DarkRange55
Enlightened
- Oct 15, 2023
- 1,699
For everyone that made comments about my one post about the science of ice. This is the actually fascinating history of ice 
A whole profession a long on going trade and a whole economy built around that has completely evaporated and made obsolete by technology. To the point that we take it for granted. That happens all the time even today.
Ice was a rare treat for only the very wealthy for in fact the bulk of humanity history if you look at the totality of it. Its creation was through purely natural means. Indian and Egyptian cultures used rapid evaporation to cool water quickly. Sometimes quickly enough to make ice depending on the weather outside but they were never able to perfect the mass manufacture of it. Iran developed a yakhchāl which is Persian for ice pit. Which were onion shaped buildings up to two stories tall with an equal space underground. The conical structures allowed ice to be made and collected during the colder months and then used throughout the year for preserving food and making fāloodeh which is a traditional Persian frozen dessert made with thin noodles and semi frozen syrup.
Once water is stored inside it's able to freeze inside because of the extremely low temperatures that the structure creates. The hole in the center allows cold air to enter and make its way down to the subterranean bottom where the water is stored. The clone-like structure is also designed to make any hot air inside make its way out. So the geometry is designed to trap cold air and funnel hot air constantly. A lot of it has to do with the insulation used which was sand, clay and goat hair. These materials also make the structure impermeable.
Many of these ancient structures are still around today hundreds of years later. Ice pits led the way to rudimentary house ice in China as early as the 7th century. Centuries later wealthy Greeks and Romans filled ice houses with snow and ice that was imported. In this case all the way from the Alps. The ice and snow was then sold in snow shops where it could be purchased but average people. Emperor Niro drank iced refreshments laced with honey constantly according to historians. Chilled drinks were also part of the Tang Dynasty in China and the early Islamic world. In India Mughal emperors drank kulfi a drink made from condensed milk that was frozen into molds. This drink was made by mixing salt with ice lowering the freezing point below water which you now do with making ice cream.
In the 16th century the Italians brought back the use of ice. France borrowing the tradition from Italy was the first to bring ice back as an extravagance. Henry the 8th displayed heaps of ice and snow on tables when he had guests to delight them. The rest of Europe scoffed as using ice to cool drinks, seeing it as excessive and effeminate luxury. (It was just sour grapes). Thomas Jefferson was introduced to ice from Benjamin Franklin. He went on European travels with Benjamin and they saw European ice houses. Eventually having one made for himself. He encouraged George Washington. Eventually everyone was setting up ice houses.
In the 1800's ice really took off as an easily accessible commercial enterprise. Fredrick Tutor shipped nearly 12,000 tons of ice nearly halfway around the world to become the Ice King. His fellow Boston merchants who were happy to speculate on everything from coffee to mahogany to umbrellas, thought that he was crazy when he floated the idea. He invested $10,000 in 1806 and filled the ship Favorite with huge blocks of hacked from a pond in Cambridge, the Boston Gazette wrote, "No joke, a vessel with a cargo of 80 tons of ice has cleared out from the port in Martinique. We hope this will not prove to be a slippery speculation." Much to the delight of his skeptics, his first trip turned out to be a financial disaster. While much of the ice miraculously made it to Martinique, Tutor lacked the infrastructure, namely a cold place to store it, and consumer education (selling it to people who have never seen it). The ice melted away in sic weeks and he ended up loosing 4 grand. The solution to insulation turned out to be sawdust, creating an important aftermarket for New England sawmills. It was difficult to convince people to buy ice. It was seen as a hyper luxury good that may have been selling edible gold leaf. He ended up giving a bunch of it away to start generating demand. For the next 15 years he continued. He shipped ice to ports from Charleston to Havana to New Orleans. Building a trade, suffering yellow fever, a mental breakdown, employee theft and government corruption, the Jefferson Embargo, the War of 1812, the Panic of 1819 finding himself perpetually under capitalized and twice debtor's prison.
The whole operation was extremely unsafe. Numb hands, frostbite, tower stacks of ice, sharp instruments, frigid waters, ect. 300lbs blocks of ice could melt a little bit on the ship and start slipping and sliding and fall on people breaking bones. Ice harvesters often developed "iceman's knees" which were bruised and bloodied from days of shoving solid ice. Tutor's reputation solidified in 1833 when he shipped 180 tons of ice halfway across the world to British colonialists in Calcutta. The venture was so successful that it reopened trade routes between India and Boston.
Nearing the halfway point of the 19th century, frozen lakes were no longer the only means to produce blocks of ice. In Mississippi Dr. John Gorrie invented the first ice machine in 1845. Much like Fredrick Tutor a few decades before nobody took the idea seriously. He was even able to make a successful prototype to demonstrate to people. But nobody was interested. The concept was shelved for decades.
James Harrison a British journalist invented the first practical vapor compression refrigeration system in 1856. Andrew Mull helped the beef industry in Texas picked up the idea and helped develop the first commercial ice machine in 1867. As soon as this happened, ice cream and cold beer became summertime staples.
Still ice harvesting technology was pretty basic although the principles of mechanical refrigeration were generally understood in Ben Franklin's day, practical application was decades after he had died. What kept harvested ice frozen was its sheer bulk, the more the that could be light packed together, the longer it could stay cold. Ice houses that were stocked year round had double outer walls super insulated with saw dust and the top vented latent heat released by the melting. Water drained at the bottom (because sitting in water hastens the melt). The melt loss was still huge, something like 90% of the harvest would disappear before it could be sold. But over time better transportation, notably railroads, reduced those losses but even as of 1879 when the annual harvest was upwards of 8 million tons of ice about three million turned to water before it could ever be brought to market. If you had an unseasonably warm summer then you would get what was known as an ice famine. At the peak, at the end of the 19th century the US ice trade employed 90,000 people and an industry that capitalized at $28 million which is more like $660 million in 2010 terms. Using ice houses that were capable of storing up to 250,000 tons each. Norway exported a million tons of ice a year drawing on a network of artificial lakes they built just to do that. Artificially produced plant ice at mechanically chilled facilities was unreliable and expensive at first but began to successfully compete with natural ice in Australia and India during the 1850's and 1870's. By World War I more plant ice was being produced in the US than naturally harvested ice.
Most liquor and cocktails used to be served at room temperature or even warm often times whiskey would be warmed up. Ice became a garnish. When it first came out they would fill the entire cup up with ice, even more today. The top of the ice mountain on every drink would have any seasonal fruit. Foreign visitors marveled at the way Americans flaunted their wasteful use of ice. Compared to what Europeans expected, American water was at this time extraordinarily clean.
When Congress passed the 18th Amendment and shutdown liquor stores on January 17, 1920 ice cubes increased in popularity largely because of cocktails but while the country dried out citizens found it easier to get ice. Ice boxes and refrigerators were becoming smaller, better at making ice and more affordable. The bulk of country was still having chunks of ice delivered to their homes like milk. But a small growing percentage was able to get it in their home. Especially with the switch to freon as a refrigerant in the 1920's. Freon was much safer and easier to manage than other gases making in home refrigerators and option. When Prohibition ended just 1% of the country had a refrigerator. By the mid 1950's that number spiked to 80%. It became a status symbol.
A whole profession a long on going trade and a whole economy built around that has completely evaporated and made obsolete by technology. To the point that we take it for granted. That happens all the time even today.
Ice was a rare treat for only the very wealthy for in fact the bulk of humanity history if you look at the totality of it. Its creation was through purely natural means. Indian and Egyptian cultures used rapid evaporation to cool water quickly. Sometimes quickly enough to make ice depending on the weather outside but they were never able to perfect the mass manufacture of it. Iran developed a yakhchāl which is Persian for ice pit. Which were onion shaped buildings up to two stories tall with an equal space underground. The conical structures allowed ice to be made and collected during the colder months and then used throughout the year for preserving food and making fāloodeh which is a traditional Persian frozen dessert made with thin noodles and semi frozen syrup.
Once water is stored inside it's able to freeze inside because of the extremely low temperatures that the structure creates. The hole in the center allows cold air to enter and make its way down to the subterranean bottom where the water is stored. The clone-like structure is also designed to make any hot air inside make its way out. So the geometry is designed to trap cold air and funnel hot air constantly. A lot of it has to do with the insulation used which was sand, clay and goat hair. These materials also make the structure impermeable.
Many of these ancient structures are still around today hundreds of years later. Ice pits led the way to rudimentary house ice in China as early as the 7th century. Centuries later wealthy Greeks and Romans filled ice houses with snow and ice that was imported. In this case all the way from the Alps. The ice and snow was then sold in snow shops where it could be purchased but average people. Emperor Niro drank iced refreshments laced with honey constantly according to historians. Chilled drinks were also part of the Tang Dynasty in China and the early Islamic world. In India Mughal emperors drank kulfi a drink made from condensed milk that was frozen into molds. This drink was made by mixing salt with ice lowering the freezing point below water which you now do with making ice cream.
In the 16th century the Italians brought back the use of ice. France borrowing the tradition from Italy was the first to bring ice back as an extravagance. Henry the 8th displayed heaps of ice and snow on tables when he had guests to delight them. The rest of Europe scoffed as using ice to cool drinks, seeing it as excessive and effeminate luxury. (It was just sour grapes). Thomas Jefferson was introduced to ice from Benjamin Franklin. He went on European travels with Benjamin and they saw European ice houses. Eventually having one made for himself. He encouraged George Washington. Eventually everyone was setting up ice houses.
In the 1800's ice really took off as an easily accessible commercial enterprise. Fredrick Tutor shipped nearly 12,000 tons of ice nearly halfway around the world to become the Ice King. His fellow Boston merchants who were happy to speculate on everything from coffee to mahogany to umbrellas, thought that he was crazy when he floated the idea. He invested $10,000 in 1806 and filled the ship Favorite with huge blocks of hacked from a pond in Cambridge, the Boston Gazette wrote, "No joke, a vessel with a cargo of 80 tons of ice has cleared out from the port in Martinique. We hope this will not prove to be a slippery speculation." Much to the delight of his skeptics, his first trip turned out to be a financial disaster. While much of the ice miraculously made it to Martinique, Tutor lacked the infrastructure, namely a cold place to store it, and consumer education (selling it to people who have never seen it). The ice melted away in sic weeks and he ended up loosing 4 grand. The solution to insulation turned out to be sawdust, creating an important aftermarket for New England sawmills. It was difficult to convince people to buy ice. It was seen as a hyper luxury good that may have been selling edible gold leaf. He ended up giving a bunch of it away to start generating demand. For the next 15 years he continued. He shipped ice to ports from Charleston to Havana to New Orleans. Building a trade, suffering yellow fever, a mental breakdown, employee theft and government corruption, the Jefferson Embargo, the War of 1812, the Panic of 1819 finding himself perpetually under capitalized and twice debtor's prison.
The whole operation was extremely unsafe. Numb hands, frostbite, tower stacks of ice, sharp instruments, frigid waters, ect. 300lbs blocks of ice could melt a little bit on the ship and start slipping and sliding and fall on people breaking bones. Ice harvesters often developed "iceman's knees" which were bruised and bloodied from days of shoving solid ice. Tutor's reputation solidified in 1833 when he shipped 180 tons of ice halfway across the world to British colonialists in Calcutta. The venture was so successful that it reopened trade routes between India and Boston.
Nearing the halfway point of the 19th century, frozen lakes were no longer the only means to produce blocks of ice. In Mississippi Dr. John Gorrie invented the first ice machine in 1845. Much like Fredrick Tutor a few decades before nobody took the idea seriously. He was even able to make a successful prototype to demonstrate to people. But nobody was interested. The concept was shelved for decades.
James Harrison a British journalist invented the first practical vapor compression refrigeration system in 1856. Andrew Mull helped the beef industry in Texas picked up the idea and helped develop the first commercial ice machine in 1867. As soon as this happened, ice cream and cold beer became summertime staples.
Still ice harvesting technology was pretty basic although the principles of mechanical refrigeration were generally understood in Ben Franklin's day, practical application was decades after he had died. What kept harvested ice frozen was its sheer bulk, the more the that could be light packed together, the longer it could stay cold. Ice houses that were stocked year round had double outer walls super insulated with saw dust and the top vented latent heat released by the melting. Water drained at the bottom (because sitting in water hastens the melt). The melt loss was still huge, something like 90% of the harvest would disappear before it could be sold. But over time better transportation, notably railroads, reduced those losses but even as of 1879 when the annual harvest was upwards of 8 million tons of ice about three million turned to water before it could ever be brought to market. If you had an unseasonably warm summer then you would get what was known as an ice famine. At the peak, at the end of the 19th century the US ice trade employed 90,000 people and an industry that capitalized at $28 million which is more like $660 million in 2010 terms. Using ice houses that were capable of storing up to 250,000 tons each. Norway exported a million tons of ice a year drawing on a network of artificial lakes they built just to do that. Artificially produced plant ice at mechanically chilled facilities was unreliable and expensive at first but began to successfully compete with natural ice in Australia and India during the 1850's and 1870's. By World War I more plant ice was being produced in the US than naturally harvested ice.
Most liquor and cocktails used to be served at room temperature or even warm often times whiskey would be warmed up. Ice became a garnish. When it first came out they would fill the entire cup up with ice, even more today. The top of the ice mountain on every drink would have any seasonal fruit. Foreign visitors marveled at the way Americans flaunted their wasteful use of ice. Compared to what Europeans expected, American water was at this time extraordinarily clean.
When Congress passed the 18th Amendment and shutdown liquor stores on January 17, 1920 ice cubes increased in popularity largely because of cocktails but while the country dried out citizens found it easier to get ice. Ice boxes and refrigerators were becoming smaller, better at making ice and more affordable. The bulk of country was still having chunks of ice delivered to their homes like milk. But a small growing percentage was able to get it in their home. Especially with the switch to freon as a refrigerant in the 1920's. Freon was much safer and easier to manage than other gases making in home refrigerators and option. When Prohibition ended just 1% of the country had a refrigerator. By the mid 1950's that number spiked to 80%. It became a status symbol.
hearing about the popularization and the snow banquet was interesting
