Back doors for filling the ice box can be set so that the ice can be put in from the outside of the ice house, room, pantry or kitchen. This avoids useless handling and melting of the ice and obviates the iceman’s journey through the house. And, above all, choose a refrigerator that has no unnecessary “improvements” in the ice chamber which have to be taken out and scalded. The easier it can be rinsed from within the more often the attendants will clean it! And remember this, too, that an ice box is a cooler where the ice and provisions go in the same chamber, while the _refrigerator_--well, you know it all now. And, by the way, if you want a useful little device to keep your grape juice or yourself--cool--while motoring this summer, look up a little basket refrigerator which comes in many sizes and many prices. CHAPTER XII THE PASSING OF THE ICE MAN “How would you like to be the ice man?” is the lyrical refrain to an ancient ditty that is getting more and more obsolete every day, for there is a mechanical conspiracy to oust the ice man from his age-long position as purveyor to the home. So do ice men, gladiators and dogs have their day and relinquish to machinery their evanescent glories. Nowadays everybody knows that there are domestic refrigerating plants for home use that displace the ice man and in which pure ice for table use can be made. Many people, however, do not realize the reliability of such equipment, the simplicity of its operation, and the satisfaction to be derived from its use, nor yet that there is an actual saving in its use. These facts will, however, be borne out by thousands who have freed themselves from the bondage of the ice man. Even though few will care just what contributes to making the coldness, it might be well to give a simple explanation of the principle of making ice, in order that the prospective purchaser will know what she is getting. When you wash your hands they feel cool if you do not dry them. You say they are cool because the water evaporates, but the fact is that the evaporation takes place because the water is drawing on the heat from the air and your hands feel cool in the process. And so in simplest terms engineers have found refrigerants or liquids which vaporize or evaporate at low temperatures, and as they turn from liquids to gasses they use up the heat and leave the air cold. Some of these refrigerants are sulphur dioxide, chloride of ethyl, ammonia, etc. There are two ways of having refrigeration in the home: 1. The mechanical refrigerator (which is permanently cool with the machinery a part of itself)--one unit. 2. The domestic refrigerating plant (for making ice and steadily producing even, low temperatures) which you can have installed in your own refrigerator--two units.