Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century: Some Contemporary European Accounts c18.4

c18.4

The process of making ice in the East Indies having become a subject of speculation, I beg permission to present you with the method by which it was performed at Allahabad, Mootegil, and Calcutta, in the East Indies, lying between 25½ and 23½ degrees on North latitude. At the latter place I have never heard of any persons having discovered natural ice in the pools or cisterns, or in any waters collected in the roads; nor has the thermometer been remarked to descend to the freezing point; and at the former very few only have discovered ice, and that but seldom: But in the process of making ice at these places it was usual to collect a quantity every morning, before sunrise (except in some particular kinds of weather, which I shall specify in the sequel), for near three months in the year: viz from December till February.