Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 10.djvu/80

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. x. JULY 25,

the people as a mark of excessive and effemi- nate luxury. In recent times no one has succeeded in congealing water by saltpetre alone (without the help of snow or ice). Farmers say that a field is cold because it abounds with saltpetre. Latinus Tancredus, physician and professor at Naples, whose Tx>ok ' De Fame et Siti ' was published in 1607, assures us that the cold was much strengthened by saltpetre : that a glass filled with water, when quickly moved in now mixed with saltpetre, became solid ice. In 1626 the well-known commentary on the works of Avicenna, by Sanctorius, was published at Venice in folio. The author of this work relates that he had converted wine into ice by a mixture of snow and common salt. Bacon says that a new method had been found of bringing snow and ice to such a degree of cold, by means of saltpetre, as to make water freeze. This, he tells us, <*an be done also with common salt, by which, it is probable, he meant unpurified rock salt ; and he adds that in warm countries, where snow was not to be found, people made ice 'with saltpetre, but that he himself had never tried the experiment. About 1660 Procope Ck>uteaux, an Italian of Florence, conceived the happy idea, soon after the invention of lemonade, of converting that liquor into ice by a process which had before been employed by jugglers. Later on liquors cooled by or changed into ice were the principal things sold by the limonadiers. When De La Quintinie wrote in 1691, iced liquors were extremely common.

This brings us tip to the eighteenth cen- tury, mentioned at the beginning of this reply. In 1816-17 Prof. Leslie invented an ice-making apparatus, which never came into use, con- fectioners, restaurateurs, and others con- tinuing to supply themselves as of old with ice of Nature's own making, and importing their supplies at a vast expense from the North. In the words of Thomas Masters ' The Ice Book,' 1844

"The cadger providers of our Gunters and Verneys continue, as in the days of Pepys, to lay every suburban pond ' from Stratford Marshes to Wilsden Bottom under contribution."

Hippocrates, 460 B.C., warned people of the danger of drinking iced waters in the heat of summer, because anything that is exces- sive is an enemy to nature; and further observes :

" but they would rather run the hazard of their lives or health than be deprived of the pleasure of drinking out of ice."

Hippocrates, Celsus, and others employed cold water as a drink in ardent fever. In

modern times also it has been extensively used for the same purpose. Pisanellus ( 1 590) states that the fevers which were so prevalent among the natives of Sicily ceased upon the intro- duction of ice into that country. The doctors of the eighteenth century recommended it. Dr. Hancocke (1724) called it the febrifugum magnum; Dr. Currie (1797) was in favour of cold affusions ; Sir Ast ley Cooper (1804) re- commended ice-poultice for hernia! tumours. In regard to the trade in natural ice, prior to 1844 the consumption and use of foreign ice in England were very insignificant. In that year the Wenham Lake Ice Company established their business in London for the supply of pure ice only. This they procured from a lake about 18 miles from Boston, but in consequence of the high freight and the great waste attending its transportation and storage, the speculation proved a failure. The company then turned their attention to Norway, from which ice of equal thickness and compactness could be obtained at less cost, the only difficulty being that of obtain- ing it of equal quality. The lake ultimately selected by the company is remarkable for the purity of its water, which is attributable to the fact of its being supplied by springs only, and not by mountain torrents, which bring down with them decomposing vegetable matter in large quantity. This lake lies a few miles from Drobak in the Christiania Fjord. As soon as it became known that ice of great thickness could be obtained cheaply from the fjords and lakes adjoining the coast of Norway, fishermen began to use it in pre- ference to English ice for packing and pre- serving their fish. The further development of the ice-trade, and that of refrigeration, is, of course, beyond the scope of this reply.

TOM JONES.

CONDAMINE (11 S. ix. 511 ; x. 32, 57). The family of De la Condamine were from very old times Co-Seigneurs of Serves, a large tract of country in the South of France, their principal, if not their only, residence having been at or close to Nismes, now called Nimes, a large town surrounded by the Cevennes hills in the Departement Gard. The surname seems to have been derived from the nature of the tenure by which they held their lands, Co-Seigneur having been latinized into Con-dominus, or corrupted into Condamine.

The authenticated pedigree of the family commences with Andre de la Condamine, Co-Seigneur de Serves, who was bom in 1560, and who married Marie Genevieve of the noble family of De Falcon de Viguier de