lsanborn t1_ismgmm0 wrote on October 17, 2022 at 1:59 AM

Reply to comment by kokopilau in TIL that before the invention of regfrigeration in 1851, ice had to be imported to Australia from Boston, Massachusetts. The ice blocks travelled through the tropics inside ships insulated with timber, straw, peat, and sawdust by stumcm

I’m thinking some enterprising Yankee had some room in the hold, or maybe something else he wanted to keep cold, in a ship already headed for Australia. We already had the infrastructure for domestic ice production and transport. He took a risk, the Aussies said okay we’ll take that and he made a pile of money until they figured out something better. It happened they figured out how to make their own quicker than someone else figured out how to get it from NZ at a profit.