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In today’s time, snow is not a big thing for people. If you want ice, just put water in the freezer and you will get ice in no time. But do you know how ice was stored hundreds of years ago when there was no fridge?
Technology has made people’s lives much easier. If you want ice today, open the fridge door, take out the ice tray and the ice is in front of you. But 300 years ago, when there was no electricity, no refrigerator, no machine, people of North India used to make tons of ice, that too under the open sky! This was not magic, this was pure Indian science.
In the year 1775, Robert Barker, an officer of the British East India Company, was walking at night in Allahabad (today’s Prayagraj). He saw that hundreds of laborers were working outside the city. Hundreds of small round pits were dug in the fields. Each pit was 2-3 feet wide and only 8-10 inches deep. 2-3 inches of water was poured into each pit. A thick wall of dry straw was built around it. At first the officer could not understand. But what he saw the next morning blew his mind. The officer saw the layer of snow for the first time. After all, how did Indians perform this miracle?
Secret revealed from diary
The officer mentioned in his diary the ice-making technology he had seen in India. He wrote- “I observed ice formed in shallow earthen pans under the open sky, though the thermometer stood many degrees above the freezing point. The natives call these ice-makers ‘barf-saaz’.” He considered it magic and sent the entire paper to the Royal Society of London. In 1775, a report was published in which written evidence of “radiative cooling” was found for the first time in the world. Now the question was, how did this ice freeze? Its method was very simple and amazing. All that was needed to make snow was clear, cloud-free cold nights and also straw.
this is how ice used to freeze
To freeze ice without a refrigerator, very little water was kept in shallow earthen pots or pits on clear nights. Dry straw was spread all around. It worked as insulation, preventing the heat from the ground from reaching the water. At night the Earth emits its heat into space in the form of infrared rays. When water was kept in the open sky, all its heat would escape rapidly. Straw prevents the heat of the ground. The result was that the temperature of the water would drop 15-20 degrees below that of the air and ice would form. Allahabad, Firozpur, Lucknow, Agra, Patna – there were “ice houses” all over the Ganga plains. 50 to 100 tons of ice was made in one night. Ice was stored for months by placing straw in deep pits. In summer, Nawabs, Kings-Maharajas and rich people used it in sherbet, falooda, kulfi and medicines.
