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charged in jets, yielding a part of their caloric to the expanding air. The liquid then goes back to its reservoir, and a new supply is sent from this to be chilled and returned with the next stroke. The water to be frozen is in a vessel surrounded by that which contains the working fluids. This machine was afterward patented in Great Britain; and from the account in the "London Mechanic's Magazine" it appears that with pumps of about 8 inches diameter and 16 inches stroke, condensing and expanding air to and from a tension of 3 atmospheres, a block of ice weighing nearly 60 lbs. was produced by the labor of 2 men in 2 hours. -ICE TRADE. Ice was little known as an article of commerce until the early part of the present century. In the 17th century its use was so common in France that many dealt in it and in snow, gathering these in winter and packing them closely in pits surrounded with straw or other non-conducting substances and protected from the air. The Italian peasants also have long found a profitable business in collecting the snow upon the Apennines and storing it in the caves of these mountains to supply the large demand at Naples, where it is stated there are snow shops in almost every street, which are kept open day and night through the warm season. The bodies of ice found in the recesses of Mount Etna, and excavated sometimes from beneath beds of lava which have flowed over them, are noticed in the article ETNA. In the last century the gathering and storing of ice for summer use is known to have been practised in some of the middle states of the American Union, the receptacles for preserving it being deep cellars, placed so as to be readily drained, or from which the water was pumped out as it collected; but though most wanted in countries where it is not naturally produced, no attempts had been made to transport it by sea. This was first done by Mr. Frederic Tudor of Boston, who sailed himself with a cargo of 130 tons in his own brig to Martinique in 1805. The ice was brought down to Charlestown, Mass., from a part of Lynn then called Saugus, Mr. Tudor persevered in the business, making little or no profit, however, till after the close of the war of 1812. In 1815 he obtained the monopoly of the Havana business and important privileges from the Cuban government. In 1817 he introduced the trade into Charleston, S. C., the next year into Savannah, and in 1820 into New Orleans. Frequent disasters attended his enterprises, and in 1832 his entire shipments amounted to only 4,352 tons, the whole of which came from Fresh pond in Cambridge. In May, 1833, he sent the first cargo of ice to the East Indies, which was delivered at Calcutta in the autumn of that year. Of 180 tons, one third was wasted on the voyage, and 20 tons more in going up the Ganges. It was packed in large blocks closely fitted together between a double plank casing filled in with dry tan. The ice was sold immediately at no more than half the cost of that pre

pared by the natives. At the present time a waste of about one half is generally expected on this voyage. In 1834 the first cargo was shipped by Mr. Tudor to Brazil. Until 1836 he conducted the whole trade; but as it became profitable others began to enter into it, and from other ports beside Boston. This, however, has the great bulk of the trade, which from Boston has increased as follows, according to the incomplete returns that have been preserved:

In 1805. "1816. 1826. " 1836. " 1846. "1856..

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12,000" 65,000" 146,000" These figures show an extraordinary rapidity of increase, still continuing, and the establishment of an important branch of commerce upon a natural production formerly regarded as of no value. It has served to secure to Boston the chief portion of the Calcutta trade, and provides her ships with cargoes for the southern ports, thus reducing the expenses of freighting southern products to the north. Of the 146,000 tons shipped in 1856, it is estimated that 81,391 tons were for southern domestic ports. Into the interior ice has been carried by railroad in considerable quantity as far as Knoxville, Tenn. The shipments to England, which were at one time nearly 1,000 tons annually, have been greatly reduced by the supplies furnished from Norway at less rates than the cost of American ice. The superior quality of the latter, however, enables it to compete with the Norwegian article, and a Massachusetts association called the Wenham lake company erected extensive houses in London and Liverpool for storing ice, with capacity for conducting an annual business of several thousand tons. The chief difficulty in establishing the ice business in warm countries has been the necessity of constructing houses especially adapted for preserving the ice; and these to be profitable must be upon a large scale. One of these erected in 1845 at Calcutta, by Mr. Wyeth of Cambridge, covered more than three fourths of an acre, and was capable of holding 30,000 tons of ice. Its walls of brick were triple, with flues or air spaces between; their length was 198 feet by 178 feet, and their height 40 feet. The building was covered by 5 roofs, and between every two contiguous ones were air spaces.-New York city is supplied with ice chiefly from small lakes near the Hudson river, or from the river itself above the reach of tide, as at Athens, opposite Hudson, and other places. The largest quantity furnished by any one of these sources is from Rockland lake in Orange county, about 120,000 tons annually. The whole amount delivered in the city is about 285,000 tons, of which only 20,000 is for exportation. With the growth of the business upon the coast it has also spread in the interior, where, especially near the large towns, the gathering of ice is now an important business. In the interior towns it is afforded at wholesale in the summer

at $250 to $3 a ton, and in small quantities at about $4. In Boston large supplies for shipment are commonly worth about $2. The great lakes furnish supplies which are carried by railroad to the cities lying south, and through the Illinois river ice is sent down the Mississippi. In the autumn the ice boats come up to the vicinity of Peru, Ill., where they are allowed to be frozen in. In the winter they are filled, and in the spring when the ice breaks up they float down with their freight. The ice produced in deep ponds by the severe cold weather of New England is particularly adapted by its hardness and compactness to keep well, while the purity of the water gives it clearness and renders it especially agreeable. The ice formed upon the shallow waters of Great Britain is found to be porous and very inferior in durability to that from the United States of the same thickness. The methods of gathering and storing ice are entirely American. When the ice is 9 inches to a foot thick, or if for exportation 20 inches thick, the snow, if there be any, is cleared off the surface with wooden scrapers, each drawn by, one horse. Another scraper armed with a steel blade planes off the porous upper layer to the depth of 3 inches or more if necessary. The surface is then marked off in large squares by a sort of plough drawn by a horse, which cuts a groove about 3 inches deep. A machine somewhat like a harrow with 3 or more parallel rows of teeth, which may be 22 inches apart, is next drawn along the lines already made, one row of teeth running in the groove as a guide; and as many more cuts are made as there are more rows of teeth. This is repeated upon the cross lines, and the whole area is thus cut into small squares. If necessary, a deeper plough is afterward run through all the grooves to increase their depth. A row of blocks is then sawn out by hand, and being taken out or thrust under the others, room is made for splitting off the adjoining squares, which is done by an ice spade dropped into the grooves. In very cold weather the ice yields readily to a slight wedging force. The blocks are sometimes floated through the canals opened in the ice to the shore, where they are hoisted out; and they are also sometimes jerked with a hook at the end of a pole up a slide upon a platform placed at the edge of the opening, and from this platform they are slid along on to the sleds which convey them away. At the ice houses the blocks are raised often by steam power up an inclined plane to the top of the building, and thence let down another plane to any part within where it is required for packing. The storehouses, huge wooden or brick buildings without windows standing around the edge of the ponds or along the banks of the rivers, present a very singular appearance. They are from 100 to 200 feet long and very broad, with a capacity sometimes exceeding 20,000 tons. One at Athens on the Hudson holds 58,000 tons, and two at Rockland lake in Orange co., N. Y., hold 40,000 tons each. Around Fresh pond in Cambridge,

Mass., there are some 50 of these buildings. Between their walls they are filled in with tan, dried leaves, rice hulls, hay, shavings, or saw dust; and the blocks of ice are also packed with the same materials to good advantage, excluding the air as much as possible. Thus the refuse materials of the saw mills are brought into use, and the dust that was formerly an obstruction to the mills in Maine is now sold to considerable extent for preserving ice, and is brought to Boston for this purpose. In packing the ice it is found advantageous for long keeping to place the blocks upon their edges rather than upon their flat sides. As the season of the ice harvest is short and uncertain, the gathering of the crop is conducted with the greatest activity at favorable times. The ponds present a busy scene by day, with the crowds of men pressing forward their various operations with their horses and curious machines. But in the clear cold nights, when the work is still continued by the light of the moon, the interest is greatly heightened by the contrast of life and activity, noise and bustle upon the ice, with the darkness of the open water around and the gloom and stillness of the surrounding forests. No time is suffered to be lost. The men by their great numbers are sometimes able when assisted by the steam engine to take out and store 600 tons of ice in an hour; and several parties are often seen thus engaged upon the different parts of the same pond.

ICE PLANT (mesembryanthemum crystalli num, Linn.), the common name of a plant originally brought from the Canary islands, where its seeds reduced to powder are said to have been used by the aborigines as an article of fool. In Spain it used to be largely cultivated in order to procure alkali for making glass; and in one year the value of the exports of its ashes from the Canary islands amounted to about $120,000. Each plant spreads over the ground from a small, central, fibrous, woody root, and has numerous succulent branches covered with large, tender, and succulent leaves, the cuticle of both being elevated into many crystalline points, whence its name. The flowers are very small and sit closely upon the stalks; they consist of a few linear white petals rising out of broadly ovate, acute, retuse calyx leaves, of little beauty, and only produced in abundance under cultivation in the garden during continued pleasant weather. The plants are readily raised from seeds sown in a frame, or even in flower pots kept in some sunny window of the sitting room; if thus treated with early sowing the plants can be forwarded for planting out by the middle of May or first of June. It is best to select some dry, bare, sunny spot, allowing each plant abundance of room.

ICEBERGS AND ICE ISLANDS, floating masses of ice gathered on the coast of polar regions, and set adrift by force of winds and currents. Many icebergs are produced from glaciers, which, thrust down from the elevated snowy lands in the interior, are moved onward into

the deep waters, where the fragments broken off from the advance border are floated away. The edges of glaciers extending many miles along a precipitous coast have been seen to fall with terrific violence into the sea beneath, and at once be transformed into floating islands of ice. These carry with them the masses of rock gathered up by the ice in its progress as a glacier, and transport them to new localities in warmer latitudes. (See DILUVIUM, and GLACIER.) Ice islands of vast extent are also produced by the breaking up of the great fields of sea-made ice, which accumulate along the shores of the frigid waters. In the year 1817 the ice covering several thousand square miles of the sea N. ' of Iceland, and chiefly on the E. coast of Greenland, most of which, it is believed, had not been moved for nearly 400 years, was suddenly broken up and dispersed over the waters of the north Atlantic. Portions of it were carried far to the eastward of the usual range of icebergs from the north, and approached within 800 m. of Ireland, or to long. 32° W. The breaking up of this ice led to the expedition of Capt. Ross, the second of the present century in search of a N. W. passage, the opinion prevailing that the climate had essentially changed, and that the northern seas would continue open. The drift of the northern icebergs is with the great polar currents, one of which sets in a S. S. W. direction between Iceland and Greenland, and another along the W. side of Baffin's bay, meeting the former near the coast of Labrador. They are brought against the American continent and the W. shores of its bays in consequence of not catching at once the more rapid rotating motion of the earth as they pass upon larger parallels, and so allowing this to slip from under them. The greatest numbers are produced on the W. side of Greenland; and, as observed by Dr. Kane, "perhaps the most remarkable place for the genesis of icebergs on the face of the globe" is at Jacob's bight, an inlet on this side a little N. of Disco island, in about lat. 71° and long. 56°. From Labrador the ice is floated with the current past Newfoundland, and meeting near the Great Bank the warming influences of the Gulf stream, it usually disappears about lat. 42°. The extreme limit is in lat. 40°. Sometimes the ice is carried as far to the eastward as the Azores, in lat. 42°. In the southern hemisphere icebergs drift still nearer to the equator, being occasionally seen off the cape of Good Hope in lat. 36°. Were they not checked before reaching a corresponding latitude in the northern hemisphere, they might fall into the current that sets into the Mediterranean through the straits of Gibraltar, chill the waters of that sea, and produce an unwelcome change in its delightful climate. As they reach their southern limit their influence is felt in sensibly cooling the waters of the Gulf stream for 40 to 50 m. around, and on approaching them the thermometer has been known to fall 17° or 18°. When driven, as they sometimes are, in large numbers into Hudson's bay, they

diffuse intense cold over the northern portion of the continent; and, as observed by Capt. Franklin, ice is always found, even in summer, at the mouth of Hayes river at the depth of 4 feet below the surface of the ground, and this in the latitude of the north of Prussia.-The floating masses assume a variety of forms. Some spread out into sheets, which cover hundreds of square miles and rise only a few feet above the water. These are called fields, or, when their whole area can be defined from the mast head, floes. A number of sheets succeeding each other in one direction constitute a stream, or lying together in great collections, a pack. The surface of the sheets is often diversified by projections above the general level, which are called hummocks; they are forced up by the floes pressing against each other, and are sometimes in the form of great slabs supported by one edge. Dr. Kane noticed that these become bent by their own weight, even when the thermometer continues far below the freezing point. The most solid clear ice exhibits this yielding property of its particles. The surface of the ice fields is usually covered with snow, and when the ice is no more than 2 feet thick it gives no trace of salt on the surface. The thicker ice contains open pools of fresh water. The bergs are real floating mountains of ice, rugged and picturesque, with peaks jutting high into the air, and strange forms in the glittering hard blue ice, which one easily converts into imaginary castles and grotesque architectural designs. They are occasionally seen in great numbers moving on together. Dr. Kane in his first cruise counted 280 in sight at one time, most of which exceeded 250 feet in height, and some even exceeded 300 feet. The dimensions of the largest are measured by miles. Lieut. Parry in the first expedition of Ross encountered one in Baffin's bay, 7 leagues from land, the length of which was 4,169 yards, its breadth 3,869, and its height 51 feet. It was aground in 61 fathoms. Its cliffs recalled those of the chalk on the coast of England W. of Dover. Dr. Kane saw one aground in soundings of 520 feet, which with every change of tide swung round upon its axis; and Capt. Ross describes several he saw aground together in Baffin's bay in water 1,500 feet deep. The officers of the French exploring expedition in the Southern ocean measured several bergs from 2 to 5 miles each in length, and from 100 to 225 feet high. Capt. Dumont d'Urville reports one in the Southern ocean 13 miles long, with vertical walls 100 feet high. The portion of these masses of ice seen above the water is only about an eighth part of their entire bulk. Such bodies, weighing hundreds of millions of tons, moved on by a broad current of water, exert a power against obstacles of which we can form little idea. In their action upon the bottom of the sea, as explained in the article DILUVIUM, many geologists recognize a repetition of the phenomena accompanying the distribution of the drift formation, and the production

of its sands and gravel and rounded bowlders. Dr. Kane remarks of the display of power exhibited by the movement of these huge bodies as follows: "Nothing can be more imposing than the rotation of a berg. I have often watched one, rocking its earth-stained sides in steadily deepening curves, as if to gather energy for some desperate gymnastic feat; and then turning itself slowly over in a monster somerset, and vibrating as its head rose into the new element, like a leviathan shaking the water from its crest. It was impossible not to have suggestions thrust upon me of their agency in modifying the geological disposition of the earth's surface."."-Icebergs occur in great numbers in the North Atlantic in the latter part of the summer, and form the chief danger which then besets the navigation between Europe and North America.

ICELAND, a large island in the Northern ocean, subject to Denmark, geographically belonging to the western hemisphere, and distant from Norway about 650 m., from the Shetland islands and Scotland 500 m., from the Färöe islands 250 m., and from Greenland 160 m. It is situated between lat. 63° 20' and 66° 35′ N. and long. 13° 25' and 24° 31′ W.; greatest length 325 m., greatest breadth 200 m.; area, 41,000 sq. m. The population of Iceland in its more flourishiing epochs exceeded 100,000. The results of several censuses of modern times are as follows: 1840, 57,094; 1845, 58,558; 1850, 59,157; 1855, 64,603. Reikiavik, the capital, has a population of only 1,500. The island is of volcanic origin, and consists of a mass of plutonic rocks, whose more prominent upheavals have taken the shape of tolerably well defined ranges of mountains running from N. E. to S. W. The coast line is generally rugged, and is indented, especially on the N. and W., with long, deep, and narrow bays or fiords. The highest mountains are: Oeräfa Jökull, 6,241 Danish feet; Snafell, 5,808; Eyjafjalla Jökull, 5,432; Herdubreid, 5,290; Vatna Jökull, 5,000; Hecla, 4,961. The chief streams are the Jökullsá, Lagarfljot, and Skjalfjandafljot in the N. E., and the Thiorsú in the S. W. The lakes are neither large nor numerous, the most noticeable being the Myvatn in the N., and the Fiskivatn, Hvitavatn, and Thingvallavatn in the S. In the interior, upon an extent of thousands of square miles, the eye beholds nothing but the vestiges of volcanic destruction. Deep abysses formed by extinct craters are surrounded by immense fields of lava which has filled the beds of lakes, and has transformed fertile valleys into stony deserts. Then follow tall conical hills of ashes, and, scattered between them, gigantic rocks or blocks of ice; again a steaming pool, at the bottom of which masses of sulphur are boiling and bubbling; still further on, a mammoth cave, its stalactites glazed over with ice, and vast fields of brimstone, honeycombed by hot springs, and producing an unearthly noise not unlike that of thousands of steam boilers combined; then glaciers, a smoking volcano whose subterranean

thunders have for years been announcing a fearful eruption, and boiling fountains throwing up their grand columns of hot water with a roaring din like that of a hundred cannons. Such are the most prominent features of the natural scenery of Iceland, the grandest, the most appalling scenery to be found in the world. (See GEYSERS.) Mount Hecla is situated in the S. W. part of the island, in the Rangarvallasysla, in lat. 63° 59' N., long. 19° 42' W., about 10 m. from the S. coast. Its height is 4,961 Danish, or 5,104 English feet. Its eruptions take place every 70 or 80 years, according to Waltershausen (Skizze von Island), but the Icelandic records mention no fewer than 43 since A. D. 900. Pliny Miles, who ascended the mountain in 1852, gives in his "Rambles in Iceland" a list of 24 eruptions which have occurred since 1004, at intervals varying from 6 to 76 years, the two last being in 1766-28 and 1845-'6. Mount Hecla has the appearance of an elongated ridge, with a single conical peak, on the side of which lie in a row 4 great craters, which were opened in 1845-'6. On the summit is a 5th, the principal crater of the mountain. It is a long irregular chasm, nearly of a mile long, 300 feet wide, and 200 or 300 feet deep. It has been silent for ages, and may be entered with safety. The bottom consists of volcanic sand and moist earth, emitting little heat, and in some places covered with snow, but from fissures in the rock lava, slags, and scoria which form its sides, issue smoke and hot steam. The craters more recently opened are filled with dark smoke, sulphur, and red cinders, and streams of lava thrown out in 1845 were found yet hot after an interval of 7 years. A laya stream formed by that eruption was 8 geographical miles long, and in some places more than 2 m. wide. On the summit the ground feels warm to the feet; on digging to the depth of 6 inches smoke bursts out, and smoking heaps of lava are scattered over the surface. The top of the mountain is nearly flat, forming a broad table, of a mile by 50 rods across. The Skaptar Jökull is a name given to a mountain group over 100 m. in diameter at the base and 330 m. in circumference. It presents from different points of view the appearance of several distinct mountains. The Oeräfa Jökull and Vatna Jōkull are 2 of its highest peaks. It is accessible only in a few places, and from the summit of Hecla presents the appearance of one vast elevated plain of ice and snow. A terrific eruption of this mountain took place in 1783, preceded by the sudden formation some 70 m. off the coast of a volcanic island, which disappeared in the course of a year, and by violent earthquakes, clouds of smoke, and showers of ashes, which are said to have been carried to places on the continent 2,000 m. distant. The snows were melted, causing a heavy freshet, and on June 10 the streams of lava burst forth. In 24 hours the bed of the Skapta river was dried up, and a torrent of lava filled it. The fiery flood lasted 3 months, and the eruption continued

until Feb. 1784. The lava covered a tract of country 500 sq. m. in area. The principal mineral productions are sulphur, which occurs in large quantities at Husavik on the N. coast and elsewhere, and the feldspar used in commerce, which is found imbedded in the amygdaloid tracts of the E. portion of the island. The cold, bleak climate and barren soil of Iceland are so repulsive to the inhabitants of a more temperate zone, that it appears almost miraculous how a high state of civilization could ever have existed there. The summer is very short, and nearly all the rest of the year is a severe winter. In the month of June one may still ride over the frozen bays and inlets, and it is recorded that in 1758 the island was surrounded by an immense wall of floating ice as late as the month of August. The mean annual temperature is only 41° F., and is gradually decreasing from year to year. Varieties of grain which were raised in former centuries do not now grow there. Scarcely a tree or large shrub is to be seen, and even in the most favorable years the vegetation is extremely poor and stunted. A few groves of hardy birch occur in the more sheltered valleys, and now and then in the south a stunted willow is met with. The ancient forests have disappeared, and the only traces of them are the deposits of semi-carbonized wood, known as surturbrandur, which is occasionally used as fuel or for the manufacture of articles of furniture. The lichen Islandicus, or Iceland moss, is exported in considerable quantities. A stout, thick grass, growing in the short, well watered valleys which open toward the ocean, enables the inhabitants to raise an inferior quality of horses, cattle, and horned sheep. Cabbage, turnips, lettuce, spinach, parsley, radishes, cresses, flax, and a few potatoes are raised in .carefully cultivated garden plots. The number of these gardens has increased since the beginning of the century from a few hundred to 6,063. About of the surface is capable of cultivation, and consists of pasture lands inaccessible during part of the year. The reindeer, having been introduced from Norway about 100 years ago, roams through the island in large herds. The fox is the only other animal found in a wild state. The ocean and the rugged cliffs furnish the islanders with fish, birds, and eggs for food. The erne, gull, ptarmigan, snipe, swan, falcon, eider duck, and many other land birds and water fowl, are abundant. The salmon, cod, haddock, herring, and flounder are the principal varieties of fish. The number of neat cattle on the island at the close of 1855 was 24,067, of sheep 489,932, and of horses 40,389. The fisheries off the coast employ 3,498 boats belonging to natives of the island. Scanty as the means of subsistence are, they are not even to be relied on by the inhabitants. They are continually threatened by the numerous subterranean furnaces on the one hand, and by storms and spring floods, carrying devastation far up into the inhabited valleys, on the other. Thus famine in its most terrible form has frequently

visited the island, and the horrors of pestilence have been added to those of utter destitution. In 1707, for instance, 16,000 inhabitants, full one third of the entire population, were carried away by the small pox, and a few years later 10,000 became victims of famine. During the terrible eruption of the Skaptar Jökull in 17834, no fewer than 11,000 people died from destitution and pestilence; and 20,000 horses, 7,000 head of cattle, and 130,000 sheep were starved to death.-That such circumstances must have stamped distinct national characteristics on the inhabitants is natural. The Icelanders, descendants of the old Northmen, whose ancient language they have preserved in its purity, are of small stature, but of a strong muscular development. Their appearance is not prepossessing, but their moral qualities cannot be too favorably spoken of. Hardened by an almost continuous strife with the elements, the Icelander is proud and seemingly cold, and not communicative under ordinary circumstances, though always hospitable; his honesty, temperate habits, chastity, and piety deserve the highest praise. An Icelandic clergyman has said of his countrymen: "The extreme poverty of our people is one of the principal causes of this morality." But it is truly added by a German author who quotes this remark: "There must be a strong moral foundation beforehand, for poverty to have such an effect. Otherwise it produces a very different result." There is scarcely any country where a general education is so highly esteemed as in Iceland. It would be difficult to find an Icelander not able to read and write. With their old national sagas and poems they are all familiar. A library is connected with each church, where the members obtain books or manuscripts (which are still used to some extent in place of printed books) for reading at home. During the long winter evenings the whole family and servants are assembled in a cheerfully warmed room, doing the necessary handiwork, and at the same time listening to their old histories or to rhymed versions of the historical books of the Old Testament, which the head of the family or one of the elder sons recites to them in the same halfsinging tone used by the skalds of old, a thousand years ago. The habitations consist of low huts, built of turf or lava, painted red, and thatched with sod. There are no dense settlements except near the sea shore. Fishing, hunting (after birds, chiefly for their feathers), and cattle raising are the principal occupations of the Icelanders. Of manufactures there are none but the simplest branches of domestic industry, spinning and weaving. The laborious and dangerous occupations of the male inhabitants tend to shorten their life. Very aged persons are rare, but on the other hand the fecundity of the women is remarkable; a mother of 12 or 15 children is not at all uncommon. The principal food of the Icelander is dried fish and milk; bread is a luxury which the wealthy only can afford to use; a kind of meal is prepared

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