THE INCREDIBLE WOOD-BURNING REFRIGERATOR (IS NOW UNDER DEVELOPMENT)

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That particular unit was known as the "Icy-Ball" and it was sold in the U.S. by the Crosley Corporation. As the accompanying illustration shows, the cooler consisted of nothing but an insulated box with a door on the top and a detachable refrigerating mechanism. Each cooling chest was also equipped with a kerosene stove and a water bucket.

To put the Icy-Ball refrigerator into operation, the "generator" end of the chilling mechanism was placed over the lighted stove and the other end was put in a bucket filled with cold water. After 90 minutes the device was transferred to the insulated box and positioned so that the generator end was out in the open air and the freezer end inside the chest. So placed, the cooling unit would actually freeze ice cubes and otherwise refrigerate the box for from 24 to 36 hours.

Spokesmen for The International Solar Power Co. Ltd. say that the Icy-Ball apparatus was "cheap, efficient, and practical and only suffered from one snag: during the boiling-out of the ammonia, some water vapor was carried over to the condenser/evaporator and the efficiency of the system was thereby reduced".

The same company officials state that the Icy-Ball was invented and patented during the 1920's by a Canadian named David Forbes Keith, that the original patents have long since expired, and that they think—just as Dale Degler does that the intermittent absorption refrigerator is due for a big comeback. The International Solar Power people's view of the whole absorption freezer concept, in fact, differs from Dale's in only two major respects: They figure that [1) such a system will have to be recharged for one to two hours every day instead of 20 minutes and [21 the unit should be run on solar energy instead of with wood power.

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