A SKATING RINK WITH REAL ICE IN ALL WEATHERS.

Oamaru Mail, Volume I, Issue 46, 14 June 1876, Page 2

A SKATING RINK WITH REAL ICE IN ALL WEATHERS.

The London "Times" of says :—" "weather and'at the yeaOTfas now become possiißlei; it is : -an accomplished fact. Oil a plobVofiaaicyJeliind the old clock-house in th«,v'K ; rn'A's:-road, Chelsea, and forming was formerly Queen Elizabeth's and on exists a |%alberVy tree said to have been planted by ', that Queen, is situated the Glaciarium, the real ice skating rink. The rink is the result of Mr. John Gamgee's long and persevering labours to produce artificial cold at low cost, his primary ijroposition having been to apply the cold so produced to the preservation of meat in carcass during its transport from the Colonies and elsewhere to England, The idea of the rink is, as we have stated, not a new one. More thaii ten years since Mr. A. W. Parker proposed to apply the principle for artificial congelation to the formation of glaciaria or skating places, but he used brine as the congealing medium. Now, a saline solution is highly objectionable, inasmuch as it catises the destruction of any metallic surfaces with which it may come in contact by galvanic and chemical action. Moreover, it is itself congealable if snbjected to too low a temperature, or if the circulation be to slow, thus presenting the contingency of failure by obstruction. In the following year Mr. H. P. Gengembre, of Pittsburg, U.Si, patented a skating floor, formed of ice, congealed from beneath by a series of boxes communicating with a i'efrigejating Apparatus. In IS7O M. J. Bujac, of New" York, patented a method of preparing skating floors much in the same way, using for the purpose the well-known Carre freezing machine, of which several were re* quired. In 1575 Messrs. H. West and Valon patented a skating rink, in which the ice was formed in the same way as in-the previous-* carried on on-ait iron iron girders bedded the intervening spaces seryujg as j»miduit-s for the freezing fluid, which was to be brine or ' iLastly, injt-he same year, a7id almost at the- same '; f time, Messrs. F. N. Mackay and Drr Rae patented a precisely similar arranojerasnt. None-ef these ideas, howev«g£flH|Bpf as we are aware, have ever practice. Mr. Gamgee began his woTrk in connection with the present rink at Chelsea about two years ago, and in 1574 he designed a rink in which the ice was carried 0* an iron plate or floor supported on iron girders, whijgb. j rested on a fioor of wood, and this on a dosp'i crete bed. The space between the the wood, and the iron plates served as conduits for the freezing fluid. "This form, however, he subsequently improved upon until he so far perfected his designs as to produce the rink- which we recently visited, and on which several noblemen and gentlemen—members of the London Skating Club- were skating with expressed satisfaction. This rink is an experimental one, and it is to be supplemented by a larger one, which is in course of construction. The present rink is twenty-four feet long by sixteen feet wide, giving about forty-three square V ar( b3 of surface, and is formed by a series of cast iron pipes of rectangular section laid on concrete grouted in cement. The pipes are connected at the end, so that the refrigerating liquid flows regularly through them. The floor, which forms a broad shallow trough, was filled with water 2in. deep on the 6th of February last, and on the 7th an excellent bed of ice was ready for skaters. The rink was then tested by Mr. Herbert Stewart, the i

secretary of the London Skating Club,*J lias been in constant aminterruptgdj|H ever since. The rink is enclosed wwhjJM canvas-covered building, and has > jected to a temperature of 63deg. Fall, witM out manifesting any tendency ,to melt;,' Hjß The ice-dust produced by the skatersTis/ociiH sionally swept off to be used in the op%ttJ of preserving the solid mass from wMclp|M taken. The slight renewal iia.e : ejSsSpsM effected by simply distributing ice at the close of the" day with a water-jgjM

. . it* The Siamese Government is vigor&tft pushing on a telegraph line to Burmali with Bangkok, thence to PenM There will thus be two lines from Sina pore to England. TheJSiberian lines h{ 'been much interrupted lately.*^-* A wonderful curiosity lias \ just bea issued by the OxJSrd University Press, \ Paternoster-row, in the form of the smalles prayer-book. eVer printed. It is bound % leather, wgtghs just under an ounce, j three, and a«riiiftches %i length, two aa an eighth aada quarter of $ nch in asj in the from.the sann establish^iehTv

The Towir KJj tion :—^ v -J? ■