To: WSFAlist at keithlynch.net
Date: Sat, 5 Apr 2003 03:34:18 -0500
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Snow free at last!
From: ronkean at juno.com
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

On Fri, 04 Apr 2003 19:00:56 -0500 Candy Madigan
<candymadigan at mindspring.com> writes:
> Mount Meade is still there.  It's about half as tall as it was after
> the
> blizzards that created it.

I would distinguish between snow which has fallen naturally and which
remains in place where it has fallen, and snow which has been gathered
and piled up.  If enough snow were gathered in one place, and compacted,
with more added each winter season, it might never completely melt.

George Washington, who lived long before there was mechanical
refrigeration, nevertheless was able to have ice cream in the summer.
The first of these links describes how ice was stored to be used in the
summer.

http://www.shine-english.com/email/worksheets/SH020C-IceCream.pdf

In Roman times, in Syria, in the absence of natural ice or snow, ice
could sometimes be made at high altitudes by exposing very shallow pools
of water to the clear night sky.  A breeze could cool the water by
evaporation, and further heat loss from radiation to the night sky could
form a skin of ice on the water surface, which could be skimmed off and
compacted.

Another method used to obtain ice in ancient times was to gather it near
mountain tops.  Mount Hermon, in the Anti-Lebanon mountain range, rises
to over 9,000 feet, and in Biblical times it was sometimes called the
'ice mountain' because it was used as a source of ice.