ICE.

490 ICE, at Boston, U.S. is sawn into square blocks not less than 12 inches thick. The holds have a space between the planking of the ship and the ice, boxed in and filled usually with sawdust, or some other substance reckoned a non-conductor of heat. Bulkheads and hatches are closed as tightly as possible, to prevent the admission of heated air, which will diminish the cargo and endanger the safety of the ship. The galiot Phœnix, Capt. Hendricksten, loaded a cargo of ice at Lenger, Norway, in March, 1865. It was in 10, 12 and 18 inches thick, and was brought in carts from a lake two miles distant, and stowed on wood dunnage 12 inches thick. She admeasures 74 lasts, is 76½ feet long, 18½ broad, and 11½ deep, Norwegian measure, and was loaded in seven working days. With the exception of four feet forward, the hold was full, and she the drew 13½ feet aft. On arriving at Plymouth in April, she had to wait for orders, and the weather being warm, some of the ice melted, especially when fog prevailed; the pumps were used occasionally. Out-put 208 ton; the master expected it would have been 225 ton; first cost 17s, freight 14s; to discharge 30 ton per day. The Norwegian barque Achilles Capt. Schlytter, 386 ton register English, took in a cargo of ice at Krogore, in February, 1865, estimated by her draught, 14 feet fore and aft, to be 412 ton of 20 cwt. She is 92½ feet long, breadth under the beams 23 feet, and under the lower beams 22 feet; depth of hold 13¾ feet, all Norwegian feet. Dunnage in the bottom only, wood four inches deep. The blocks of ice were stowed close together. There was a space of two feet between the deck and the surface of the cargo; the ends of the ship were not quite full. The ice is taken from the Fregensporg lake, half a mile from the wharf, to which it is driven or slided on an open wooden trunkway. Nine days were occupied in loading; six would have sufficed, but two other ships were loading at the same time. At Krogore the port charges are light; there is very little foreign trade and that chiefly with the Dutch and French. The Achilles discharged at Plymouth in March and April, and made out 406 ton.

491 At Kodiach (near Sitka), one of the Aleutian Indian Islands in the possession of Russia, as a fur station, ice is taken out of an artificial lake less than a quarter of a mile from the place of loading — a small pier, where the ship is moored. Large blocks are drawn along by iron hooks over planks fitted with iron rails running to the ship's hatchways, down with the blocks are lowered on an inclined plank, into the hold. Dunnage consists of cuttings from the dwarf pine tree, which grows freely on the island. Considerable quantities of the branches, thickly covered with their cool foliage, are placed between the blocks and on each layer as the stowage proceeds; a profuse supply is laid over all. A vessel cannot carry herself full of this ice. The British ship Carutyne, of 1,000 ton, chartered by a Russian American Company at San Francisco, loaded there in 1859; the time occupied in discharging ballast and loading ice there in 1859; the time occupied in discharging ballast and loading ice was about three weeks. She landed her cargo at a wharf in San Francisco belonging to the Company, on which there is a house built for the reception of the ice.


Robert White Stevens: On the Stowage of Ships and their Cargoes: with Information Regarding Freights, Charter-Parties, &c. &c.
Longmans, Green, Reader, & Dyer, London, 1869.

Transcribed by Lars Bruzelius


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