EXTENT OF THE ICE INDUSTRY.--The annual consumption of natural and manufactured ice is very great. By adding to this the equivalent, in tons of ice, of the work performed by refrigerator machines, in the various industries in which they are used, the grand total is estimated to exceed twenty million tons of ice used each year. The capital invested in carrying on this business is not less than twenty-eight million dollars. Employment, constant and temporary, is afforded by the ice trade to about ninety thousand persons and twenty-five thousand horses. It is probable that more than half of the world’s annual ice supply is procured and consumed in this country, which is the home of this industry. THE PRESERVING OR ANTISEPTIC POWERS OF ICE have long been made use of to keep food from decay. The best illustration of its powers in this direction is found in the accounts which travelers in Northern Europe and Asia have given us of the discoveries of huge mammoths frozen within large blocks of ice. This species of animal has been extinct for ages, and so perfectly have they been preserved that some of the native tribes occasionally make use of these supplies of flesh for food. Fish, meat and eggs are now frozen and kept during many months, and the transportation of fresh beef and mutton for thousands of miles over land and sea is an established custom. Fresh fish are frozen in the center of cakes of ice, and, shipped in this way, present a very handsome appearance. This property of ice for domestic and commercial purposes has been of an incalculable benefit to the human family. Many eminent physicians have laid the seal of their approval upon the use of ice as a remedial agent, and also for the alleviation of suffering among the sick. So highly did they esteem it that, prior to the general introduction of the trade in ice, many doctors and managers of hospitals had private stores of ice for use among their patients. The directors of the Pennsylvania hospital at Philadelphia may be credited with being the pioneer ice dealers of that city, as in the early years of the century they disposed of their surplus stores of ice by sale in that community. Many localities which are now important centers in the ice trade were at one time dependent upon the medical fraternity for ice for hygienic purposes.