The New-York Historical Society tion of Bastille Day by the French Consul, Monsieur Rousard. Now, the Consul knew that champagne needed ice; he also knew that the South was dependent upon sailing vessels bringing it in from the North and that at the moment the supply in Apalachicola was exhausted, with no sailing vessel in sight. Mentioning his plight to a Dr. Chapman, who was in on Dr. Gorrie's secret, it was arranged that artificial ice was to be supplied and the Consul's embarrassment relieved. This story fives in the memoirs of Judge George Raney, a distinguished jurist of Apalachicola at the time, and is corroborated by data collected by the Honorable George Whiteside, when the monument to Dr. Gorrie was unveiled in Apalachicola on April 30, 1900: Dr. Chapman said jokingly to Dr. Gorrie,"Have you found away to freeze your patients?""Not exactly, but I have made ice." And so Monsieur Rousard was able to say to his guests, "For my dinner I will have ze ice," and when the time came—the ice boat still overdue—waiters came trooping in bearing baskets of champagne covered with ice and silver platters loaded down with cubes. The guests applauded and extended congratulations to Dr. Gorrie upon his wonderful achievement. Patents were applied for, and the first one on record for a machine to make ice was granted on May 6, 1851, United States Patent No. 8080. But Dr. Gorrie was not to profit by it. Altho' his chief aim all the time he spent working on air cooling and ice manufacture was to improve conditions for the sick, he did try to interest capital in order to build machines commercially. But he was unsuccessful. The world wasn't ready for it. In fact, one northern paper, editorially referring to the notion that ice could be manufactured, declared that "a crank called Dr. John Gorrie down in Apalachicola, Florida, claims he can make ice as good as God Almighty." Dr. Gorrie died shortly after, (in 18 5 5 ), humiliated and broken hearted, but sad to relate, history offers abundant evidence of 126