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full of Snow or Ice (taking care that the Ice be made of the purest water, because they put it into their wine) overspreading first the bottom very well with Chaffe; by which I mean not any part of the straw, but what remains upon the winnowing of the Corn; and I think, they here use Barley-chaffe. This done, they further, as they put in the Ice, or the Snow, (which latter they ram down,) line it thick by the sides with such Chaffe, and afterwards cover it well with the same; and in half a years lying so, 'tis found not to want above an eight part of what it weighed, when first put in. When ever they take it out into the Aire, they wrap it in this Chaffe, and it keeps to admiration. The use of it in England would not be so much for cooling of drinks, as 'tis here generally used; but for cooling of fruit, sweet-meats &c. So far this Author.
The other usual way both in Italy and other Countries, to conserve Snow and Ice with Straw or Reed, is set down so punctually by Mr. Boyle in his Experimental History of Cold, pag. 408. 409. that nothing is to be added. It seems Pliny could not pass by these Conservatories, and the cooling of drinks with Ice, without passing this severe, though elegant and witty, Animadversion upon them: Hi Nives, illi glaciem potant, pœnásque montium in voluptatem gulæ vertunt: Servatur algor æstibus, excogitatúrque ut alienis mensibus nix algeat, lib. 19. cap. 4. But the Epigrammatist sports with it thus;
Non potare nivem, sed aquam potare rigentem
De nive, commenta est ingeniosa sitis. Martial, 14. Ep. 117.
Directions for Sea-men, bound for far Voyages.
It being the Design of the R. Society, for the better attaining the End of their Institution, to study Nature rather than Books, and from the Observations, made of the Phænomena and Effects she presents, to compose such a Histo-
