[364] Proverbs, xxv. ver. 13.
[365] Bartholini de Nivis Usu Medico Observationes, Hafn. 1661.
[366] Seneca, Quæst. Natur. iv. 13.
[367] Athenæus, iii. p. 124.
[368] Sympos. vi. quæst. 6.--Augustinus De Civitate Dei, xxi. 4, p. 610.
[369] Mémoires Instructifs pour un Voyageur. How the snow repositories
at Constantinople are constructed, is related by Bellon in his
Observat. iii. 22.
[370] The dissipated Heliogabalus caused whole mounts of snow to be
heaped up in summer in order to cool the air. See Lampridius, Vita
Heliogab. cap. 23.
[371] Plin. xix. 4.--Latinus Pacatus in Panegyr. Theodos.
[372] De la Valle, iii. p. 60, where the Persian ice-pits are
described, as well as in Chardin, iv. p. 195.
[373] Hist. Nat. xxxi. 3, 23, p. 552.
[374] Vita Neronis, cap. 48: Hæc est Neronis decocta.
[375] In lib. vi. Hippocrat. de Morbis Vulgar. comment. 4, 10.
[376] Meteorol. i. cap. 12.
[377] In the place before quoted.
[378] Deipnos. iii. p. 124.
[379] Ibid. p. 123.
[380] See Pitisci Lex. Antiq. Rom. under the word Decocta.
[381] Philosoph. Transact. vol. lxv. part i. p. 126.
[382] Traité du Mouvement des Eaux.
[383] Du Hamel, Hist. de l’Academ. l. i. c. 3, p. 99.
[384] Tentamina Experimentorum Acad. del Cim. p. 183.
[385] Dissertation sur la Glace. Paris, 1749, 12mo, p. 187.
[386] Philosoph. Transact. vol. lxv. part i. p. 124.
[387] [In India, one mode of cooling wines, is to suspend the bottle
in a thick flannel bag, or folds of blotting-paper, kept constantly
wetted, and placed in the sun’s rays, or a current of air, or both;
by which means the evaporation, and therewith intense coldness, is
produced.]
[388] Philosoph. Transact. vol. lxxi. part ii. p. 511. [M. Boutigny’s
beautiful experiment of making ice in a red-hot crucible is a striking
phænomenon of this kind. It is thus performed:--A deep crucible of
platinum is heated to a glowing red heat; liquid sulphurous acid, which
has been preserved in the fluid state by a freezing mixture, and some
water are then at the same instant poured into the crucible. The rapid
evaporation of the volatile sulphurous acid, which boils below the
freezing-point of water, produces such an intense degree of cold as to
freeze the water, which is then thrown out of the crucible as a solid
lump.]
[389] Philosoph. Transact. vol. lxxi. part ii. p. 252: the process of
making ice in the East Indies; by Robert Barker.
[390] [There is no question that this refrigeration is caused by the
evaporation of a portion of the water, whereby a very large quantity of
heat becomes latent in the vapour. A clear serene sky being necessary
for the success of the production of the ice, would tend to show that
the further loss of heat by radiation, which always ensues to a great
extent at nights, when the sky is clear, is necessary.]
[391] ... a number of small, shallow, earthen pans. These are unglazed,
scarce a quarter of an inch thick, about an inch and a quarter in
depth, and made of an earth so porous, that it was visible from
the exterior part of the pans, the water had penetrated the whole
substance. [Our ordinary wine-coolers, which consist of extremely
porous vessels, act from evaporation. A portion of the water, which is
placed in the interior of the cooler, evaporates through its pores, and
produces cold by rendering a considerable amount of heat latent.]
[392] See the account of Lloyd Williams, in the Universal Magazine,
June 1793, p. 410. Thin unglazed vessels are employed at present in
Egypt also for cooling water, as we are told in several books of
travels.
[393] Sympos. vi. 5, p. 690.
[394] The word however may be found in Dictionnaire par Richelet,
Genève 1680, 4to.
[395] J. B. Campegii Libri xxii. de re cibaria, xvi. 9, p. 669.
[396] Most vessels of this kind in Portugal are made at Estremos, in
the province of Alentejo. The description given of them by Brantome is
as follows:--“Cette terre étoit tannée, si subtile et si fine qu’on
diroit proprement que c’est une terre sigillée; et porte telle vertu,
que quelque eau froide que vous y mettiez dedans, vous la verrez
bouillis et faire de petits bouillons, comme si elle estoit sur le
feu; et si pourtant elle n’en perd sa froideur, mais l’entretient, et
jamais l’eau ne fait mal à qui la boit, quelque chaud qu’il fasse, ou
quelque exercice violent qu’il fasse.” This clay seems to be the same
as that which the ladies in Spain and Portugal chew for the sake of
its pleasant taste, though to the prejudice of their health. They are
so fond of it that their confessors make them abstain from the use of
it some days by way of penance for their transgressions. See Madame
D’Aunoi, Voy. en Espagne, ii. pp. 92, 109. Mémoires Instructifs pour un
Voyageur. A vessel of the above kind is called _bucaro_ and _barro_.
See Diccion. de la Lengua Castellana, Madrid, 1783, fol.
[397] This curious work contains so much valuable information
respecting the French manners in the sixteenth century, that some
account of it may not prove unacceptable to my readers. The title is,
Déscription de L’Isle des Hermaphrodites, nouvellement découverte
... pour servir de Supplement au Journal de Henri III. The preface,
to which there is no signature, says that the book was printed for
the first time in 1605. In the first editions neither date nor place
is mentioned; but one edition is dated 1612. It appears to have
been written in the reign of Henry IV., after the peace of Vervins,
concluded in 1598, which the author mentions in the beginning. Henry
IV. would not suffer any inquiry to be made respecting the author that
he might be punished, because, he said, though he had taken great
liberty in his writing, he had written truth. He is not therefore
known. Some have conjectured that it was the production of cardinal
Perron, and others of sieur d’Emery, Thomas Artus. But the former would
not have chosen to lash vices such as those mentioned in this satire,
with so much wit and severity; and the latter could not have done it.
The one was too vicious, and the other too vehement. The cardinal
must have delineated his own picture; and Artus have exceeded what
he was capable of. The same opinion respecting Artus is entertained
by Marchand, in his Dict. Historique. The frontispiece, which in
many editions is wanting, represents an effeminate voluptuary with a
womanish face, dressed half in men’s and half in women’s clothing.
Marchand says the inscription is Les Hermaphrodites. In some editions
however it is much more cutting: “Pars est una patris; cætera matris
habet.” This pentameter is taken from Martial, lib. xiv. ep. 174. The
whole work is inserted also in Journal de Henri III., par Pierre de
l’Estoiles, à la Haye 1744, 8vo, iv. p. 1. For further information on
this subject see Le Long, Bibliothèque Historique de la France, ii. p.
326, n. 19128.
[398] In the Contes de Gaillard, printed in 1620, it is said, “Il alla
un jour d’esté souper chez un voluptueux, qui lui fit mettre de la
glace en son vin.”
[399] Problema 102. These Problemata are often printed with the
Problemata Aristotelis, Alexandri Aphrodis. and others. The collection
which I have was printed at Amsterdam, 1685, 12mo.
[400] De Miraculis, libri iv. Colon. 1581, 8vo, p. 288.
[401] Centuriæ ix Memorabilium. Francof. 1599, 12mo, p. 67.
[402] De Nive, p. 38.
[403] J. B. Du Hamel, Opera Philosophica, Norimb. 1681, 4to.
[404] L. Tancredi de Fame et Siti libri tres. Ven. 1607, 4to, lib. iii.
[405] When snow or ice is mixed with salt, both begin to be liquid.
This process is employed in Russia to clean windows covered with frost.
They are rubbed with a sponge dipped in salt, and by these means they
become immediately transparent. [The _rationale_ of this appears to
consist in the salt absorbing water and deliquescing, and in this fluid
the snow subsequently dissolves, the mixture requiring a much lower
temperature for its assuming the solid state.]
[406] Historia Vitæ et Mortis, § 44.--De Augmentis Scient. v. 2.--Silva
Silvarum, cent. i.
[407] History of Cold, title i. 17; title v. 3; title xv. 7. [The
method of making one or two freezing or cooling mixtures will not
perhaps be without interest here. Where snow is not at hand, a mixture
of 5 parts of powdered nitre and 5 of powdered sal-ammoniac may be
mixed with 16 parts of water. This reduces the thermometer from +50°
to about +10° F., or, 9 parts of phosphate of soda, 6 of nitrate of
ammonia, and 4 of dilute nitric acid, reduce the thermometer from +50°
to -21°; 5 parts of common salt, 5 of nitrate of ammonia and 12 of
snow, reduce it from the ordinary temperature to -28°. The most intense
degree of cold, probably known, has been produced by Dr. Faraday in
his experiments upon the liquefaction of gases. This was effected by
placing solid carbonic acid mixed with æther, under the air-pump, and
exhausting.]
[408] Des Cartes Specimina Philosophiæ. Amst. 1650, 4to, p. 216.
[409] Von Hohberg says, in his Adliches Landleben, “The following,
which serves more for amusement than use, is well-known to children. If
one put snow and saltpetre into a jug, and place it on a table, over
which water has been poured, and stir the snow and salt well round in
the jug with a stick, the jug will be soon frozen to the table.” This
baron, therefore, who, after he had sold his property in Austria on
account of the persecution against the Protestants, wrote at Regensburg
(Ratisbon), where he died in 1688, at the age of seventy-six, was not
acquainted with iced delicacies. Had they been known to him, he would
have certainly mentioned them where, in his Book of Cookery, he gives
ample directions for laying out a table of the first rank.
[410] [The application of ice to the purposes of confectionary, has,
within the last few years, become much more extensive; encouraged, no
doubt, by the facility with which it is now procurable at all seasons
of the year, and in any quantity. Imitations of peaches, nectarines,
apricots, and other fruits, are now produced in ice paste in such
perfection, as at first sight to deceive the most practised eye; and
such elegances are no longer confined to the tables of the wealthy.]
[411] Instruction pour les Jardins. Paris, 1730, 4to, i. p. 263. The
author says that ice in summer is indeed useful; but, as a gardener, he
wishes that frost could be prevented; and that ice might be imported
from the North, as olives and oranges are from the South. Some years
ago, as no ice could be procured on account of the great mildness of
the preceding winter, the merchants at Hamburg sent a ship to Greenland
for a load of it, by which they acquired considerable profit.
[412] For the above account of the mode of collecting the ice at Wenham
Lake, we are indebted to the ‘Illustrated London News’ for May 17, 1845.