Page:An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture.djvu/386

 74;? 3''2 COTTAGE, FARM, AND Vii-LA AIlCTllTEC lUllE. in which 1 1 represents the ground's surface, m the top of the upper niilk shelves, and n the skylight. It may be observed that, instead' of employing glass and wirccloth frames for these skylights, vessels of water with glass bottoms might be introduced ; which, wliile they admitted light, would exclude heat in summer and cold in winter; and they might be rendered further useful, by having openings in tlitir bottoms, to be regulated by cocks within the dairy, so as to allow water to drop down on the basin below, whenever it was de- sirable to increase the coolness of the tem- perature. The vessel might be covered above with a skylight, and supplied either by the Siebe's pump within the dairy, or by a pipe and ball-cock from some exterior source. The water might contain gold and silver fisli. The glass might be stained, as might that of the side windows ; and, instead of a small circular basin in the centre, there miffht be a deep well for containing very cold water. — We shall now describe this buildino- as two ice-houses with a dairy between. The shelves of the milk-rooms should be removed, and the windows closed up entirely ; and, instead of a skylight at top, there should be three flag-stones substituted for the frames containing the upper skylight, the under skylight, and the haircloth, and resting on the same ledges on which they rest. There are three oflFsets or ledges, shown at h i, in the section fig. 742, for this purpose. The object of leaving these openings in the ceiling is to put in the ice ; and this being done, and the flag-stones replaced, the space between them should be filled in with barley straw. The traps to the drains before mentioned will serve as conduits for such water as may be produced by the thawing of the ice ; the well in the centre will also hold a part of this water, which will be valuable for its coolness even after the ice is gone. The spaces o o, between the doors, must be kept constantly filled with straw cushions. The room a may be fitted up with shelves as a dairy, the chimney being turned into a ventilator; and the room f may remain a daii-y scullery, as at present. For a wine or beer cellar this building is admirably contrived, whether for a very warm or a very cold climate. The wine or ale may be kept bottled in bins, or in casks on benches, in the milk-rooms ; and it may be supplied to customers in the room a, while the cleaning operations go on, and the attendants wait, in the room f. Wine and 745 JUl ^ ale cellars of this description are little known in Britain, though there used to be a wine- cellar for draught wine near old London Bridge ; but in Germany they are frequently to be met with. There is a very large one at IVIunich, covered with an immense cone of earth, in which ale is kept and drunk at the same temperature both in the hottest sum- mers and the severest winters of that climate of the most opposite extremes. There is an excellent one at Silberberg, near Stuttgardt, both for ale and wine ; and there are nume-