, per minute. When speeded and when the ice is thicker than 12 inches, from 400 to 500 tons can be raised in an hour; but, in that case, a large force of men would he required to feed and stow away.  The ice is packed away in the house in regular layers, the cakes being kept, slightly apart, both to allow the water in melting to run away, and also to prevent the cakes from freezing into a solid mass. Near the top of the house they can be placed in direct contact. When the house is full, the loft under the roof is filled with hay to protect the store from the heat of the sun in summer. It is surprising how long ice will keep in house properly built, packed, drained, and ventilated, into which the ice has been put hard and dry, and which is closed for the season in freezing weather. There is always some waste, amounting at times from  10 to 25 percent; but in a first class house in which attention has been paid to every detail, ice will keep for two or three years, with no more waste than that during the whole period. It may be mentioned incidentally  that the cost of wooden icehouses with machinery, is from 75 cents to $1 per ton of capacity, according to the local abundance of timber and rate of wages.  The cost of brick houses, with machinery, is about $2 per ton of capacity. 

The ice was left floating in the channel, broken into cakes of the right size for storing. The steam-engine propelling the elevator apparatus is started, the engine being generally placed in a shed at the foot of the ice-house. One or two men pole along the cakes to the inclined plane, where they are caught in succession by the hold-bars and carried up to it trap which admits them to the first shoot or delivery runs leading into the house. This shoot is set at slight pitch to0nrd the house, and the he;tvy cakes slide (lima) with great rapidity, one after another, covering the floor of the room in every direction. A force of tacit inside quickly catch them with pole-hooks and arrange theta in regular array until they cover the floor. Another tier is then made, and another, until the height of the shoot is reached. Operations are stopped long enough to close the trap at the entrance of the shoot. The trap leading to the next shoot above is opened and the process is repeated until the house is full. As already indicated above, a smart man or two feeding the cakes upon the  elevator keep from 15 to 20 men busy inside one room, stowing them away; and to keep them all busy will require about 100 men with 10 or 12 teams of horses, at work out on the pond scraping, plowing, and breaking up the field.

One of the important details of work out on the pond is to take care that water does not f1ow into the grooves cut with the plow when a raft is detached. In freezing weather all the work of the plow would be undone, if that were permitted. To prevent it, calking irons (long bars fashioned at one cud into a chisel) are used to stop tip the ends of the grooves with ice chips. Another matter requiring attention is keeping the channels to the house open over night. Each ice man has his own plan for accomplishing this result. Some clear the channels of all the refuse ice at night and leave them full of new sheets to be towed to the house in the morning; they can he easily broken out and sent along. Sometimes the men turn the sheets over before leaving them, so as to prevent the grooves in them from filling with water and freezing. Some foremen leave no ice in the channels at ill it night, but run the risk of their freezing over, and then set their whole force at work in the morning for an hour or two clearing out the channels for the resumption of operations. Sometimes the channel is kept open by towing a block of ice back and forth all night. Another feature of work on the pond now is the rapidity with which business is pushed after cutting has begun. The reasons for haste are the liability of the open water to freeze over, the danger of changes of the weather, especially of rains, and the general economy of quick work. It is not unusual in the states, where the ice is thin and liable to be spoiled by a change of weather, to rush natters so fast as to till the houses in from six to twelve days. In the regions where severe and settled weather can be depended upon the crop is usually harvested in from fifteen to thirty days. In all cases, however, it is the practice to push the work with energy. The employment of a large force of men is accordingly called for. To fill a 25,000 ton ice house, about 100 men with 10 or 12 teams are ordinarily engaged, and sometimes about double the number. After the house is filled the ice is covered with sawdust and the house is closed up as before stated.

The tools now used by the ice-men show a remarkable appliance of inventive genius. The pioneer ice cutters had nothing except the ax and a large cross-cut hand-saw. With such simple implements they were a long time in harvesting even a small quantity of ice; and when they had brought it ashore they were without convenient facilities for transferring it to the storage-house. For fifteen or twenty years a great many new implements were experimented with. Some were failures. Many had merit. Plows were finally thought of. They were at first made with wooden beams, the teeth being iron, tipped with steel, and widened or upset at the points. One alteration after another was made in the plow. Chip spaces were cut in the narrow teeth, so as to let the plow run to its full depth in the groove, leaving only the heel and toe of each tooth to be filed. Improvements were made in the curves of the teeth, and plows were then made of solid iron and steel. The patent clearing-tooth was invented as late as 1872. Among the devices brought out was a patent gig or light wooden frame, swung on a rope and pulley for elevating ice into the house or transferring it from car to ship. Previously the only nouns was the common pulley and rope and a pair of tongs, worked by horse-power. Both devices have since beet' nearly superseded by the endless chain elevator, worked by either steam- or horse power. The endless chain has also been applied within a few- years to the handling of ice on wharves, especially iii Philadelphia, where the blocks of ice taken out of vessels are carried along the wharf by the chain and buckets and up an inclined plane into the store-house.  Leaving aside the machinery for elevating ice, the ice-tools of the present day are 60 in number. The majority of them are used at the ice-pond, the rest by the retail dealers in distributing ice to consumers

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