Ice History - The Ice Tools & Ice Barges

ICE TOOLS-ICE BARGES

The principal tools are the following:

Scrapers for clearing away the snow; 2 styles.

Ice-plane.

Ice-saw, for opening channels and separating the rafts and sheets from the field; also used by small firms who cut without the aid of a plow.

Grapple, for towing rafts and sheets by horse power along the channels, and also Used for hauling blocks up the inclined plane by horse-power when no endless chain is used.

Jack-grapple, used for the same purposes as the last.

Breaking-off bar, the ice-cutter's handy tool; the broad blade is for detaching large sheets, the small blade for splitting off the smaller blocks.

Calking-bar, for filling the grooves in the ice with snow or chips to prevent the flooding and freezing np of the grooves.

Snow-shovel, for handling sawdust, snow, broken ice, etc.

For a moderate business in ice-cutting, as, for instance, the filling of one or two houses, an outfit of tools will cost from $500 to $1,000. The large companies, however, often have $10,000 invested in these implements. The thousand-dollar outfit would include 10 scrapers, 2 markers, 6 plows, 6 hand-plows, 2 planers, 4 saws, about 45 bars and chisels of the different patterns, about 100 ice-hooks, 24 float-hooks, 4 scoop-nets, 4 elevator-forks, an auger, a measuring-rod, 4 pairs of tongs, and about 4 hoisting-gins.

Experiments have been made during the last ten years with an implement, which has not, as yet, been made a success. This is a circular saw, driven by steam-power, for sawing out the ice from the field. So far, no machine has been produced light and handy enough to work wi th to advantage out on the pond.

In transporting the crop to market resort is had to railway cars or to ships and river boats, according to the location of the houses. In Maine, whose ice is cut principally for transportation to markets beyond the limits of the state, the loading is done on three-masted schooners and barks, and a few medium-sized ships, which have survived their usefulness for the carriage of finer commodities. Sawdust, shavings, marsh hay, and cheap lumber are used for dunnage, and the hold is closely sealed up until the arrival of the vessel at its destination. To Boston the ice is brought down from the ponds in railway cars to depots on the wharves. It is then transferred to schooner for the southern and West Indies trades, and to larger vessels for shipment to more distant ports.

On the Hudson a large fleet of barges, built especially for the trade, are employed. There are about 100 of them at present. They vary from 110 feet in length, 26 feet beam, and 9 feet in depth, registering 325 tons, to boats 140 feet long, 34 feet beam, and 10 feet in depth of hold, registering 750 tons. They carry from 400 to 1,100 tons of ice. The barges are built with white oak frames, are planked and decked with yellow pine, and housed with white pine. The hulls are alike at both ends, rather bluff, flat on the floors, and in general bulky and capacious. A cargo-house covers about three-quarters of the length of the deck. The cargo is stowed both in the hold and in the house.

In the side of the cargo-house there are from three to five doorways which, in the form of hatchways, are extended part way across the roof. Masts extend about 30 feet above the top of the house, raking so that their tops are each over a hatchway. They are used for derricks in loading and discharging cargo. A small windmill revolves above the top of the roof, and drives a pump for clearing the hold of water from the melting ice. The barges are made up in fleets of from 6 to 12, and are towed to New York by a harbor tug. The building and repairing of these boats make much work for the shipyards of the Hudson.

The Knickerbocker Ice Company unloads its barges at some of its large depots by steam-power. A line of shafting on the wharf works a drum around which is coiled the end of the rope used in hoisting the blocks out of the boat. The drum can be thrown into and out of gear as occasion requires. The ground plan of this invention is shown in the illustration.