74
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
