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Thus the report of the State Board of Health of Michigan, 1880, refers to emanations from decaying
wood in contact with ice as a possible cause of disease—specimens of lake ice when melted were found to
yield a deposit of fine, dark particles, which proved to be decaying sawdust, and the water from the
melted ice speedily became very offensive. Again, ice which was believed to have caused an
outbreak of illness in 1875, at Eye Beach, to be referred to later, was found to have been
contaminated with sawdust. That the danger of pollution was already recognised twenty years
ago may be seen from the fact that in New Jersey an Act was passed in 1885, giving power to
Boards of Health in the State to regulate and control the cutting and sale of ice. (State Board of
Health, New Jersey, 25th Report, 1901). In Massachusetts a penalty might be imposed for
driving a horse on the ice of a pond supplying ice for consumption (Eighteenth Annual Report,
1887). In the same State a statute provides that any twenty-five consumers may ask the State
Board of Health to investigate an ice supply, but it appears (Boston Medical and Surgical Journal,
1894) that only one complaint had been brought before the Board, and this by an ice-dealer in
order to enable him to break a contract.
Nearly a century ago, when the usefulness of ice was first appreciated in the States, a
merchant named Tudor conceived the idea of exporting it to distant lands. In 1805, he is said to
have transmitted it successfully to Martinique, and later he shipped it to India, where it was sold
in 1833 in Calcutta at 3d. a jjound. The idea of conveying ice 15,000 miles during a four months'
voyage, is said to have been suggested by the fact that an ice ship bound for Cuba was wrecked,
and that months after, when she was discovered and salvage operations were commenced, it was
found that very little of the ice forming her cargo had melted.
Some of the ice first brought to this country is said to have come from the States, and was
known as Wenham Lake ice.1 A lake near Drobak in Norway, from which ice was shipped in
large quantities to England, was later known by the same name, and "Wenham Lake ice"
became a familiar term in this country. The importation of natural ice from Norway gradually
developed in the closing third of the last century, and at the present time some 200,000 tons of
Norwegian ice are brought over to London every year—the amount sent into the whole
country already exceeded 200,000 tons in the early eighties, and was more than 300,000 tons
in the early nineties; in 1899 it was more than 500,000 tons, but this figure has not since
been attained.
Appreciation of the need for safeguarding the purity of ice intended for human consumption
grew as time went on, and coincidently the available sources of supply of natural ice tended,
generally speaking, to become more and more polluted. It is not surprising, therefore, to find
that in this connection ice-machines began to excite an increasing amount of attention.
Attempts were at one time made to employ freezing mixtures on a commercial scale, but
these chemical methods were destined to be supplanted by mechanical devices. The original airmachine
invented by Dr. Gorrie, of Florida, dates from 1845, improvements were effected by
Postle (1868), Windhausen (1869 and onwards), Giffard (1873), and the Bell-Coleman machine
was patented in 1877. In 1860 James Harrison had made the experiment of sending meat
preserved by artificial ice from Australia to London; in 1879 the Strathleven fitted with coldair
machinery, arrived in London with 34 tons of frozen meat on board ; in 1881 the Dunedin,
with Bell-Coleman plant, brought some 5,000 frozen sheep to London. In recent years coldair
machines have yielded place to appliances worked with ammonia, carbonic acid, or
sulphurous acid.
In the earliest form of the modern compression machine ether was employed, the idea being
first suggested by Jacob Perkins in 1834. Carr6 invented the first ammonia absorption machine.
James Harrison in the fifties succeeded in placing ice-making on a commercial basis, and in 1859,
he had an ether machine at work in Sydney, producing artificial ice for sale. Mort and Nicolle
greatly improved the ammonia machine during the sixties, and at length in 1873 the original Linde
ammonia-compression machine was introduced.
Thomas Sutcliffe Mort was one of the great pioneers in the ice industry; he was early
impressed with the waste of food material in Australia, where it was said that surplus sheep were
boiled down for tallow; when forming the Fresh Food and Ice Company in 1861, in Sydney, he is
reported to have prophesied "the half-starved nations of the earth shall now be fed." In 1868,
Mort's name is associated with Nicolle's in application for patents "for obtaining reduction of
temperature by expansion of air or other permanent gases in special connection with the preservation
of articles of food, the manufacture of ice, and the cooling of rooms and liquids," but already
in the previous year Mort had registered a patent for "an application of Faraday's discovery of the
liquefaction of certain gases by pressure, and the capacity of such gases for the absorption of heat
on their release from liquefaction." Drawings accompanied the specifications, which show that
Mort had fully in mind the application of his methods on board ship, and he clearly foresaw that,
in years to come, refrigeration was to play an important part in food distribution.5
The manufacture of artificial ice has made remarkable strides during the last twenty years
in Germany and America. Companies were formed in the larger cities in the late eighties, and
during the nineties manufacturing plants were laid down not only in Europe and America, but in
India and the Colonies, and at length in English towns, and even in London itself. The "iceplant"
has more recently penetrated to such places as Buluwayo, Honolulu, Khartoum, Perak,
and Wei-hai-wei.
The greater part of the ice used in London at the present time comes from small lakes and
ponds in Norway, which, according to the "Lancet" (27th July, 1901), are situated in such solitary
1The blocks of ice were much thicker than the blocks of Norway ice now imported, and were viewed with
great interest as they were drawn on float or lorry through the streets of Liverpool, (ice and Cold Storage,
April, 1903.)
2See paper by C. C. Lance, read 6th May, 1904, before the Cold Storage and Ice Association.
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