Ice may be kept in a dry cellar with as much ease as coals, wine, or beer. All that is necessary, is to have the walls and roof of extra thickness, so as to exclude heat; or to have them built double, or battened, and lathed and plastered. By the last process, a vacuity is formed completely round the sides and roof of the ice-chamber; and a similar vacuity should be formed under the floor, communicating with a drain having a trap, so as to convey away any water that may collect from the thawing of the ice, without admitting fresh air by the drain. This cellar should either have double doors placed 2 or 3 feet distant from each other; or, when the ice is put in, an ample space should be left between it and the door, in order to allow room for a large quantity of straw, to serve as a nonconducting medium to the heat that would otherwise pass through the chinks of the door. In filling an ice-cellar, the ice, having been first collected and laid down near it, is broken into small pieces, and then pounded till it becomes a powder composed of particles not larger than those of sand or coarse salt It is then carried into the cellar, and laid up in a heap, beating each layer as deposited, so as to form the whole into a compact mass, and occasionally sprinkling a little water over it, in order to consolidate it An improved method consists in using water impregnated with salt, by dissolving 10 lbs. of common salt in 10 gallons of cold water, and pouring it on the ice through a common garden watering-pot, every 2 or 3 feet in thickness, as the cellar is filling.

The ice, in cellars filled in this manner, will be found when opened in summer, to consist of one solid mass of ice, which cannot be broken without the pickaxe. It will keep much longer without thawing in the cellar, and also much longer when exposed to the open air; because salt water, and consequently salted ice, has a much less capacity for heat than fresh water or fresh ice. This mode of keeping ice was first adopted by Mr. James Young, gardener at Willford House, Nottinghamshire. He was induced to try it, became the icehouse there was placed in a very exposed situation, the sun shilling on it from rising to setting. Before the use of salt, it was found impossible to keep the ice above a year; but, afterwards, it was kept three years, and the last of it was found to be as good as the first