How did they Make Ice in the 1800s before Refrigerator Invention?

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As winter comes, the ponds start to freeze, and as time passes, the freeze winter enthusiasts begin to dust off their ice fishing utensils and skates. Before the 1800s, it was time to make ice from lakes and ponds, as ice is no longer practiced in this modern age. Making of ice is through refrigerators and preservation of food needs cold climate. 

Therefore, this article will be valuable information regarding making ice in the 1800s.

How did they Make Ice in the 1800s

How did they Make Ice in the 1800s

In the early 1800s, the man saw the huge and profitable venture and dollar signs in frozen ponds and lakes. Frederic Tudor accomplished the world to cool glasses of water and created a new technology for making ice. 

In ancient times the following process of making ice was in common use.

Step 1: 

The first step is scraping six to thirty inches of snow off the ice; however, if it has to be transported, it has to be at least eight inches deep.

Step 2:

The grids on the ice will then be measured, and the results will be brought with the horses.

Step 3:

The blocks will break down as a result of the following step’s cutting down of the grid’s grooves and should float across the channel that has been made clean to the funnel where they will be picked up and delivered into the ice rink.

Step 4:

Men used to drag down the ice blocks or boast about them like a raft to the ice house by breaking off bars and one-handed serrated blades on the ice blocks.

Step 5:

As the ice house arrives with layers of ice divided and encircled by levels of straw provided by wood hills as an insulation, each block was lifted up the chute with the hooked on various levels.

Alternative Method

This was the method introduced by the ancient Persians for making ice even in the summer season in the night of summer when the earth stays warm due to the famous greenhouse effect. The gases in the atmosphere will help to catch the sun’s warmth.

But when there is low humidity in the clear nights, this greenhouse effect is weak, and the things can radiate their heat into the space directly, as this process is radiative cooling.

The Persians researched this action and found that the allowed thin layers of water aim to build up trenches to drop to the extreme low-temperature level and thus cause to freeze even in the warmest areas of deserts. 

Conclusion

So making the ice in older times was an overwhelming task, as for millennia, the rich people hired servants to collect snow and store the ice in underground pits and holes known as ice houses during winter. But the old Persian acted upon physics and created ice from water even in the summer season. 

Therefore, making ice in ancient times was similar to crop harvesting, with the help of horses pulling down the blocks of ice with the ice cutters from the frozen lakes and ponds. 

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