the.com/glaciarium

a fake glacier you paid to skate on before refrigeration knew what it was doing.

means an artificial ice rink, especially the early ones built before mechanical refrigeration made real ice practical indoors.

from from latin glacies, ice, dressed up with a pseudo-scientific suffix that victorians loved slapping on anything novel; the first ones in 1840s london used a wax and hog-fat compound that only vaguely resembled ice and smelled nothing like a rink.

for instance

the glaciarium chelsealondon, 1876, first true mechanically frozen ice rink

rusholme glaciariummanchester, 1877, brought real ice skating north

melbourne glaciariumaustralia, 1906, became a major ice hockey venue

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