ICE-CAVES OF FRANCE AND SWITZERLAND. 

 A NARRATIVE OF SUBTERRANEAN EXPLORATION. 

 BY THE REV. G. F. BROWNE, M. A. 

 FELLOW AND ASSISTANT TUTOR OF ST. CATHARINE'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE; MEMBER OF THE ALPINE CLUB. 

 1865. 

PREFACE. 

The existence of natural ice-caves at depths varying from 50 to 200 feetbelow the surface of the earth, unconnected with glaciers or snowmountains, and in latitudes and at altitudes where ice could not underordinary circumstances be supposed to exist, has attracted someattention on the Continent; but little or nothing seems to bepractically known in England on the subject. These caves are sosingular, and many of them so well repay inspection, that a descriptionof the twelve which I have visited can scarcely, as it seems to me, beconsidered an uncalled-for addition to the numerous books of travelwhich are constantly appearing. In order to prevent my narrative frombeing a mere dry record of natural phenomena, I have interspersed itwith such incidents of travel as may be interesting in themselves oruseful to those who are inclined to follow my steps. I have also given, from various sources, accounts of similar caves in different parts ofthe world. 

A pamphlet on _Glacières Naturelles_ by M. Thury, of Geneva, of theexistence of which I was not aware when I commenced my explorations, hasbeen of great service to me. M. Thury had only visited three glacièreswhen he published his pamphlet in 1861, but the observations he recordsare very valuable. He had attempted to visit a fourth, when, unfortunately, the want of a ladder of sufficient length stopped him. 

I was allowed to read Papers before the British Association at Bath(1864), in the Chemical Section, on the prismatic formation of the icein these caves, and in the Geological Section, on their generalcharacter and the possible causes of their existence. 

It is necessary to say, with regard to the sections given in this book, that, while the proportions of the masses of ice are in accordance withmeasurements taken on the spot, the interior height of many of thecaves, and the curves of the roof and sides, are put in with a freehand, some of them from memory. And of the measurements, too, it is onlyfair to say that they were taken for the most part under veryunfavourable circumstances, in dark caves lighted by one, or sometimesby two candles, with a temperature varying from slightly above toslightly below the freezing-point, and with no surer foot-hold than thatafforded by slippery slopes of ice and chaotic blocks of stone. In allcases, errors are due to want of skill, not of honesty; and I hope thatthey do not generally lie on the side of exaggeration. 

CAMBRIDGE: _June_ 1865. 

 CONTENTS. 

 CHAPTER I. PAGE

 THE GLACIÈRE OF LA GENOLLIÈRE, IN THE JURA ............. 1

 CHAPTER II. 

 THE GLACIÈRE OF S. GEORGES, IN THE JURA ................ 19

 CHAPTER III. 

 THE LOWER GLACIÈRE OF THE PRÉ DE S. LIVRES, IN THE JURA ............................................... 32

 CHAPTER IV. 

 THE UPPER GLACIÈRE OF THE PRÉ DE S. LIVRES ............. 46

 CHAPTER V. 

 THE GLACIÈRE OF GRÂCE-DIEU, OR LA BAUME, NEAR BESANÇON, IN THE VOSGIAN JURA .................................... 60

 CHAPTER VI. 

 BESANÇON AND DÔLE ...................................... 85

 CHAPTER VII. 

 THE GLACIÈRE OF MONTHÉZY, IN THE VAL DE TRAVERS ........ 97

 CHAPTER VIII. 

 THE GLACIÈRE AND NEIGIÈRE OF ARC-SOUS-CICON ............ 118

 CHAPTER IX. 

 THE SCHAFLOCH, OR TROU-AUX-MOUTONS, NEAR THE LAKE OF THUN ................................................... 131

 CHAPTER X. 

 THE GLACIÈRE OF GRAND ANU, NEAR ANNECY ................. 157

 CHAPTER XI. 

 THE GLACIÈRE OF CHAPPET-SUR-VILLAZ, NEAR ANNECY ........ 182

 CHAPTER XII. 

 THE GLACIÈRES OF THE BREZON, AND THE VALLEY OF REPOSOIR ............................................ 202

 CHAPTER XIII. 

 LA BORNA DE LA GLACE, IN THE DUCHY OF AOSTA ............ 210

 CHAPTER XIV. 

 THE GLACIÈRE OF FONDEURLE, IN DAUPHINÉ ................. 212

 CHAPTER XV. 

 OTHER ICE-CAVES:-- THE CAVE OF SCELICZE, IN HUNGARY ..................... 237 THE CAVE OF YEERMALIK, IN KOONDOOZ ................... 240 THE SURTSHELLIR, IN ICELAND .......................... 244 THE GYPSUM CAVE OF ILLETZKAYA ZASTCHITA, ORENBURG .... 249 THE ICE-CAVERN ON THE PEAK OF TENERIFFE .............. 253

 CHAPTER XVI. 

 BRIEF NOTICES OF VARIOUS ICE-CAVES ..................... 256

 CHAPTER XVII. 

 HISTORY OF THEORIES RESPECTING THE CAUSES OF SUBTERRANEAN ICE ....................................... 282

 CHAPTER XVIII. 

 ON THE PRISMATIC STRUCTURE OF THE ICE IN GLACIÈRES ..... 300

 CHAPTER XIX. 

 ON THE MEAN TEMPERATURE OF THE REGIONS IN WHICH SOME OF THE GLACIÈRES OCCUR ............................ 308

 APPENDIX ............................................... 313

 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 

 ICE-COLUMNS IN THE GLACIÈRE OF LA GENOLLIÈRE ........... 6

 ENTRANCE TO THE GLACIÈRE OF S. GEORGES ................. 24

 VERTICAL SECTIONS OF THE GLACIÈRE OF S. GEORGES ........ 26

 LOWER GLACIÈRE OF THE PRÉ DE S. LIVRES ................. 39

 SECTION OF THE LOWER GLACIÈRE OF THE PRÉ DE S. LIVRES ....................................... 41

 SECOND CAVE OF THE UPPER GLACIÈRE OF THE PRÉ DE S. LIVRES .............................................. 50

 VERTICAL SECTIONS OF THE UPPER GLACIÈRE OF THE PRÉ DE S. LIVRES ........................................... 52

 VERTICAL SECTION OF THE GLACIÈRE OF GRÂCE-DIEU, NEAR BESANÇON ............................................... 77

 BATH IN THE DOUBS, AT BESANÇON ......................... 91

 VERTICAL SECTION OF THE GLACIÈRE OF MONTHÉZY, IN THE VAL DE TRAVERS ......................................... 108

 GROUND PLAN OF THE GLACIÈRE OF MONTHÉZY ................ 110

 VERTICAL SECTION OF THE GLACIÈRE OF GRAND ANU, NEAR ANNECY ................................................. 173

 ICE-CAVE IN THE SURTSHELLIR ............................ 248

 * * * * *

CHAPTER I. 

THE GLACIÈRE OF LA GENOLLIÈRE, IN THE JURA. 

In the summer of 1861, I found myself, with some members of my family, in a small rustic _pension_ in the village of Arzier, one of the highestvillages of the pleasant slope by which the Jura passes down to the Lakeof Geneva. The son of the house was an intelligent man, with a goodknowledge of the natural curiosities which abound in that remarkablerange of hills, and under his guidance we saw many strange things. Morethan once, he spoke of the existence of a _glacière_ at no greatdistance, and talked of taking us to see it; but we were sceptical onthe subject, imagining that _glacière_ was his patois for _glacier_, andknowing that anything of the glacier kind was out of the question. Atlast, however, on a hot day in August, we set off with him, armed, athis request, with candles; and, after two or three hours of pineforests, and grass glades, and imaginary paths up rocky ranges of hilltowards the summits of the Jura, we came to a deep natural pit, down theside of which we scrambled. At the bottom, after penetrating a few yardsinto a chasm in the rock, we discovered a small low cave, perfectlydark, with a flooring of ice, and a pillar of the same material in theform of a headless woman, one of whose shoulders we eventually carriedoff, to regale our parched friends at Arzier. We lighted up the cavewith candles, and sat crouched on the ice drinking our wine, findingwater, which served the double purpose of icing and diluting the wine, in small basins in the floor of ice, formed apparently by drops fallingfrom the roof of the cave. 

A few days after, our guide and companion took us to an ice-cavern on alarger scale, which, we were told, supplies Geneva with ice when theordinary stores of that town fail; and the next year my sisters went toyet another, where, however, they did not reach the ice, as the laddernecessary for the final drop was not forthcoming. 

In the course of the last year or two, I have mentioned these glacièresnow and then in England, and no one has seemed to know anything aboutthem; so I determined, in the spring of 1864, to spend a part of thesummer in examining the three we had already seen or heard of, anddiscovering, if possible, the existence of similar caves. 

The first that came under my notice was the Glacière of La Genollière;and, though it is smaller and less interesting than most of those whichI afterwards visited, many of its general features are merely reproducedon a larger scale in them. I shall therefore commence with this cave, and proceed with the account of my explorations in their natural order. It is probable that some of the earlier details may seem to be somewhattedious, but they are necessary for a proper understanding of thesubject. 

La Genollière is the _montagne_, or mountain pasturage and wood, belonging to the village of Genollier, an ancient priory of the monks ofS. Claude. [1] The cave itself lies at no great distance from Arzier--avillage which may be seen in profile from the Grand Quai of Geneva, ambitiously climbing towards the summit of the last slope of the Jura. To reach the cave from Geneva, it would be necessary to take train orsteamer to Nyon, whence an early omnibus runs to S. Cergues, if crawlingup the serpentine road can be called running; and from S. Cergues aguide must be taken across the Fruitière de Nyon, if anyone can be foundwho knows the way. From Arzier, however, which is nine miles up fromNyon, it was not necessary to take the S. Cergues route; and we wentstraight through the woods, past the site of an old convent and itsdrained fish-pond, and up the various rocky ridges of hill, with noguide beyond the recollection of the previous visits two and three yearsbefore, and a sort of idea that we must go north-west. As it was not yetJuly, the cows had not made their summer move to the higher châlets, andwe found the mountains uninhabited and still. 

The point to be made for is the upper Châlet of La Genollière, called bysome of the people _La Baronne_, [2] though the district map puts LaBaronne at some distance from the site of the glacière. We had somedifficulty in finding the châlet, and were obliged to spread out now andthen, that each might hunt a specified portion of the wood or glade forsigns to guide our further advance, enjoying meanwhile the lilies of themountain and lilies of the valley, and fixing upon curious trees andplants as landmarks for our return. In crossing the last grass, we foundthe earliest vanilla orchis (_Orchis nigra_) of the year, and came uponbeds of moonwort (_Botrychium Lunaria_) of so unusual a size that ourprogress ceased till such time as the finest specimens were secured. 

Some time before reaching this point, we caught a glimpse of a darkspeck on the highest summit in sight, which recalled pleasantly a nightwe had spent there three years before for the purpose of seeing the sunrise. [3] My sisters had revisited the Châlet des Chèvres, which thisdark speck represented, in 1862, and found that the small chamber inwhich we had slept on planks and logs had become a more total ruin thanbefore, in the course of the winter, so that it is now utterlyuntenable. 

From Arzier to the Châlet of La Genollière, would be about two hours, for a man walking and mounting quickly, and never losing the way; andthe glacière lies a few minutes farther to the north-west, at anelevation of about 2, 800 feet above the lake, or 4, 000 feet above thesea. [4] A rough mountain road, leading over an undulating expanse ofgrass, passes narrowly between two small clumps of trees, eachsurrounded by a low circular wall, the longer diameter of theenclosure on the south side of the road being 60 feet. In thisenclosure is a natural pit, of which the north side is a sheer rock, of the ordinary limestone of the Jura, with a chasm almost from thetop; while the south side is less steep, and affords the means ofscrambling down to the bottom, where a cave is found at the foot ofthe chasm, passing under the road. The floor of this small butcomparatively lofty cave is 52 feet below the surface of the earth, and slopes away rapidly to the west, where, by the help of candles, the rock which forms the wall is seen to stop short of the floor, leaving an entrance 2 or 3 feet high to an inner cave--the glacière. The roof of this inner cave rises slightly, and its floor falls, sothat there is a height of about 6 feet inside, excepting where a largeopen fissure in the roof passes high up towards the world above. Atone end, neither the roof nor the floor slopes much, and in this partof the cave the height is less than 3 feet. 

It would be very imprudent to go straight into an ice-cave after a longwalk on a hot summer's day, so we prepared to dine under the shade ofthe trees at the edge of the pit, and I went down into the cave for afew moments to get a piece of ice for our wine. My first impression wasthat the glacière was entirely destroyed, for the outer cave was a merechaos of rock and stones; but, on further investigation, it turned outthat the ruin had not reached the inner cave. In our previous visit wehad noticed a natural basin of some size and depth among the trees onthe north side of the road, and we now found that the chaos was theresult of a recent falling-in of this basin; so that from the bottom ofthe first cave, standing as it were under the road, we could seedaylight through the newly-formed hole. 

The total length of the floor of the inner cave, which lies north-eastand south-west, is 51 feet; and of this floor a length of about 37 feetwas more or less covered with ice, the greatest breadth of the ice beingwithin an inch or two of 11 feet. Excepting in the part of the cavealready mentioned as being less than 3 feet high, we found the floor notnearly so dry, nor so completely covered with ice, as when we first sawthe glacière, three years before, in the middle of an exceptionally hotAugust. Under the low roof all was very dry, though even there the icehad not an average thickness of more than 8 inches. It may be as well tosay, once for all, that the ice in these caves is never found in a sheeton a pool of water; it is always solid, forming the floor of the cave, filling up the interstices of the loose stones, and rising above them, in this case with a surface perfectly level. 

[Illustration: ICE-COLUMNS IN THE GLACIÈRE OF LA GENOLLIÈRE. ]

We found four principal columns of ice, three of which, in the loftiestpart of the cave, are represented in the accompanying engraving: I callthem three, and not two, because the two which unite in a common baseproceeded from different fissures. The line of light at the foot of therock-wall is the only entrance to the glacière. The lowest column was11-2/3 feet high and 1-2/3 feet broad, not more than 6 inches thick inthe middle, half-way up, and flattened symmetrically so as to becomparatively sharp at the edges, like a huge double-edged sword. Itstood clear of the rock through its whole height, but scarcely left roombetween itself and the wall of the cave for a candle to be passed up anddown. The other two columns shown in the engraving poured out offissures in the rock, streaming down as cascades, the one being 13-1/2and the other 15 feet high; and when we tied a candle to the end of analpenstock, and passed it into the fissures, we found that the bend ofthe fissures prevented our seeing the termination of the ice. Anintermittent disturbance of the air in these fissures made the flameflicker at intervals, though generally the candle burned steadily inthem, and we could detect no current in the cave. The fourth column wasin the low part of the cave, and we were obliged to grovel on the ice toget its dimensions: it was 3-1/4 feet broad and 4-1/3 feet high, theroof of the cave being only 2-3/4 feet high; and it poured out of thevertical fissure like a smooth round fall of water, adhering lightly tothe rock at its upper end like a fungus, and growing out suddenly in itsfull size. This column was dry, whereas on the others there wereabundant symptoms of moisture, as if small quantities of water weretrickling down them from their fissures, though the fissures themselvesappeared to be perfectly dry. 

In one of the fissures there was a patch of what is known assweating-stone, [5] with globules of water oozing out, and standingroundly upon it: the globules were not frozen. This stone wasexceedingly hard, and defied all our efforts to break off a specimen, but at last we got two small pieces, hard and heavy, and wrapped themin paper; ten weeks after, we found them of course quite dry, andbroke them easily, small as they were, with our fingers. The fissurefrom which the shortest of the four columns came was full of gnats, aswere also several crevices in the walls of the cave, especially in thelowest part; and we found a number of large red-brown flies, [6]nearly an inch long, running rapidly on the ice and stones, after thefashion of the flies with which trout love best to be taken. Thecentral parts of the cave, where the roof is high, were in a stateprovincially known as 'sloppy, ' and drops of water fell now and thenfrom above, either splashing on wet stones, or hollowing out basins inthe remaining ice, or, sometimes, shrewdly detecting the mostsensitive spot in the back of the human neck. We placed one ofCasella's thermometers on a piece of wood on one of the wet stones, clear of the ice, and it soon fell to 34°. Probably the temperaturehad been somewhat raised by the continued presence of three humanbeings and two lighted candles in the small cavern; and, at any rate, the cold of two degrees above freezing was something very real on ahot summer's day, and told considerably upon my sisters, so that wewere compelled to beat a retreat, --not quite in time, for one of ourparty could not effect a thaw, even by stamping about violently in thefull afternoon sun. 

While we were in the cave, we noticed that the surfaces of the columnswere covered by very irregular lines, marked somewhat deeply in theice, and dividing the surface into areas of all shapes, a sort ofnetwork, with meshes of many different shapes and sizes. These areaswere smaller towards the edges of the columns; the lines containingthem were not, as a rule, straight lines, and almost baffled ourefforts to count them, but, to the best of my belief, there weremeshes with three, four, and up to eight sides. The column whichstood clear of the rock was composed of very limpid ice, withoutadmixture of air; but the cascades were interpenetrated by veins oflooser white ice, and, where the white ice came, the surface linesseemed to disappear. As we sat on the grass outside, arranging ourproperties for departure, my attention was arrested by the columnarappearance of the fractured edge of the block of ice which we had usedat luncheon. It was about 5 inches thick, and had formed part of astalagmite whose horizontal section, like that of the free column, would be an ellipse of considerable eccentricity; and, on examination, it turned out that the surface areas, which varied in size from alarge thumb-nail to something very small, were the ends of prismsreaching through to the other side of the piece of ice, at any rate inthe thinner parts, and presenting there similar faces. Not only so, but the prisms could be detached with great ease, by using noinstrument more violent than the fingers; while the point of a thinknife entered freely at any of the surface lines, and split the iceneatly down the sides of the prisms. When one or two of the sides of aprism were exposed, at the edge of the piece of ice, the prism couldbe pushed out entire, like a knot from the edge of a piece of wood. Insome cases there seemed to be capillary fissures coincident with thelines where several sides of prisms met. Considering the shape of thewhole column, it is clear that the two ends of each prism could not beparallel; neither was one of the ends perfectly symmetrical with theother, and I do not think that the prisms were of the nature oftruncated pyramids. On descending again, I found that the columnswere without exception formed of this prismatic ice, either in whole, as in the clear column, or in part, as where limpid prisms existedamong the white ice which ran in veins down the cascades. In the freevertical column the prisms seemed to be deposited horizontally, and inthe thicker parts they did not pass clear through. We carried a largepiece of ice down to Arzier in a botanical tin, and on our arrivalthere we found that all traces of external lines had disappeared. 

This visit to the glacière was on Saturday, and on the following MondayI determined to go up alone, to take a registering thermometer, andleave it in the cave for the night; which, of course, would entail athird visit on the next day. Monday brought a steady penetrating rain, of that peculiar character which six Scotch springs had taught me todescribe as 'just a bit must;' while in the higher regions the fog wasso hopeless, that a sudden lift of the mist revealed the unpleasant factthat considerable progress had been made in a westerly direction, thetrue line being north-west. Instead of the rocks of La Genollière, theforeground presented was the base of the Dôle, and the chasm whichaffords a passage from the well-known fortress of Les Rousses into Vaud. There was nothing for it but to turn in the right direction, or attemptto do so, and force a way through the wet woods till something shouldturn up. This something took the form of a châlet; but no amount ofhammering and shouting produced any response, and it was only after aforcible entrance, and a prolonged course of interior shouting, that aman was at length drawn. He said that he had been asleep--and why heput it in a past tense is still a mystery--and could give no idea ofthe direction of the châlet on La Genollière, beyond a vague suggestionthat it was somewhere in the mist; a suggestion by no means improbable, seeing that the mist was ubiquitous. One piece of information he wasable to give, and it was consoling: I was now, it seemed, on theFruitière de Nyon, and therefore the desired châlet could not be faroff, if only a guide could be found. On the whole, he thought that aguide could not be found; but there were men in the châlet, and I mightgo up the ladder with him and see what could be done. He led to achamber with a window of one small pane, dating apparently from thefirst invention of glass, and never cleaned since. An invisible cornerof the room was appealed to; but the voice which resided there, andseemed like everything else to be asleep, pleaded dreamily a totalignorance of the whereabouts of the châlet in question. Just as, by dintof steady staring through the darkness, an indistinct form of amattress, with a human being reclining thereon, began to be visible, another dark corner announced that this new speaker had heard of a_p'tit sentier_ leading to the châlet, but knew neither direction nordistance. Here the space between the two corners put in a word; and, asthe darkness was now becoming natural, seven or eight mattressesappeared, ranged round the room, some holding one, some two men, most ofwhom were sitting up on end with old caps on, displaying every varietyof squalor. The voice which had spoken last declared that the distancewas three-quarters of an hour, and that if the day were clear therewould be no difficulty in reaching the châlet; as it was, the man wouldbe very glad to try. 

A change of cap was the only dressing necessary for the volunteer, andwe faced the fog and rain, which elicited from him such a disgracefulamount of swearing, that it was on all accounts well when the rainceased for a few minutes, the mists rolled off, and the clouds liftedsufficiently to betray the surface of the Lake of Geneva, luxuriating inthe clear warmth of an early summer's day, and making us shiver by thepainful contrast which our own altitude presented. The deep blue of thelake brought to mind the story of the shepherd of Gessenay (Saanen), ofwhom it is told that when he was passing the hills with some friends fora first visit to Vevey, and came in sight of the lake, which he hadnever seen before, he turned and hurried home incontinent, declaringthat he would not enter a country where the good God had made the bluesky to fall and fill the valleys. 

In this bright interval we came upon a magnificent fox, and thepeasant's impulse was, 'Oh, for a good gun!' an exclamation which wouldhave sounded horrible to English ears, if I had not been previouslybroken in to it by an invitation from a Scotch gamekeeper to a fox-hunt, when he promised an excellent gun, and a _stance_ which the foxes weresure to pass. 

The rain now came on again, and the guide thought he had had plenty ofit, and must return for the afternoon milking; and just then, as goodluck would have it, we stumbled upon an immense clump of nettles whichhad been one of our landmarks two days before, so that he was no longernecessary, and we said affectionate adieux. 

The glacière was in a state of ruin. Only the right-hand column, notspeaking heraldically, was standing, the others lying in blocks frozenhard together on the ground. The column which still stood was muchshrunken, and seemed too small for its fissure, the sides of which itscarcely touched. The wind blew down the entrance slope sodeterminedly, that a candle found it difficult to live at the bottomof the first cave; and a portion of the current blew into theglacière, and in its sweep exactly struck the fallen columns, theedges of which were already rounded by thaw. Much of this must beattributed to the recent opening of the second shaft (p. 5), whichadmits a thorough draught through the first cave, and so exposes theglacière to currents of warmer air; and I should expect to find thatin future the ice will disappear from that part of the cave everysummer, [7] whereas in 1861 we found it thick and dry (excepting a fewsmall basins containing water) and evidently permanent, in the middleof a very hot August. The low part of the cave was so completelyprotected from the current, that the candle burned there quitesteadily for an hour and a half: still, like the others, the column atthat end of the glacière was broken down, and it therefore becamenecessary to attribute its fall to some other agency than the currentof external air. There had been a very large amount of rain, and thesurface of the rock in the fissures was evidently wet; so I have nodoubt that the filtering through of the warm rain-water had thawed theupper supports of the ice-cascades, and then, owing to their slightlyinclined position, the pedestal had not provided sufficient support, and so they had fallen. One of them, perhaps, had brought down in itsfall the free column, which had stood two days before on its own base, without any support from the rock. Very probably, too--indeed, almostcertainly, --the fall of the large mass of rock, which once formed thebottom of the basin on the north side of the road, has affected theold-established fissures, by which rain-water has been accustomed topenetrate in small quantities to the glacière, so that now a muchlarger amount is admitted. On this account, there will probably be agreat diminution of the ice in the course of future summers, thoughthe amount formed each winter may be greater than it has hithertobeen. Constant examination of other columns and fissures has convincedme, that, before the end of autumn, the majority of the glacières willhave lost all the columns which depend upon the roof for a part oftheir support, or spring from fissures in the wall; whereas thosewhich are true stalagmites, and are self-supporting, will have a muchbetter chance of remaining through the warm season, and lasting tillthe winter, and so increasing in size from year to year. Freestalagmites, however, which are formed under fissures capable ofpouring down a large amount of water on the occasion of a great floodof rain, must succumb in time, though not so soon as the supportedcolumns. 

A curious appearance was presented by a small free stalagmite in theretired part of the cave. The surface of the stalagmite was wet, fromthe drops proceeding from a fissure above, and was lightly covered inmany parts with a calcareous deposit, brought down from the fissures inthe roof by the water filtering through. The stalagmite was of thedouble-edged-sword shape, and the limestone deposit collected chiefly atone of its edges, the edge nearer to that part of the cave where thawprevailed; so that the real edge was a ridge of deposit beyond the edgeof the ice. [8] Patches of limestone paste lay on many parts of theice-floor. 

In the loftier part of the cave, water dropped from the roof to solarge an extent, that ninety-six drops of water in a minute splashedon to a small stone immediately under the main fissure. This stone wasin the centre of a considerable area of the floor which was clear ofice; and it struck me that if the columns were formed by the freezingof water dropping from the roof, there ought to have been at some timea large column under this, the most plentiful source of water in thecave. Accordingly, I found that the edge of the ice round this cleararea was much thicker than the rest of the ice of the floor, and wasevidently the remains of the swelling pedestal of a column which hadbeen about 12 feet in circumference. This departed column may accountfor a fact which I discovered in another glacière, and found to be ofvery common occurrence, viz. , that in large stalagmites there is aconsiderable internal cavity, extending some feet up from the ground, and affording room even for a man to walk about inside the column. When the melted snows of spring send down to the cave, through thefissures of the rock, an abundance of water at a very lowtemperature, and the cave itself is stored with the winter's cold, these thicker rings of ice catch first the descending water, and so acircular wall, naturally conical, is formed round the area of stones;the remaining water either running off through the interstices, orforming a floor of ice of less thickness, which yields to the nextsummer's drops. In the course of time, this conical wall rises, narrowing always, till a dome-like roof is at length formed, andthenceforth the column is solid. Of course, the interior cannot bewholly free from ice; and it will be seen from the account of one ofthese cavities, which I explored in the Schafloch, that they aredecked with ice precisely as might be expected. [9] Another possibleexplanation of this curious and beautiful phenomenon will be givenhereafter. [10]

The temperature was half a degree lower than when there were three of usin the cave two days before. I deposited one of Casella's registeringthermometers, on wood, on a stone in that part of the floor which wasfree from ice, though there was ice all round it at some littledistance. The thermometer was well above the surface of the ice, andwas protected from chance drops of water from the roof. 

The next morning I started early from Arzier, having an afternoonjourney in prospect to the neighbourhood of another glacière, and wasaccompanied by Captain Douglas Smith, of the 4th Regiment. On our way toLa Genollière, we came across the man who had served as guide the daybefore, and a short conversation respecting the glacière ensued. He hadonly seen it once, many years before, and he held stoutly to the usualbelief of the peasantry, that the ice is formed in summer, and melts inwinter; a belief which everything I had then seen contradicted. His lastwords as we parted were, '_Plus il fait chaud, plus ça gèle_;' and, paradoxical as it may appear, I believe that some truth was concealed inwhat he said, though not as he meant it. Considering that his ideas wereconfined to his cattle and their requirements, and that water is oftenvery difficult to find in that part of the Jura, a _hot_ summer wouldprobably mean with him a _dry_ summer, that is, a summer which does notsend down much water to thaw the columns in the cave. Extra heat in theair outside, at any season, does not, as experience of these cavesproves abundantly, produce very considerable disturbance of their lowtemperature, and so summer water is a much worse enemy than extra summerheat; and if the caves could be protected from water in the hot season, the columns in them would know how to resist the possible--but verysmall--increase of temperature due to the excess of heat of one summerabove another. And since the eye is most struck by the appearance of thestalagmites and ice-cascades, it may well be that the peasants have seenthese standing at the end of an unusually hot and dry summer, and havethence concluded that hot summers are the best time for the formation ofice. Of course, at the beginning of the winter after a hot summer, therewill be on these terms a larger nucleus of ice; and so it will becometrue that the hotter the year, the more ice there will be, both duringthe summer itself and after the following winter. 

The further process of the formation of ice will be this:--the colds ofearly winter will freeze all the water that may be in the glacières fromthe summer's thaw, in such caves as do not possess a drainage, and thenthe frost will have nothing to occupy itself upon but the ice alreadyformed, for no water can descend from the frost-bound surface of theearth. [11] As soon as the snow begins to melt to so great a degree thatthe fissures are opened up once more, the extremely cold water resultingtherefrom will descend through the limestone into a cave perfectly dry, and filled with an atmosphere many degrees below the freezing point, whose frost-power eagerly lays hold of every drop of water which doesnot make its escape in time by the drainage of the cave. Thus the springmonths will be the great time of the formation of ice, and also of theraising of the temperature from some degrees below freezing to the moretemperate register at which I have generally found it, viz. , ratherabove than below 32°. Professor Tyndall very properly likens theexternal atmosphere to a ratchet-wheel, from its property of allowingthe passage of hot rays down to the surface of the earth, and resistingtheir return: it may equally be so described on other grounds, inasmuchas the cold and heavy atmosphere will sink in the winter into the pitswhich lead to glacières, and will refuse to be altogether displaced insummer by anything short of solar radiation. 

We found the one column of the previous day still standing, thoughevidently in an unhappy state of decay. The sharpness of its edges waswholly gone, and it was withered and contorted; there were two crackscompletely through it, dividing it into three pieces 4 or 5 feet long, which were clearly on the point of coming down. Externally, the day wasfine and warm, and so we found the cave comparatively dry, only one dropfalling in a minute on to the stone where ninety-six had fallen in thesame time the day before. The thermometer registered 32° as the greatestcold of the night, and still stood at that point when we took it up. 

We spent some little time in exploring the neighbourhood of the pits, inorder to find, if possible, the outlet for the drainage, but the grounddid not fall away sufficiently for any source from so low an origin toshow itself. The search was suggested by what I remembered of theGlacière of S. Georges three years before, where the people believe thata small streamlet which issues from the bottom of a steep rock, somedistance off, owes its existence to the glacière. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: In this neighbourhood, the _montagne_ of any _commune_ isrepresented by the feminine form of the name of the village: thus, _L'Arzière_ is the _montagne_ of Arzier, and _La Bassine_ of Bassin. This has a curious effect in the case of some villages--such, forinstance, as S. Georges--one of the landmarks of the district betweenthe lakes of Joux and Geneva being the _Châlet de la S. Georges_, agrammatical anomaly which puzzles a stranger descending the southernmostslope of the Jura from the Asile de Marchairuz. This law of formation isnot universal; for the _montagnes_ of Rolle and S. Livres are called the_Prè de Rolle_ and the _Prè de S. Livres_, while the _Fruitière de Nyon_is the rich upland possession of the town of that name. ]

[Footnote 2: Probably a relic of the time when the earlier Barons ofCoppet possessed this district. The families of Grandson, Lesdiguières, and Dohna successively held the barony; and in later times the title _deCoppet_ hid a name more widely known, for on the Châlet of _LesBiolles_, some distance to the east of La Baronne, the name of _Augustede Staël de Holstein de Coppet_ is carved, after the fashion of Swisschâlets. This was Madame de Staël's son, who built Biolles in 1817; itwas afterwards sold to the commune of Nyon, and finally purchased byArzier two or three years ago. ]

[Footnote 3: 'Cornhill Magazine, ' June 1863, 'How we slept at the Châletdes Chèvres. ']

[Footnote 4: This is only a guess, made from a comparison with theascertained heights of neighbouring points. ]

[Footnote 5: The patois of Vaud has a prettier name for this kind ofstone--_le sex_ (or _scex) qui plliau_, the weeping-stone. ]

[Footnote 6: I brought one of these to England, and am told that it isthe _Stenophylax hieroglyphicus_ of Stephens, or something very likethat fly. ]

[Footnote 7: Since writing this, I have been told that some Englishofficers who visited the cave in the August of 1864 found no ice in anypart. ]

[Footnote 8: See also p. 231. ]

[Footnote 9: P. 145. ]

[Footnote 10: P. 301. ]

[Footnote 11: It is possible that the freezing of the surface may play acurious part in the phenomena of the spring season in such caves. Supposing the surface to be completely frost-bound, all atmosphericpressure will be removed from the upper surface of the water in the longfissures, and thus water may be held in suspension, in the centre oflarge masses of fissured rock, during the winter months. The firstthorough thaw will have the same effect as the removal of the thumb fromthe upper orifice in the case of the hand-shower-bath; and the waterthus rained down into the cave will have a temperature sufficiently highto destroy some portion of the cold stored up by the descent of theheavy atmosphere of winter, or at least to melt out the ice which mayhave blocked up the lower ends of the fissures. ]

 * * * * *

CHAPTER II. 

THE GLACIÈRE OF S. GEORGES, IN THE JURA. 

The best way of reaching this glacière from Geneva would be to take thesteamer to Rolle, or the train to one of the neighbouring stations, between Geneva and Lausanne, and thence pass up the slope of the Jura bythe road which leads through Gimel. For the train, the Allaman stationwould be the most convenient, as an omnibus runs from Allaman toAubonne, where the poste for Gimel may be caught. But from Arzier thereis a short cut of less than two hours along the side of the hills, leaving that village by a deep gorge not unfitly named _L'Enfer_, and adark wood which retains an odour of more savage bygone times in its nameof the 'Bear's Wood, ' as containing a cavern where an old bear wasdetected in the act of attempting to winter. [12]

The village of S. Georges has very respectable accommodation for asingle traveller, _au Cavalier_. The common day-room will be founduntenable by most Englishmen, however largely they may delight inrough quarters; but there is a double-bedded room at the end of abricked passage up-stairs, which serves well for bedroom andsitting-room in one. The chief drawback in this arrangement is, thatthe landlady inexorably removes all washing apparatus during the day, holding that a pitcher and basin are unseemly ornaments for asitting-room. The deal table, of course, serves both for dressing andfor feeding purposes, but it is fortunately so long that an end can bedevoted to each; and on the whole it is possible to becomeconsiderably attached to the room, with its three airy windows, andthe cool unceasing hum of a babbling fountain in the village-streetbelow. The Auberge is a large building, with a clock-tower ofconsiderable height, containing the clock of the commune: as soon asthe candle is put out at night, it becomes painfully evident that arectangular projection in one corner of the room is in connection withthis tower, and in fact forms a part of the abode of the pendulum, which plods on with audible vigour, growing more and more audible asthe hours pass on, and making a stealthy pervading noise, as if acouple of lazy ghosts were threshing phantom wheat. The clocks ofVaud, too, are in the habit of striking the hour twice, with a shortinterval; so that if anyone is not sure what the clock meant the firsttime, he has a second chance of counting the strokes. This is no doubtan admirable plan under ordinary circumstances, but it does certainlytry the patience of a sleepless dyspeptic after a surfeit ofcafé-au-lait and honey; and when he has counted carefully the firsttime, and is bristling with the consciousness that it is onlymidnight, it is aggravating in the extreme to have the long slow storytold a second time within a few feet of his head. 

The Cavalier had retained a guide overnight, Henri Renaud by name, andhe appeared punctually at eight o'clock in the morning, got up in theshort-tail coat of the country, and a large green umbrella with mightyribs of whalebone. The weather was extremely unpleasant, a cold pitilessrain rendering all attempts at protection unavailing; but, fortunately, the glacière is only an hour and a quarter from the village. The path istolerably steep, leading across the _petit Pré de Rolle_, and throughwoods of beech and fir, till the summit of one of the minor ridges ofthe Jura is reached, whence a short descent leads to the mouth of theglacière, something more than 4, 000 feet above the sea. The ground hereslopes down towards the north; and on the slope, among fir-trees, anirregular circular basin is seen, some seven or eight yards across, [13]and perhaps two yards deep, at the bottom of which are two holes. One ofthese holes is open, and as the guide and I--for my sisters remained atArzier--stood on the neck of ground between the holes, we could see thesnow lying at the bottom of the cave; the other is covered with trunksof trees, laid over the mouth to prevent the rays of the sun fromstriking down on to the ice. This protection has become necessary inconsequence of an incautious felling of wood in the immediateneighbourhood of the mouth, which has exposed the ice to the assaults ofthe weather. The commune has let the glacière for a term of nine years, receiving six or seven hundred francs in all; and the _fermier_ extractsthe ice, and sells it in Geneva and Lausanne. In hot summers, thesupplies of the artificial ice-houses fail; and then the hotel-keepershave recourse to the stores laid up for them by nature in the Glacièresof S. Georges and S. Livres. Hence the importance of protecting theice; the necessity for so doing arising in this case from the fact thatthe entrance to the cave is by a hole in the roof, which exposes the iceto direct radiation, unlike all other glacières, excepting perhaps the_Cueva del Hielo_ on the Peak of Teneriffe. [14]

Autumn appears to be the usual time for cutting the ice, when it iscarried from the cave on men's backs as far as the commencement of therough mountain-road, and is there packed on chars, and so conveyed tothe nearest railway station. Renaud had worked in the cave for twoyears, and asserted that they did not choose the night for carryingthe ice down to the station, and did not even care to choose a coolday. He believed that, in the autumn of 1863, they loaded two chars aday for fifteen days, and each char took from 40 to 50 quintaux; thequintal containing 50 kilos, or 100 livres. [15] In Professor Pictet'stime (1822) this glacière supplied the Hospital of Geneva, whoseincome depended in part on its privilege of _revente_ of all ice soldin the town, with 25 quintaux every other day during the summer. In myanxiety to learn the exact amount of ice now supplied by the glacière, I determined to find out the _fermier_; but Renaud could tell nothingof him beyond the fact that he lived in Geneva, which some promiscuousperson supplemented by the information that his name was Boucqueville, and that he had something to do with comestibles. On entering upon ahunt for M. Boucqueville a fortnight later, it turned out that no onehad heard of such a person, and the Directory professed equalignorance; but, under the head of 'Comestibles, ' there appeared aGignoux-Bocquet, No. 34, Marché. Thirty-four, Marché, said, yes--M. Bocquet--it was quite true: nevertheless, it was clear that monsieurmeant Sebastian aîné, on the Molard. The Molard knew only a youngerSebastian, but suggested that the right man was probably M. Gignoux-Chavaz, over the way; and when it was objected thatGignoux-Bocquet, and not Gignoux-Chavaz, was the name, the Molardreplied that it made no matter, --Chavaz or Bocquet, it was all thesame. When M. Gignoux-Chavaz was found, he said that he certainly wasa man who had something to do with a glacière, but, instead of farmingthe Glacière of S. Georges, he had only bought a considerable quantityof ice two years ago from the Glacière of S. Livres, and he did notbelieve that the _fermier_ of S. Georges lived in Geneva. Part of theconfusion was due to the custom of placing a wife's maiden name afterher husband's name: thus Gignoux-Chavaz implies that a male Gignouxhas married a female Chavaz; and when a Swiss marries an English ladywith a very English name, the result in the Continental mouth issufficiently curious. 

On arriving at the entrance to the glacière, the end of a suggestiveladder is seen under the protecting trunks; and after one or two stepshave been taken down the ladder, the effect of the cave below isextremely remarkable, the main features being a long wall coveredthickly with white ice in sheets, a solid floor of darker-coloured ice, and a high pyramid of snow reaching up towards the uncovered holealready spoken of. The atmosphere of the cave is damp, and this causesthe ladders to fall speedily to decay, so that they are by no means tobe trusted: indeed, an early round gave way under one of my sisters, when they visited the cave with me in 1861, and suggested a clear fallof 60 feet on to a cascade of ice. [16] There are three ladders, onebelow the other, and a hasty measurement gave their lengths as 20, 16, and 28 feet. The rock-roof is only a few feet thick in the neighbourhoodof the hole of entrance. 

[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO THE GLACIÈRE OF S. GEORGES. ]

The total length of the cave is 110 feet, lying NE. And SW. , in the lineof the main chain of the Jura. The lowest part of the floor is a sea ofice of unknown depth, 45 feet long by 15 broad; and Renaud tried mypowers of belief by asserting that in 1834 the level of this floor washigher by half the height of the cave than now; a statement, however, which is fully borne out by Professor Pictet's measurements in 1822, when the depth of the glacière was less than 30 feet. Indeed, the floorhad sunk considerably since my previous visit, when it was all at thesame level down to the further end of the cave; whereas now, as will beseen in the section, there was a platform of stones resting on ice atthat end. There are two large fissures passing into the rock, one onlyof which can be represented in the section, and these were full of whiteice, not owing its whiteness apparently to the admixture of air inbubbles, but firm and compact, and very hard, almost like porcelain. Small stalactites hung from round fissures in the roof, formed of thesame sort of ice, and broken off short, much as the end of a leaden pipeis sometimes seen to project from a wall. With this exception, there wasno ice hanging from the roof, though there were abundant signs of veryfine columns which had already yielded to the advancing warmth: one ofthese still remained, in the form of broken blocks of ice, in theneighbourhood of the open hole in the roof, immediately below which holethe stones of the floor were completely bare, and the thermometer stoodat 50°. At the far end of the cave, the thermometer gave something lessthan 32°; a difference so remarkable, at the same horizontal level, thatI am inclined to doubt the accuracy of the figures, though they wereregistered on the spot with due care. The uncovered hole, it must beremembered, is so large, and so completely open, that the rain fallsfreely on to the stones on the floor below. 

By far the most striking part of this glacière is the north-westwall, which is covered with a sheet of ice 70 feet long, and 22 feethigh at the highest part: in the neighbourhood of the ladders, thisturns the corner of the cave, and passes up for about 9 feet under thesecond ladder. The general thickness of the sheet is from a foot to afoot and a half; and this is the chief source from which the _fermier_draws the ice, as it is much more easily quarried than the solidfloor. Some of my friends went to the cave a few weeks after my visit, and found that the whole sheet had been pared off and carried away. Onsome parts of the wall the sheet was not completely continuous, beingformed of broad and distinct cascades, connected by cross channels ofice, and uniting at their upper and lower ends, thus presenting manycurious and ornamental groupings. On cutting through this ice, it wasfound not to lie closely on the rock, a small intermediate space beinggenerally left, almost filled with minute limestone particles in avery wet state; and the whole cavern showed signs of more or lessthaw. 

[Illustration: THE GLACIÈRE OF S. GEORGES. VERTICAL SECTIONS OF THEGLACIÈRE OF S. GEORGES. ]

It was natural to examine the structure of the ice in this glacière, after what we had observed on La Genollière. The same prismaticstructure was universal in the sheet on the wall, and in the blockswhich lay here and there on the floor and formed the sole remains offormer columns. It was to be observed also in many parts of theice-floor itself. The base of one large column still remained standingin its original position, and its upper end presented a tolerablyaccurate horizontal section of the column. The centre was composed ofturbid ice, round which limpid prisms were horizontally arranged, diverging like the feathers of a fan; then came a ring of turbid ice, and then a second concentric ring of limpid prisms, diverging in thesame manner as those which formed the inner ring. There were in allthree or four of these concentric rings, the details showing aconsiderable amount of confusion and interference: the general law, however, was most evident, and has held in all the similar columns whichI have since examined in other glacières. The rings were not accuratelycircular, but presented rather the appearance of having been formedround a roughly-fluted pillar on an elliptical base. 

The examination of the ice on the wall gave some curious results. Thehorizontal arrangement of the prisms, which we had found to prevail invertical columns, was here modified to suit the altered conditions ofthe case, and the axes of the prisms changed their inclination so as tobe always perpendicular to the surface on which the ice lay, as far ascould be determined by the eye. Thus, in following the many changes ofinclination of the wall, the axes of the prisms stood at many differentangles with the vertical, from a horizontal position where the wallchanced to be vertical, to a vertical position on the horizontal ledgesof the rock. The extreme edges, too, of the ice, presented a verypeculiar appearance. The general thickness, as has been said, variedfrom a foot to a foot and a half; and this diminished gradually alonghorizontal lines, till, at the edges of the sheet, where the ice ceased, it became of course nothing. The extreme edge was formed of globular orhemispherical beads of ice, like the freezing of a sweating-stone, lyingso loosely on the rock that I could sweep them off in detail with onehand, and catch them with the other as they fell. Passing farther ontowards the thicker parts of the ice, these beads stood up higher andhigher, losing their roundness, and becoming compressed into prisms ofall shapes, in very irregular imitation of the cellular tissue inplants, the axes of the prisms following the generally-observed law. There seems to be nothing in this phenomenon which cannot be accountedfor by the supposition of gradual thaw of small amount being applied toa sheet of prismatic ice. 

One fact was remarkable from its universal appearance. Wherever anincision was made in this sheet of ice, the prisms snapped off at thedepth of an inch, and could be mowed down like corn by means of a stoutknife. Although they broke naturally at this constant depth, and left asurface of limpid ice without any signs of external or internaldivision, still the laminae obtained by chiselling this lower surfacecarefully, broke up regularly into the shapes to be expected in sectionsof prisms cut at right angles to the axis. The roughness of myinstruments made it impossible to discover how far this extended, andwhether it ceased to be the case at any given depth in the ice. 

The sea of ice on the floor was in a very wet state at the surface, being at a lower level than the stones on to which the rain from theopen hole fell; and here the prismatic structure was not apparent to theeye, nor do I know whether it existed at all. In the Glacière of LaGenollière I carried a large block of perfectly prismatic ice into theouter cave, where it was exposed to the free currents of air passingfrom the pit of entrance to the hole newly opened by the falling in ofthe ground; and, two days after, the external lines were scarcelyperceptible, while on the occasion of our third visit I found that theyhad entirely disappeared, and the whole block was rapidly followingtheir example. This disappearance of the surface-lines under the actionof atmospheric thaw is probably the same thing as their absence when theflooring of ice is thinly covered with water. Wherever the flooring roseslightly towards the edges of the sea of ice, the usual structureappeared again. 

There were no currents of air in the cave, the candles burning steadilythrough the whole time of our visit. Excepting for the purpose ofdetecting disturbance in the air, there is no need of candles, as thetwo holes in the roof supply sufficient light. Some account of thecareful observations made here by M. Thury, at different seasons of theyear, will be found in other parts of this book. We passed, on ourreturn, by the source of water which springs from the foot of a rock atsome distance from the glacière, and is supposed to form the outlet forthe drainage of the cave; but it is difficult to understand how this canbe the case, considering the form and character of the interveningground. 

The two ice-caves so far described are the least interesting of all thatI have visited; but a peasant informed me, a day or two after, that ifwe had penetrated to the back of the pyramid of snow which lay halfunder the open hole, being the remains of the large collection which isformed there in the winter, we might have found a deep pit which issometimes exposed by the melting of the snow. He had some idea that itsdepth was 30 feet a few years ago, and that its sides were solid ice. Ishall have occasion to mention such pits in another glacière; if onedoes exist here, it has probably been quarried in the ice by the dropsfrom the hole in the roof, and there might be some interest attached toan attempt to investigate it. [17]

We reached S. Georges again in a wretched state of wet and cold, andRenaud went off to bed, and imbibed abundant and super-abundantkirsch, --at least, when drawn thence the next morning, his manner leftno doubt about either the fact or the abundance of the potationsovernight. Warned by many experiences, I had gone no nearer to aspecification of the bill of fare than a vague suggestion that_quelque chose_ must be forthcoming, with an additional stipulationthat this must be something more than mere onions and fat. Thelandlady's rendering of _quelque chose_ was very agreeable, but, forthe benefit of future diners _au Cavalier_, it is as well to say thatthose who do not like anisette had better make a private arrangementwith their hostess, otherwise they will swallow with their soup anamount sufficient for many generations of the drag: they may alsosafely order savoury rice, with browned veal and wine-sauce, which isevidently a strong point with the Cavalier. All meals there arepicturesque; for the omelette lay on the Castle of Grandson and a partof the Lake of Neufchâtel, while the butter reposed on the ruinedCathedral of Sion, and the honey distilled pleasantly from the comb onto the walls of Wufflens. No one should put any trust in the spoons, which are constructed apparently of pewter shavings in a chronic stateof semi-fusion. On the evening of the second day, the landlady alloweda second knife at tea, as the knife-of-all-work had begun to knock upunder the heavy strain upon its powers; but this supplementaryinstrument was of the ornamental kind, and, like other ornamentalthings, broke down at a crisis, which took the form of a piece ofcrust. 

Lest this account should raise anyone's expectations too high, it is aswell to add that they have no snuffers in S. Georges, beyond such asNature provided when she gave men fingers; and they burn attenuatedtallow candles with full-bodied wicks. Also, the tea is flavoured withvanille, unless that precious flavouring is omitted by private contract. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 12: On our previous visit, in 1861, we passed from Arzierthrough Longirod and Marchissy, stopping to measure and admire the hugelime-tree in the churchyard of the latter village. Our Swiss companionon that occasion was anxious that we should carry home some ice from thecave; and as the communal law forbade the removal of the ice bystrangers, he hunted up a cousin in Marchissy, and sent him with a_hotte_ across country, while we went innocently by the ordinary routethrough S. Georges. The cousin, however, contrived to lose himself inthe woods, and we never heard of him again. ]

[Footnote 13: The size of this basin is exaggerated in the engraving onpage 24, owing to the roughness of the original sketch. ]

[Footnote 14: See p. 253. ]

[Footnote 15: For further details on this point see pages 54 and 83. ]

[Footnote 16: These ladders have at best but little stability, as theyconsist of two uprights, careless about the coincidence of the holes, with bars poked loosely through and left to fall out or stay in as theychoose, the former being the prevailing choice. One of the laddershappened to be firmer than the generality of its kind; but, unfortunately, its legs were of unequal lengths, and so it turned roundwith one of my sisters, leaving her clinging like a cat to the underside. When the bars are sufficiently loose, a difference of a few inchesin the lengths of the legs is not of so much importance. ]

[Footnote 17: M. Thury found this hole, and fathomed it to a depth of6-1/2 mètres. ]

 * * * * *

CHAPTER III. 

THE LOWER GLACIÈRE OF THE PRÉ DE S. LIVRES. 

I had intended to walk on from S. Georges to Bière, after returning fromthe glacière last described, and thence, the next morning, to the Pré deS. Livres, the mountain pasturage of the commune of S. Livres, [18] avillage near Aubonne. But Renaud advised a change of plan, and theresult showed that his advice was good. He said that the _fermier_ ofthe Glacière of S. Livres generally lived in S. Georges, and, if he wereat home, would be the best guide to the glacière; while the distancefrom S. Georges was, if anything, rather less than the distance fromBière; so that by remaining at the Cavalier for another night the walkto Bière would be saved, and the possibility of finding no competentguide there would be evaded. Jules Mignot, the farmer in question, wasat home, and promised to go to the glacière in the morning, pledging hisword and all that he was worth for the existence and soundness of theladders; a matter of considerable importance, for M. Thury had beenunable to reach the ice, as also my sisters, by reason of a failure inthis respect. 

In the course of the evening Mignot came in, and confidentially took theother chair. He wished to state that he had three _associés_ in workingthe glacière, and that one of them knew of a similar cave, half an hourfrom the one more generally known; the _associé_ had found it two yearsbefore, and had not seen it since, and he believed that no one else knewwhere it was to be found. If I cared to visit it, the _associé_ wouldaccompany us, but there was some particular reason--here he relapsedinto patois--why this other man could not by himself serve as guide toboth glacières. As this meant that I must have two guides, and suggestedthat perhaps the right rendering of _associé_ was 'accomplice, ' thenegotiation nearly came to a violent end; but the farmer was soextremely explanatory and convincing, that I gave him another chance, asking him how much the two meant to have, and telling him that, although I could not see the necessity for two guides, I only wished todo what was right. He expressed his conviction of the truth of thisstatement with such fervour, that I could only hope his moderation mightbe as great as his faith. He took the usual five minutes to make up hismind what to say, going through abstruse calculations with a browdemonstratively bent, and, to all appearance, reckoning up exactly whatwas the least it could be done for, consistently with his duty tohimself and his family. Then he asked, with an air of resignation, as ifhe were throwing himself and his _associé_ away, 'Fifteen francs, then, would monsieur consider too much?' 'Certainly, far too much; twelvefrancs would be enormous. But, for the pleasure of his company and thatof his friend, I should be happy to give that sum for the two, and theymust feed themselves. ' He jumped at the offer, with an alacrity whichshowed that I had much under-estimated his margin in putting it at threefrancs; and with many expressions of anticipatory gratitude, andpromises of axes and ropes in case of emergency, he bowed himself out. The event proved that both the men were really valuable, and they gotsomething over the six francs a-piece. 

The rain had been steadily increasing in intensity for the lasttwenty-four hours, from the insidious steeping of a Scotch mist to theviolence of a chronic thunderstorm, and had about reached this crisiswhen we started in the morning for the Pré de S. Livres. I had alreadytested its effects before breakfast, in a search for the Renaud of theday before, who had made statements regarding the ice at S. Georges, andthe time of cutting it, which a night's reflection showed to be false. To search for Henri Renaud in the village of S. Georges, was somethinglike making an enquiry of a certain porter for the rooms of Mr. JohnJones. The landlady of the Cavalier was responsible for the first stageof the journey, asserting that he lived two doors beyond the nextauberge, evidently with a feeling that it was wrong so far to patronisethe rival house as to live near it. That, however, was not the sameHenri Renaud; and a house a few yards off was recommended as a likelyplace, where, instead of Henri, a Louis Renaud turned up, shiveringunder the eaves in company with the _fermier_, who introduced Louis indue form as the accomplice. They received conjointly and submissively alecture on the absurdity of calling it a rainy morning, and theimpossibility of staying at home, even if it came on much worse, andthen pointed the way to the true Henri Renaud, half-way down thevillage. When I arrived at the place indicated, and consulted apromiscuous Swiss as to the abode of the object of my search, heexclaimed, 'Henri Renaud? I am he. ' 'But, ' it was objected, 'it is the_marchand de bois_ who is wanted. ' 'Precisely, Henri Renaud, marchand debois; it is I. ' 'But, it is the cutter of ice in the glacière. ' 'Ah, adifferent Henri. That Henri is in bed in the house yonder, ' and so atlast he was found. When finally unearthed, Henri confessed that when hehad said _spring_ the day before, he ought to have said _autumn_, andthat by autumn he meant November and December. Enquiries elsewhereshowed that the end of summer was what he really meant, if he meant totell the truth. 

Our route for the glacière followed the high road which leads by theAsile de Marchairuz to La Vallée, as far as the well-known Châlet de laS. Georges; and then the character of the way changed rapidly for theworse, and we took to the wet woods. After a time, the wood ceased for awhile, and a large expanse of smooth rock showed itself, rising slightlyfrom the horizontal, and so slippery in its present wet condition thatwe could not pass up it. Then woods again, and then the montagnes of_Sous la Roche_, and _La Foireuse_, till at last, in two hours, the Préde S. Livres was achieved. The fog was so dense that nothing could beseen of the general lie of the country; but the _thalweg_ was asufficient guide, and after due perseverance we came upon the glacière, not many yards from that line, on the north slope of the open valley, about 4, 500 feet above the sea. 

To prevent cattle from falling into the pit, a wall has been built roundthe trees in which it lies. The circumference of this wall is 435 feet, but there are so many trees at the upper end of the enclosure that thisgives an exaggerated idea of the size of the pit. The men fed while thepreliminary measurements were being made; and when this wasaccomplished, they pressed their bottle of wine upon me so hospitablythat I was obliged to antedate the result which its appearance promised, and plead _mal d'estomac_. Of all things, it is most unwise to give areason for a negative, and so it proved in this instance; for theypromptly felicitated themselves and me on the good luck by which ithappened that they had brought a wine famous on all the côte as a remedyfor that somewhat vague complaint--a homoeopathic remedy in allopathicdoses. 

The glacière is entered by a natural pit in the gentle slope of grass, not much unlike the pit of La Genollière, but wider, and covered atthe bottom with snow. [19] The first ladder leads down to a ledge ofrock on which bushes and trees grow, and this ledge it is possible toreach without a ladder; the next ladder leads on to the deep snow, anddescent by any ordinary manner of climbing is in this case quiteimpossible. [20] The snow slopes down towards a lofty arch in the rockwhich forms the north-west side of the pit, and this arch is theentrance to the glacière; it is 28-3/4 feet wide, and as soon as wepassed under it we found that the snow became ice, and it wasnecessary to cut steps; for the surface of underground ice is soslippery, unlike the surface of ordinary glaciers, that the slightestdefect from the horizontal makes the use of the axe advisable. Thestream of ice falls gradually, spreading out laterally like a fan, soas to accommodate itself to the shape of the cave, which it fills upto the side walls; it increases in breadth from 28-3/4 feet at the topto 72 feet at the bottom of the slope, and the distance from the topof the first ladder to this point is 177 feet. Here we were arrestedby a strange wall of ice 22 feet high, down which there seemed atfirst no means of passing; but finding an old ladder frozen into apart of the wall, we chopped out holes between the upper steps, and sodescended, landing on a flooring composed of broken blocks and columnsof ice, with a certain amount of what seemed to be drifted snow. Thiswall of ice, which was 72 feet long and 22 feet high, was notvertical, but sloped the wrong way, caving in under the stream of ice;and from the projecting top of the wall a long fringe of vast icicleshung down, along the whole breadth of the fan. The effect of this was, that we could walk between the ice-wall and the icicles as in acloister, with solid ice on the one hand and Gothic arcades of ice onthe other, the floor being likewise of ice, and the roof formed by thejunction of the wall with the top of the icicle-arcade. The floor ofthis cloister was not 22 feet below the top of the wall, for it formedthe upper part of a gentle descending slope of ice, rounded off like afall of water, which seemed to flow from the lower part of the wall;and the height of 22 feet is reckoned from the foot of this slope, which terminated at a few feet of horizontal distance from the foot ofthe wall. The wall of ice was plainly marked with horizontal bands, corresponding, no doubt, to a number of years of successive deposits;sometimes a few leaves, but more generally a strip of minuter débris, signified the divisions between the annual layers. There had been manycolumns of ice from fissures in the rock, but all had fallen exceptone large ice-cascade, which flowed from a hole in the side of thecave on to the main stream, about two-thirds of the distance down fromthe snow. One particularly grand column had stood on the very edge ofthe ice-wall, and its remains now lay below. 

The flooring of mingled ice and snow, on which we stood, sloped throughabout five vertical feet from the foot of the wall, and came to an endon broken rocks, from which the terminal wall of the cave sprang up. Theeffect of the view from this point, as we looked up the long slope ofice to where the ladders and a small piece of sky were visible, was moststriking. The accompanying engraving is from a sketch which attempts torepresent it; the reality is much less prim, and much more full ofbeautiful detail, but still the engraving gives a fair idea of thegeneral appearance of the cave. 

While I was occupied in making sketches and measurements, Mignot wasengaged in chopping discontentedly at the floor, in two or threedifferent places. At length he seemed to find a place to his mind, andchopped perseveringly till his axe went through, and then he suggestedthat we should follow. The hole was not tempting. It opened into theblackest possible darkness, and Mignot thrust his legs through, feeling for a foothold, which, by lowering himself almost to hisarmpits, he soon discovered: the foothold, however, proved to be aloose stone, which gave way under him and bounded down, apparentlyover an incline of like stones, to a distance which sounded veryalarming. But he would not give in, and at length, descending stillfurther by means of the snow in which the hole was made, he wasrewarded by finding a solid block which bore his weight, and hespeedily disappeared altogether, summoning me to follow. I proposed tolight a candle first, not caring to go through such a hole, in such afloor, into no one knew what; but he was so very peremptory, evidentlythinking that if he had gone through without a pioneering candle hismonsieur might do the same, that there was nothing for it but to obey. The hole was very near the junction of the floor with the slope ofstones where the floor terminated, and the space between the hole andthe slope seemed to be filled up with a confused mass of snow and ice, in which the snow largely predominated; so that there was good holdfor hands and feet in passing down to the stones, which might be about7 feet below the upper surface of the floor. Here we crouched in thedarkness, with our faces turned away from the presumed slope ofstones, till a light was struck. The accomplice did not find it in thebond that he should go down, and he preferred to reserve his energiesfor his own peculiar glacière. 

[Illustration: LOWER GLACIÈRE OF THE PRÉ DE S. LIVRES. ]

As soon as the candle had mastered a portion of the darkness, we foundthat we were squatting on a steeply sloping descent of large blocks ofstone, while in face of us was a magnificent wall of ice, evidently thecontinuation of the wall above, marked most plainly with horizontallines. This wall passed down vertically to join the slope on which wewere, at a depth below our feet which the light of the candle had notyet fathomed. The horizontal bands were so clear, that, if we hadpossessed climbing apparatus, we could have counted the number of layerswith accuracy. Of course we scrambled down the stones, and found after atime that the angle formed by the ice-wall and the slope of stones waschoked up at the bottom by large pieces of rock, one piled on anotherjust as they had fallen from the higher parts. These blocks were solarge, that we were able to get down among the interstices, in a spiralmanner, for some little distance; and when we were finally stopped, still the ice-wall passed on below our feet, and there was no possiblechance of determining to what depth it went. The atmosphere at thispoint was a sort of frozen vapour, most unpleasant in all respects, andthe candles burned very dimly. The thermometer stood at 32°, half-waydown the slope of stones. 

We were able to stretch a string in a straight line from the lowestpoint we reached, through the interstices of the blocks of stone, andup to the entrance-hole, and this measurement gave 50 feet. Considering the inclination of the upper ice-floor, and the sharpnessof the angle between the wall of ice and the line of our descent tothis lowest point, I believe that 50 feet will fairly represent theheight of the ice-wall from this point to the foot of the slope fromthe upper wall; so that 72 feet will be the whole depth of ice, fromthe top of the third ladder to the point where our further progressdownwards was arrested. The correctness of this calculation dependsupon the honesty of Mignot, who had charge of the farther end of thestring, and was proud of the wonders of his cave. A dishonest manmight easily, under the circumstances, have pulled up a few feet moreof string than was necessary, but 50 feet seemed in no way animprobable result of the measurement. 

[Illustration: SECTION OF THE LOWER GLACIÈRE OF THE PRÉ DE S. LIVRES. ]

The ice was as solid and firm as can well be conceived. The horizontalbands would seem to prove conclusively that it was no coating of greateror less thickness on the face of a vertical wall of rock, an idea whichmight suggest itself to anyone who had not seen it, and I think itprobable that the amount of ice represented in the section of the caveis not an exaggeration. We were unable to measure the whole length ofthe wall in the lower cave, from the large number of blocks of stonewhich had fallen at one end, and lay against its face. Probably, fromthe nature of the case, it was not so long as the 72 feet of wall above;but we measured 50 feet, and could see it still passing on to the righthand as we faced it. In trying to penetrate farther along the face, Ifound a wing of the brown fly we had seen in considerable abundance onthe ice in La Genollière, frozen into the remains of a column. 

There was so very much to be observed on all sides, and the measurementstook up so much time, owing to the peculiar difficulties which attendedthem, that I did not examine with sufficient care the curious floor ofice through which we cut our way to the lower cavern. Neither did Inotice the roof of the cavern thus reached, which may be very differentfrom the shape of the upper surface of the floor composing it. If theice-wall goes straight up, and the roof is formed of the ice-flooralone, then it is a very remarkable feature indeed. But, more probably, the lower wall leans over more and more towards the top, and so forms asit were a part of the roof. It is possible that, as the wall has grown, each successive annual layer has projected farther and farther, till atlast some year very favourable to the increase of ice has carried theprojection for that year nearly to the opposite stones, and then anunfavourable year or two would form the foot of the upper wall. Thisseems more probable, from the loose constitution of the floor at thepoint where it joins the stones, as if it were there only made up ofdrift and débris, while the part of the floor nearer the foot of thewall is solid ice. It has been suggested to me that possibly wateraccumulates in the time of greatest thaw to a very large extent in thelower parts of the cave, and the ice-floor is formed where the frostfirst takes hold of this water. But the slope of the ice-floor isagainst this theory, to a certain extent; and the amount of waternecessary to fill the cavity would be so enormous, that it is contraryto all experience to imagine such a collection, especially as the caveshowed no signs of present thaw. The appearance of the rocks, too, inthe lower cave, and the surface of the ice-wall there, gave noindications of the action of water; and there was no trace of ice amongthe stones, as there certainly would have been if water had filled thecave, and gradually retired before the attacks of frost, or inconsequence of the opening up of drainage. There were pieces of thetrunks of trees, also, and large bones, lying about at different levelson the rocks. I never searched for bones in these caves, owing to theabsence of the stalagmitic covering which preserves cavern-bones fromdecay; nor did I take any notice of such as presented themselves withoutsearch, for the _bergers_ are in the habit of throwing the carcases ofdeceased cows into any deep hole in the neighbourhood of the place wherethe carcases may be found, in consequence of the general belief thatliving cows go mad if they find the grave of a companion; so that Ishould probably have made a laborious collection of the bones of the_bos domesticus_. This belief of the bergers respecting the cows issupported by several circumstantial and apparently trustworthy accountsof fearful fights among herds of cattle over the grave of some of theherd. The sight of a companion's blood is said to have a similar effectupon them. Thus a small pasturage between Anzeindaz and the Col deCheville, on the border of the cantons Vaud and Valais, is still called_Boulaire_ from legendary times, when the herdsmen of Vaud (then Berne)won back from certain Valaisan thieves the cattle the latter werecarrying off from La Varraz. Some of the cows were wounded in thebattle, and the sight of their blood drove the others mad, so that theyfought till almost all the herd was destroyed; whence the nameBoulaire, from _ébouëler_, to disembowel, --a word formed from _bouë_, the patois for _boyau_. 

When we left the lower darkness and ascended to the floor of ice oncemore, Mignot expressed a desire to see my attempt at a sketch of theglacière from that point, as he had been much struck during hisnegotiatory visit of the night before by the sketch of the entrance tothe Glacière of S. Georges, chiefly because he had guessed what it wasmeant for. He was evidently disappointed with the representation of hisown cave, for he could see nothing but a network of lines, withunintelligible words written here and there, and after some hesitationhe confessed that it was not the least like it. A little explanationsoon set that right, and then he began to plead vigorously for the wallwhich surrounded the trees at the mouth of the pit. Why was it not putin? He was told, because it could not be seen from below; butnevertheless he strongly urged its introduction, on the ground that hehad built it himself, and it was such a well-built wall; facts which farmore than balanced any little impossibility that might otherwise haveprevented its appearance. After we had reached the grass of the outerworld again, he made me sketch the entrance to the pit, pointing to thecontaining wall with parental pride, and standing over the sketch-bookand the sketcher with an umbrella which speedily turned inside outunder the combined pressure of wind, and rain, and years; a feat whichit had already performed _des fois_, he said, in the course of hisacquaintance with it. 

Before finally leaving the glacière, I examined the structure of thegreat stream of ice, at different points near the top of the limitingwall. From its outward appearance it might have been expected to berough, but it was not so; it was knotty to the eye, but perfectly smoothto the foot, and, when cut, showed itself perfectly clear and limpid. Itdid not separate under the axe into misshapen pieces, with faces ofevery possible variation from regularity, that is, with what is calledvitreous fracture, but rather separated into a number of nuts of limpidice, each being of a prismatic form, and of much regularity in shape andsize. It was smooth, dark-grey, and clear; free from air, and free fromsurface lines; very hard, and suggesting the idea of coarse internalgranulation. In the large ice-streams of some darker glacières, this iceassumed a rather lighter colour by candle-light, but always presentedthe same granular appearance, and cut up into the same prismatic nuts, and was evidently free from constitutional opacity. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 18: _Sancti Liberii locus_, the Swiss Dryasdust explains. There is nothing to connect any known S. Liberius with thisneighbourhood, unless it be the Armenian prince who secretly left hisfather's court for Jerusalem, and was sought for throughout Burgundy andother countries. It seems that Saint Oliver is merely a corruption of S. Liberius, the Italian form of the latter, Santo Liverio, having becomeSant-Oliverio, as S. Otho became in another country Sant Odo, and thenceSan Todo, thus creating a new Saint, S. Todus. --Act SS. May 27. ]

[Footnote 19: My sisters made a two-days' excursion from Arzier to thisglacière in the autumn of 1862, and found no snow in the bottom of thepit. They took the route by Gimel to Bière, intending to defer the visitto the glacière to the morning of the second day; but being warned bythe appearance known locally as _le sappeur qui fume_, a vaporous cloudat the mouth of a cavern near the Dent d'Oche, on the other side of theLake of Geneva, they caught the communal forester at once, and putthemselves under his guidance. The distance from Bière is two hours'good walking, and an hour and a half for the return. There was no ladderfor the final descent, and the neighbouring châlet could provide nothinglonger than 15 feet, the drop being 30 feet. Two Frenchmen had attemptedto make their way to the cave a week before; but the old 30-foot ladderof the previous year broke under the foremost of them, and he fell intothe pit, whence he was drawn up by means of a cord composed ofrack-ropes from the châlet, tied together. However useful a string ofcow-ties may be for rescuing a man from such a situation, A. And M. Didnot care to make use of that apparatus for a voluntary descent, so theywere perforce contented with a distant view of the ice from the loweredge of the pit. ]

[Footnote 20: See the section of this cave and pit on page 41. ]

 * * * * *

CHAPTER IV. 

THE UPPER GLACIÈRE OF THE PRÉ DE S. LIVRES. 

We now put ourselves under the guidance of the accomplice, Louis, whobegan to express doubts of his ability to find the upper glacière, administering consolation by reminding us that if he could not find itno one else could. 

As we walked on through the mist and rain, it became necessary tocircumvent a fierce-looking bull, and Mignot and the accomplice toldrival tales of the dangers to which pedestrians are exposed from theviolence of the cattle on some montagnes, where the bulls are allowedto grow to full size and fierceness. Mignot was quite motherly in hisadvice and his cautions, recommending as the surest safeguard apocket-pistol, loaded with powder only, to be flashed in the bull'sface as he makes his charge. When informed that in England an umbrellaor a parasol is found to answer this purpose, he shook his headnegatively, evidently having no confidence in his own umbrella, anddoubting its obeying his wishes at the critical moment; indeed, itwould require a considerable time, and much care and labour, to unfurla lumbering instrument of that description. He had the best of thetale-contest with Renaud in the end, for he had himself been grazed bya bull which came up with him at the moment when he sprang into atree. 

Before very long we reached a little kennel-like hut of boughs, which nodecent dog would have lived in, and no large dog could have entered, andfrom this we drew a charcoal-burner. No, he said, he did not know theglacière; he had heard that one had been discovered near there, and hehad spent hours in searching for it without success. A herdsman on hisway from one pasturage to another could give no better help, and webegan to despair, till at length Louis desired us to halt in a placesheltered from the rain, while he prosecuted the search alone. We hadabundant time for observing that, like other leafy places sheltered fromthe rain, our resting-place was commanded by huge and frequent drops ofwater; but at last a joyful _Jodel_ announced the success of theaccomplice, and we ran off to join him. 

At first sight there was very little to see. Louis had lately beenenunciating an opinion that the cave was not worth visiting, and I nowfelt inclined to agree with him. The general plan appeared to be muchthe same as in the one we had just left, but the scale wasconsiderably smaller. The pit was not nearly so deep or so large, and, owing to the falling-in of rock and earth at one side, the snow wasapproached by a winding path with a gradual fall. As soon as the snowwas reached, the slope became very steep, and led promptly to an archin the rock, where the stream of ice began. The cave being shallow, the stream soon came to an end, and, unlike that in the lowerglacière, it filled the cave down to the terminal wall, and did notfill it up to the left wall. Here the ground of the cave was visible, strewn with the remains of columns, and showing the thickness of thebottom of the stream to be about 6 feet only. The arch of entrance hadevidently been almost closed by a succession of large columns, butthese had succumbed to the rain and heat to which they had beenexposed by their position. 

The left side of the cave, in descending, that is the west side, wascomparatively light, being in the line from the arch; but the other sidewas quite dark, and after a time we found that the ice-stream, insteadof terminating as we had supposed with the wall of rock at the end ofthe cavern, turned off to the right, and was lost in the darkness. Ofcourse candles were brought out, though Louis assured us that he hadexplored this part of the cave on his previous visit, and had found thatthe right wall of the cave very soon stopped the stream: we, on thecontrary, by tying a candle to a long stick, and thrusting it down theslope of ice, found that the stream passed down extremely steeply, andpoured under a narrow and low arch in the wall of the cave, beyondwhich nothing could be seen. We despatched pieces of ice along theslope, and could hear them whizzing on after they had passed the arch, and landing apparently on stones far below; so I called for the cords, and told Louis that we must cut our way down. But, alas! the cords hadbeen left at the other glacière! One long bag, with a hole in the middlelike an old-fashioned purse, had carried the luncheon at one end and theropes at the other; and when the luncheon was finished, the bag had beenstowed away under safe trees till our return. This was of courseimmensely annoying, and I rang the changes on the few words of abusewhich invention or knowledge supplied, as we sat damp and shivering onthe verge of the slope, idly sending down pieces of broken columns whichbrought forth tantalising sounds from the subterranean regions. Atlength Renaud was moved to shame, and declared that he would cut his waydown, rope or no rope; but this seemed so horribly hazardous aproceeding under all the circumstances, that I forbad his attempting it. Seeing, however, that he was determined to do something, we arrangedourselves into an apparatus something like a sliding telescope. Louiscut a first step down the slope, and there took his stand till such timeas Mignot got a firm grasp of the tail of his blouse with both hands, Imeanwhile holding Mignot's tail with one hand, and the long stick withthe candle attached to it with the other; thus professedly supportingthe whole apparatus, and giving the necessary light for the work. Evenso, we tried again to persuade Renaud to give it up, but he was warmedto his work, and really the arrangement answered remarkably well: whenhe wished to descend to a new step, Mignot let out a little blouse, and, being himself similarly relieved, descended likewise a step, and thenthe remaining link of the chain followed. The leader slipped once, butfortunately grasped a projecting piece of rock, for the stream was hereconfined within narrow walls, and so the strength of the apparatus wasnot tested; it could scarcely have stood any serious call upon itspowers. 

After a considerable period of very slow progress, Renaud asked for thecandlestick, never more literally a stick than now, and thrust it underthe arch, stooping down so as to see what the farther darkness mightcontain. We above could see nothing, but, after an anxious pause, hecried _On peut aller!_ with a lively satisfaction so completely sharedby Mignot, that that worthy person was on the point of letting Renaud'sblouse go, in order to indulge in gestures of delight. The step-cuttingwent on merrily after this announcement, and one by one we came to thearch and passed through, finding it rather a trough than an arch; thebreadth was about 4 feet, and the height from 1-1/4 to 1-1/2 feet, and, as we pushed through, our breasts were pressed on to the ice, while ourbacks scraped against the rock which formed the roof. 

[Illustration: SECOND CAVE OF THE UPPER GLACIÈRE OF THE PRÉ DE S. LIVRES. ]

As soon as this trough was passed, the ice spread out like a fan, andfinally landed us in a subterranean cavern, 72 feet long by 36 feet broad, to which this was the only entrance. The breadth of the fan at thebottom was 27 feet; and near the archway a very striking column pouredfrom a vertical fissure in the wall, and joined the main stream. Thefissure was partially open to the cave, and showed the solid roundcolumn within the rock: this column measured 18-1/2 feet incircumference, a little below the point where it became free of thefissure, and it had a stream of ice 22 feet long pouring from its base. The colour of the column was unusual, being a dull yellowish green, andthe peculiar structure of the ice gave the whole mass the appearance ofcoursing down very rapidly, as if the water had been frozen while thusmoving, and had not therefore ceased so to move. At the bottom of thefan, the flooring of the cave consisted of broken stones for a smallspace, and then came a black lake of ice, which occupied all the centreof the cave, and afforded us no opportunity of even guessing at itsdepth. From the manner, however, in which it blended with the stones atits edge, I am not inclined to believe that this depth was anything verygreat. 

Renaud, in his impetuosity, had ceased to cut steps towards the bottomof the slope, and had slipped down the last few feet, of course cuttingthe remaining steps before attempting to reascend. We found himstrutting about the floor of the cave, tossing his wet cap in the air, and crying _No one! No one! I the first!_, declining to take any part inmeasurements until the full of his delight and pride had been pouredout. He shouted so loud that I was obliged to stop him, lest by somechance the unwonted disturbance of the air should bring down an unstableblock from the roof of the arch, and seal us up for ever. There was nosign of incipient thaw in the cave, and the air was very dry, so much soas at once to call attention to the fact. At the farthest end, a loftydome opened up in the roof; and possibly at some time or other the rockmay here fall through, and afford another means of entrance. Beneaththis dome a very lovely cluster of columns had grouped itself, formed ofthe clear porcelain-like ice, and fretted and festooned with the utmostdelicacy, as if Andersen's Ice Maiden had been there in one of heramiable moods, and had built herself a palace. This dome in the roof wassimilar to many which I afterwards observed in other glacières, being avertical fissure with flutings from top to bottom--not a spherical dome, but of that more elegant shape which the female dress of modern timesassumes on a tall person. 

[Illustration: VERTICAL SECTIONS OF THE UPPER GLACIÈRE OF THE PRÉ DE S. LIVRES. [21]]

Between the base of the circular column and the wall, we found a rareinstance of clear jelly-like ice, without any lines external orinternal, such as is formed in the open air under very favourablecircumstances. The ordinary number of undergraduate May Terms hadafforded various opportunities for studying the comparative clearness ofdifferent pieces of ice, but certainly no one ever saw a lemon pippinthrough an inch and a half of that material so clearly as we now saw thewhite rock through 1-1/2 feet. Mignot, indeed, said 2 feet; but it washis way to make a large estimate of dimensions, and he constantlyinterrupted my record of measurements by the assertion that I had madethem _moins que plus_. We were all disappointed by the actual size ofthe ice-fall which it had cost us so much time and trouble to descend, the distance from the first step to the last being only 26 feet: asthis, however, was given by a string stretched from the one point to theother, and not following the concave surface of the ice, the realdistance was something more than this. 

It was now getting rather late, considering the journey one of us hadyet to perform, and we walked quickly away from the glacière, agreeingthat it was not improbable that in that part of the Jura there might bemany hidden caves containing more or less ice, with no entrance from theworld outside, except the fissures which afford a way for the water. Theentrance to this cave was so small, that the same physical effect mightwell be produced by one or two cracks in the rock, such as every one iswell acquainted with who has walked on the fissured limestone summitsof the lower mountains; and, indeed, Renaud positively affirmed that atthe time of his former visit there was not even this entrance to thelower cave, for the ice-stream reached then a higher point of the wall, and completely filled and hid the arch we had discovered. It is verydifficult to see how ice can exist in a cave which has no atmosphericcommunication with the colds of winter, as would apparently be the casewith this cave if the one entrance were closed; but where the cracks andsmall fissures in the rock do provide such communication, there is noreason why we should not imagine all manner of glacial beautiesdecorating unknown cavities, beyond the general physical law to whichall the glacières would seem to be exceptions. 

Mignot now became communicative as to the amount of ice supplied by hisglacière, the lower of the two we had seen; and his statistics were soutterly confused, that I gave him ten centimes and an address, andcharged him to write it all down from his account-book, and send it bypost. The letter was accordingly written on July 24, and after tryingmany unsuccessful addresses in various parts of Switzerland, it finallyreached England in the middle of September. It tells its own talesufficiently well, and is therefore given here with all the mistakes ofthe original. 

'Mon cher Monsieur Browne, --J'ai beaucoup tardé a vous écrire lesdétails promis, sans doute je ne voulait pas vous oublier; nous sommesaffligés dans nôtre maison ma femme et gravement malade ce qui me donnebeaucoup de tourment jour et nuit, enfin ce n'est pas ce qui doit fairenôtre entretient. 

En 1863. Nous avons exploité comme suit. (Dépenses. )

 Aoust 27 10 journées pour confectionner les Echelles et les poser. " 29 3 journées pour couper la glasse. " 31 11 journées pour sortir la glasse avec les hôtes. " 31 4 chars a deux chevaux pour ammener Menés la charge a deux: dès St. Georges a Septembre 1 Gland plusieurs autres journées pour accompagner les chars. 70 pots de vin bu en faisant ces chargements, pour trois cordes pour se tenir. Septembre 2 Trois journées pour couper. Le 3 12 journées pour sortir. 

'Cher Monsieur. --Je ne vous ait pas mis le prix de chaque articles; nitout-a fait tous les traveaux mais pour vous donner une idée, je veuxvous donner connaissance du coût général des dépences pour deuxchargements s'élève a 535 francs. Je vous donne aussi connaissance de laquantité de glasse rendue 235 quinteaux a 3 francs, qui produit 705francs reste net sur ces deux chargements 175 francs: par conséquent moncher Monsieur je n'ai pas besoin de vous donner des détails deschargements suivants c'est a peu près les mêmes frais, et la quantité deglasse aussi. 

'Nous en avons refait trois chargements:--

 Un le 15 Septembre. 2 le 13 Octobre. 3 le 14 Novembre. 

'Cela comprend toute l'exploitation de 1863. 

'Vous m'excuserez beaucoup de mon retard. 

'Je termine en vous présentant mes respectueuses salutations. Vousnoublierez pas ce que vous mavez promis'[22]St. Georges, le 24 Juillet, 1864. _Dimanche_. 

'JULES MIGNOT. '

Instead of three francs the quintal, Mignot had previously told me thathe got four francs, delivered at Gland, and five at Geneva. His ordinarystaff during the time of the exploitation was ten men to carry and load, and two to cut the ice in the cave. 

It was a matter of considerable importance to catch the Poste atGimel, and the two Swiss groaned loudly on the consequent pace, unnecessary, as far as they were concerned, for the Poste was nothingto them. As a general rule, the Swiss of this district cannot walk sofast as their Burgundian or French neighbours, unless it is very muchto their interest to do so, and then they can go fast enough. A legendis still preserved in the valleys of Joux and Les Rousses, to thefollowing effect. While the Franche Comté was still Spanish, in 1648, commissioners were appointed to fix the boundaries between Berne andBurgundy, on the other side of the range of hill we were nowdescending, and they decided that one of the boundary stones must beplaced at the distance of a common league from the Lake of LesRousses. Unfortunately, no one could say what a common league was, beyond the vague definition of 'an hour's walk;' so two men werestarted from the shore of the lake, the one a Burgundian and the othera Swiss, with directions to walk for an hour down the Orbe towardsChenit, the stone to be placed half-way between the points they shouldrespectively reach at the end of the hour. It was for the interest ofthe Franche Comté that the stone should be as near the lake aspossible, and accordingly the Swiss champion made such walking as hadnever been seen before, and gained for Berne a considerable amount ofterritory. There was no such tragic result in this case as that whichinduced the Carthaginians to pay divine honours to the brothers whosespeed, on a like occasion, had added an appreciable amount to thepossessions of the republic. 

At length we reached the point where the roads for Gimel and S. Georges separate, and there, under a glorious sapin, we said ouradieux, and wished our _au revoirs_, and settled those little matterswhich the best friends must settle, when one is of the nature of amonsieur, and the others are guides. They burdened their souls withmany politenesses, and so we parted. The inclemency of the weather wassuch, that the people in the lower country asked, as they passed, whether snow had fallen in the mountains, and the cold rain continuedunceasingly down to the large plain on which the Federal Camp ofBière[23] is placed. Here for a few moments the sun showed itself, lighting up the white tents, and displaying to great advantage themasses of scented orchises, and the feathery _reine-des-prés_, whichhemmed the road in on either side. All through the earlier part of theday, flowers had forced themselves upon our notice as mere vehiclesfor collected rain, when we came in contact with them; but now, for ashort time, they resumed their proper place, --only for a short time, for the rain soon returned, and did not cease till midnight. Not allthe garden scenery about Aubonne and Allaman (_ad Lemannum_), nor allthe vineyards which yield the choice white wine of the Côte, couldcounterbalance the united discomfort of the rain, and the cold whichhad got into the system in the two glacières; and matters were notmended by the discovery that _Bradshaw_ was treacherous, and that ajunction with dry baggage at Neufchâtel could not be effected beforeeleven at night. 

There are some curious natural phenomena in this neighbourhood, due tothe subterranean courses which the fissured limestone of the Juraaffords to the meteoric waters. Not far from Bière, the river Aubonnesprings out at the bottom of an amphitheatre of rock, receivingadditions soon after from a group of twenty natural pits, which thepeasants call unfathomable--an epithet freely applied to the strangeholes found in the Jura. It is remarkable that the way seems to standat different levels in the various pits. [24] The plain of Champagne, in which they occur, is unlike the surrounding soil in being formed ofcalcareous detritus, evidently brought down by some means or otherfrom the Jura, and is dry and parched up to the very edges of thepits. The Toleure, a tributary of the Aubonne, frequently large enoughto be called a confluent, flows out from the foot of a wall of rockcomposed of regular parallelopipeds, and in the spring, when the snowsare melting freely, its sources burst out at various levels of therock. Farther to the west, the Versoie, famous for its trout, poursforth a full-sized stream near the Château of Divonne, which is saidto take its name (_Divorum unda_) from this phenomenon. Passing to thenorthern slope of this range of the Jura, the Orbe is a remarkableexample of the same sort of thing, flowing out peacefully in veryconsiderable bulk from an arch at the bottom of a perpendicular rockof great height. This river no doubt owes its origin to thesuperfluous waters of the Lake of Brenets, which have no visibleoutlet, and sink into fissures and _entonnoirs_ in the rock at theedge of the lake. Notwithstanding that the lake is three-quarters of aleague distant, horizontally, and nearly 700 feet higher, the beliefhad always been that it was the source of the stream, and in 1776 thiswas proved to be the fact. For some years before that date, the watersof the Lake of Joux had been inconveniently high, and the peopledetermined to clean out the _entonnoirs_ and fissures of the Lake ofBrenets, which is only separated from the Lake of Joux by a narrowtongue of land, in the expectation that the water would then pass awaymore freely. In order to reach the fissures, they dammed up the outletof the upper into the lower lake; but the pressure on the embankmentbecame too great, and the waters burst through with much violence, creating an immense disturbance in the lake; and the Orbe, which hadalways been perfectly clear, was troubled and muddy for some littletime. The source of the Loue, near Pontarlier, is more striking thaneven that of the Orbe. [25]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 21: A point common to the two sections, which are made byplanes nearly at right angles to each other. ]

[Footnote 22: The dimensions of the two caves, and of the various massesof ice. ]

[Footnote 23: The Cartulary of Lausanne states that the wealthy villageof Bière received its name from the following historical fact:--In 522, the Bishop of Lausanne, S. Prothais, was superintending the cutting ofwood in the Jura for his cathedral, when he died suddenly, and wascarried down on a litter to a place where a proper _bier_ could heprocured, whence the place was named Bière. ]

[Footnote 24: The most curious pit of this kind is the _frais-puits_ ofVesoul, in the Vosgian Jura, which pours forth immense quantities ofwater after rain has fallen in the neighbourhood. The water rushes outin the shape of a fountain, and on one occasion, in November 1557, savedthe town of Vesoul from pillage by a passing army. This pit is carefullydescribed by M. Hassenfratz, in the _Journal de Physique_, t. Xx. P. 259(an. 1782), where he says that Cæsar was driven away from the town ofVesoul, which he had intended to besiege, by the floods of water pouredforth from the _frais-puits_. I know of no such incident in Cæsar'slife, though M. Hassenfratz quotes Cæsar's own words: the town ofVesoul, too, had no historical existence before the 9th or 10th centuryof our era. There is also a pit near Vesoul which contains icicles insummer, and may be the same as the _frais-puits_, for the old historianof Franche Comté, Gollut, in describing the latter, mentions that it isso cold that no one cares to explore it (pp. 91. 92). ]

[Footnote 25: See p. 122. ]

 * * * * *

CHAPTER V. 

THE GLACIÈRE OF THE GRÂCE-DIEU, OR LA BAUME, NEAR BESANÇON. 

The grand and lovely scenery of the Val de Travers has at length beenopened up for the ordinary tourist world, by the railway which connectsPontarlier with Neufchâtel. The beauties of the valley are anunfortunate preparation for the dull expanse of ugly France which greetsthe traveller passing north from the former town; but the country soonassumes a pleasanter aspect, and nothing can be more charming than thesoft green slopes, dotted with the richest pines, which form theapproach to the station of Boujeailles. It is impossible for the mostcareless traveller to avoid observing the ill effects produced upon thetrees on the south side of the forest of Chaux, by the crowded andneglected state in which they have been left, and the wet state of thesoil. The branches become covered with moss, which first kills them, andthen breaks them off, so that many tall and tapering sapins point theirheads to the sky with trunks wholly guiltless of branches; while inother cases, where decay has not yet gone so far, the branches wear theappearance of gigantic stags' horns, with the velvet; and when a numberof these interlace, the mosses unite in large dark patches, giving acedar-like air to the scene of ruin. 

Up to this point, an elderly Frenchman in the carriage had beenextremely offensive, from the evil odour of his Macintosh coat; but inanswer to a remark upon the improvement which the railway would effect, by providing ventilation for the forest, he gave so much information onthat subject, and gave it so pleasantly, and had evidently so good aknowledge of the topography of Franche Comté, that his coat speedilylost its smell, and we became excellent friends. 

It is a tantalising thing to be whirled on a hot and dusty day throughdistricts famous for their wines, the dust and heat standing out inmore painful colours by contrast with the recollection of coolingdraughts which other occasions have owed to such vineyards; though, after all, the true method of facing heat with success is to drink nowine. At any rate, the vineyards of Arbois must always be interesting, and if the stories of the Templars' orgies be true, we may be surethat the chapelry which they possessed in that town would be afavourable place of residence with the order; possibly Rule XVI. Mightthere be somewhat relaxed. 'The good wine of Arbois, ' _la meilleurecave de Bourgougne_, a judicious old writer says, had free entry intoall the towns of the Comté; and when Burgundy was becoming imperial, Maximilian extended this privilege through all the towns of theempire. A hundred years later, it had so high a character, that thetroops of Henri IV. Turned away from the town, announcing that theydid not wish to attack _ceulx estoient du naturel de leur vin, quifrappe partout_;[26] and the king was forced to come himself, with hisconstable and marshals, to beat down the walls, in the course of whichundertaking his men felt the vigour of the inhabitants to a greaterextent than he liked. It is said that when he had taken the town, themunicipality received him in state, and supplied him with wine of thecountry. He praised the wine very highly, on which one of the body hadthe ill taste to assure him that they had a better wine than that. 'You keep it, perhaps, ' was the royal rebuke, 'for a better occasion. 'Henry had a great opinion of this wine; and the Duc de Sully states, in his Memoirs, that when the Duc de Mayenne retired from the leagueagainst the king, and came to Monceaux to tender his allegiance, Henrypunished him for past offences by walking so fast about the grounds ofthe château, that the poor duke, what with his sciatica, and what withhis fat, at last told him with an expressive gesture that a minutemore of it would kill him. The king thereupon let him go, and promisedhim some _vin d'Arbois_ to set him right again. [27]

The present appearance of the town, as seen from the high level followedby the railway, scarcely recalls the time when Arbois was known as _lejardin de noblesse_, and Barbarossa dated thence his charters, or JeanSans-peur held there the States of Burgundy. Gollut[28] tells a story ofa dowager of Arbois, mother-in-law to Philip V. And Charles IV. OfFrance, which outdoes legend of Bishop Hatto. Mahaut d'Artois was anelderly lady remarkable for her charities, and was by consequence alwayssurrounded by large crowds of poor folk during her residence at theChâtelaine, the ruins of which lie a mile or two from Arbois. On theoccasion of a severe famine in Burgundy, she collected a band of hermendicant friends in a stable, and burned them all, saying that '_parpitié elle hauoit faict cela, considerant les peines que ces pauvresdebuoient endurer en temps de si grande et tant estrange famine_. '

There is a Val d'Amour near Arbois, but the more beautiful valley ofthat name lies between Dôle and Besançon, and, as we passed itsneighbourhood, my friend with the Macintosh informed me that as it wasclear from my questions that I was drawing up a history of the FrancheComté, he must beg me to insert a legend respecting the origin of thisname, Val d'Amour, which, he believed, had never appeared in print. Idisclaimed the history, but accepted the legend, and here it is:--TheSeigneur of Chissey was to marry the heiress of a neighbouringseigneurie, and, it is needless to add, she was very lovely, and he washandsome and brave. A lake separated the two châteaux, and the young mannot unfrequently returned by water rather late in the evening; and so itfell out that one night he was drowned. The lady naturally grievedsorely for her loss, and put in train all possible means for recoveringher lover's body. Time, however, passed on, and no success attended herefforts, till at length she caused the hills which dammed up the watersto be pierced, and then De Chissey was found. A village sprang up nearthe outlet thus made, and took thence its name Percée, or, as men nowspell it, Parcey; and the rich vegetation which speedily covered thevalley, where once the lake had been, gave it such an air of happinessand beauty, that the people remembered its origin, and called it theValley of Love. It is a fact that Parcy was not always so spelled, forNoble Constantin Thiehault, Sieur de Perrecey, was a witness to thetreaty for the transference of a miraculous host from Faverney to Dôlein 1608, and old maps and books give it as Perrecey and Parreceyindifferently. The De Chisseys, whose names may be found among thefemale prebends of Château-Chalon, with its necessary sixteen quarters, filled a considerable place in the history of the Comté from theCrusades downwards, and known as _les Fols de Chissey_, the brave[29]and dashing, and witty De Chisseys--qualities which no doubt werepossessed by the poor young man for whom the fair Chatelaine drained theVal d'Amour. 

As we drew nearer to Besançon, each turn of the small streams, and eachlow rounded hill, might have served as an illustration to Cæsar's'Commentaries. ' Now at length it was seen how, whatever the result of abattle, there was always a _proximus collis_ for the conquered party toretire to; and it would have been easy to find many suitable scenes forthe critical engagement, where the woods sloped down to a strip ofgrass-land between their foot and the stream. 

The Frenchman knew his Cæsar, but he put that general in the fourthcentury B. C. He made mistakes, too, in quoting him, which were easilydetected by a memory bristling with the details of his phraseology, theindelible result of extracting the principal parts of his verbs, and thenominatives of his irregular nouns, from half a dozen generations ofsmall boys. He promised me a rich Julian feast in Besançon, and wasgreatly affected when he found that the Englishman could give himCæsar's description of his native town. He wholly denied theamphitheatre with which one of our handbooks has gifted it; and thisdenial was afterwards echoed by every one in Besançon, some eventhinking it necessary to explain the difference between an amphitheatreand an arch of triumph, the latter still existing in the town. TheJesuit Dunod relates that the amphitheatre was to be seen at thebeginning of the seventeenth century, in the ruined state in which theAlans and Vandals had left it after their successful siege in 406. Itseems to have stood near the present site of the Madeleine. 

It was a great satisfaction to find that the Frenchman had himselfvisited the glacière which was the object of my search, and was able togive some idea as to the manner of reaching it, for my information onthe subject was confined to a vague notice that there was an ice-cavefive leagues from Besançon. As so often happened in other cases, headvised me not to go to it, but rather, if I must see a cave, to go tothe Grotto of Ocelles, [30] a collection of thirty or more caverns andgalleries near the Doubs, below Besançon. Seeing, however, that I wasbent on visiting the glacière, he advised me not to go on Sunday, forthe Cardinal Archbishop had ordered the Trappists at the Chartreuse nearnot to receive guests on that day; while Saturday, he thought, wasalmost as bad, for nothing better than an omelette could be obtained ondays of abstinence. Saturday, then, was clearly the day to be chosen. 

The first sight of Besançon explains at once why Cæsar was so anxiousto forestall Ariovistus by occupying Vesontio, although the hill onwhich the citadel stands is not so striking as the similar hill atSalins, and the engines of modern warfare would promptly print theirtelegrams on every stone and man in the place, from the neighbouringheights. The French Government has wisely taken warning from thebombardment by the Allies, and has covered the heights which command iton either side with friendly fortifications, in which lie the keys ofthe place. Historically, Besançon is a place of great interest. Itwitnessed the catastrophe of Julius Vindex, who had made terms withRufus, the general sent against him by Nero, but was attacked by thetroops of Rufus before they learned the alliance concluded between thetwo generals. Vindex was so much grieved by the slaughter of his troops, and the blow thus struck, by an unhappy accident, at his designs againstthe emperor, that he put himself to death at the gates of the town, while the fight was still going on. [31] The Bisuntians claim tothemselves the glory acquired by the Sequani, whose chief city Vesontiowas, by the overthrow of Julius Sabinus, who asserted that he was thegrandson of a son of Julius Cæsar, and proclaimed himself emperor inthe time of Vespasian. The Sequani proceeded against him of their ownaccord, and conquered him in the interest of the reigning emperor; andhe and his wife Peponilla lived hid in a tomb for nine years. Here twosons were born to them; and when they were all discovered and carried toRome, Peponilla prettily told the emperor that she had brought up twosons in the tomb, in order that there might be other voices to intercedefor her husband's life besides her own. They were, however, put todeath. [32]

To judge from the style of the hotels, Besançon is not visited by manyEnglish travellers; and yet it well repays a visit, providing those whocare for such things with a full average of vaulted passages, and feudalgateways, and arcaded court-yards, with much less than the average ofevil smell. There are gates of all shapes and times--Louis-Quatorzetowers, and fortifications specially constructed under Vauban's own eye;while the approach to the town, from the land side, is by a tunnel, cutthrough the live rock which forms a solid chord to the arc described bythe course of the river Doubs. This excavation, called appropriately the_Porte Taillée_, is attributed by the various inhabitants to prettynearly all the famous emperors and kings who have lived from JuliusCæsar to Louis XIV. : it owes its origin, no doubt, to the constructionof the aqueduct which formerly brought into the town the waters pouringout of the rock at Arcier, two leagues from Besançon, and was the workprobably of M. Aurelius and L. Verus. Local antiquaries assign theaqueduct to Agrippa, the son-in-law of Augustus, apparently for nobetter reason than because he built a similar work in Rome. The arch oftriumph[33] at the entrance to the upper town has been an inexhaustiblesubject of controversy for many generations of antiquaries, and up tothe time of Dunod was generally attributed to Aurelian: that historian, however, believed that its sculptures represented the education ofCrispus, the son of Constantine, and that the name Chrysopolis, by whichBesançon was very generally known in early times, was only a corruptionof Crispopolis. Earlier writers are in favour of the natural derivationof Chrysopolis, and assert that when the Senones lost their famouschief, the Brennus of Roman history, before Delphos, they built a townwhere Byzantium afterwards stood, and called it Bisantium andChrysopolis, in memory of their city of those names at home. 

The Hôtel du Nord is a rambling old house, comfortable after Frenchideas of comfort, and rejoicing in an excellent cuisine; though it istrue that on one occasion, at least, _haricots verts à l'Anglaise_ meanta mass of fibrous greens, swimming in a most un-English sea ofartificial fat. It is a good place for studying the natural manners ofthe untravelled Frenchman, who there sits patiently at the table, formany minutes before dinner is served, with his napkin tucked in roundhis neck, and his countenance composed into a look of much resignation. The waiters are for the most part shock-headed boys, in angular-tailcoats well up in the back of the neck, who frankly confess, when anyorder out of the common run of orders is given, that a German patoisfrom the left bank of the Rhine is their only extensive language. One ofthese won my eternal gratitude by providing a clean fork at a crisisbetween the last savouries and the _plat doux_; for the usual practicewith the waiters, when anyone neglected to secure his knife and fork forthe next course, was to slip the plate from under the unwonted charge, and leave those instruments sprawling on the tablecloth in a vengefulmess of gravy. Chickens' bones were there dealt with on all sides asnature perhaps intended that they should be dealt with, namely, bytaking them between finger and thumb, and removing superfluities withthe teeth; and French officers with wasp-like waists, and red trousersgathered in plaits to match, boldly despised the sophistication ofspoons, and ate their vanilla cream like men, by the help of bread andfingers. The manners and broken French of the stranger formed an openand agreeable subject of conversation, and the table was much quieterthan a Frenchman's _table d'hôte_ is sometimes known to be: on oneoccasion, however, all decorum was scattered to the winds, and theguests rushed out into the court-yard with disordered bibs and tuckers, on the announcement by the head waiter of a '_chien à l'Anglaise_, notso high as a mustard-pot, ' which one of the company promptly bought fortwenty-four francs, commencing its education on the spot by a lesson incigar-smoking. 

It frequently happens in France that _café noir_ is a much more readyand abundant tap than water, and so it was here; notwithstanding which, the bedroom apparatus was most comfortable and complete. The chambermaidwas a boy, and under his auspices a sheet of postage-stamps and a leadpencil vanished from the table. When it was suggested to him thatpossibly they had been blown into some corner, and so swept away, hebrought a dustpan from a distant part of the house, and miraculouslydiscovered the stamps perched upon a small handful of dust therein, deferring the discovery and his consequent surprise till he reached myroom. It was curious that the stamps, which had before been in an opensheet, were now folded neatly together, and curled into the shape of awaistcoat-pocket. He was inexorable about the pencil. 

No certain information could be obtained in the hotel respecting theglacière; so an owner of carriages was summoned, and consulted as to thebest means of getting there. He naturally recommended that one of hisown carriages should be taken as far as the Abbey of Grâce-Dieu, andthat we should start at five o'clock the next morning, with a driver whoknew the way to the glacière from the point at which the carriage mustbe left. [34] Five o'clock seemed very early for a drive of fifteenmiles; but the man asserted that instead of five leagues it was a goodseven or eight, and so it turned out to be. This glacière may be calleda historical glacière, being the only one which has attracted generalattention; and the mistake about its distance from Besançon arose verymany years ago, and has been perpetuated by a long series of copyists. The distance may not be more than five leagues when measured on the mapwith a ruler; but until the tunnels and via-ducts necessary for a crowline are constructed, the world must be content to call it seven and ahalf at least. The man bargained for two days' pay for the carriage, onthe plea that the horse would be so tired the next day that he would notbe able to do any work, and as that day was Sunday, the great day forexcursions, it would be a dead loss. It so happened that the charge fortwo days, fifteen francs, was exactly what I paid elsewhere for one day, so there was no difficulty about the price. 

We started, accordingly, at five o'clock. The day was delightfullyfine, and in spite of the driver's peculiarity of speech, caused by ashort tongue, and aggravated by a villanous little black pipe clutchedbetween his remaining teeth, we got through a large amount of questionand answer respecting the country through which we passed. Of course, the reins were carried through rings low down on the kicking-strap, ingeniously placed so that each whisk of the horse's tail caught one orother rein; and then the process of extraction was a somewhat dangerousone, for there was no splashboard, and the driver had to stow his legsaway out of reach, before commencing operations. The landlord of the innat Mühlinen, on the road from Kandersteg to Thun, has a worsearrangement than even this, both reins passing through one small leatherloop at the top of the kicking-strap; so that when the horse on oneoccasion ran away down a steep hill in consequence of the break refusingto act, the man in his flurry could not tell which rein to pull, tosteer clear of the wall of rock on one side, and the unfenced slope onthe other, and finally flung himself out in despair, leaving his Englishcargo behind. 

There has evidently been at some time a vast lake near Besançon, and theold bottom of the lake is now covered with heavy meadow-grass, while thecorn-fields and villages creep down from the higher grounds, on theremains of promontories which stretch out into the plain. The people arein constant fear of inundation, and the driver informed me that inwinter large parts of the plain are flooded, the superfluous watersvanishing after a time into a great hole, whose powers of digestion hecould not explain. The villages which lie on the shores, as it were, ofthe lake, rejoice in church-towers with bulbous domes, rising out ofrich clusters of trees, and the early bells rang out through the crispair with something of a Belgian sweetness. Farther on, the road passedthrough glorious wheat, clean as on an English model farm, save wheresome picturesque farmer had devoted a corner to the growth of poppies. Here, as elsewhere, potatoes did not grow in ridges, but each root had alittle hillock to itself; an unnatural early training which may accountfor the strange appearance of _pommes de terre au naturel_. 

Anyone who has driven through the morning air for an hour or two beforebreakfast, will understand the satisfaction with which, about seveno'clock, we deciphered a complicated milestone into 14 kilomètres fromBesançon, which meant breakfast at the next village, Nancray. Thebreakfast was simple enough, owing to the absence of butter and otherthings, and consisted of coffee in its native pot, and dry bread: themilk was set on the table in the pan in which it had been boiled, and asoup-ladle and a French wash-hand basin took the place of cup and spoon. A cat kept the door against sundry large and tailless dogs, whoseappetites had not gone with their tails; and an old woman kindlydelivered a lecture on the most approved method of making a ptisan fromthe flowers of the lime-tree, and on the many medicinal properties ofthat decoction, to which she attributed her good health at so advancedan age. I silently supplemented her peroration by attributing hergarrulity to a more stimulating source. 

When we started again, it was time to learn something about the scene ofour further proceedings, and the driver enunciated his views on monks ingeneral, _à propos_ to the Convent of Grâce-Dieu, the Chartreuse atwhich we were to leave our carriage, and obtain food for man and horse. The Brothers, he said, were possessed of many mills, and were inconsequence enormously rich. Among the products of their industry, aliqueur known as _Chartreuse_ seemed to fill a high place in his esteem, for he considered it to be better--and he said it as if thatcomparative led into an eighth heaven--better even than absinthe. I hadan opportunity of tasting this liqueur some weeks after, a few minutesbelow the summit of Mont Blanc, and certainly no one would suspect itsgreat strength, which is entirely disguised by an innocent and insidioussweetness, as unlike absinthe as anything can possibly be: impressions, however, respecting meat and drink, and all other matters, are not verytrustworthy when received near the top of the Calotte. It has latelybeen found that the worthy Brothers of the Grande Chartreuse have beensystematically defrauding the revenue, by returning their profits on themanufacture of this liqueur at something merely nominal as compared withthe real gains. I could not learn whether the ceremony of blessing eachbatch of the liqueur, before sending it out to intoxicate the world, isperformed with so much solemnity at Grâce-Dieu as at Grenoble; and, indeed, it rests only on the assertion of the short-tongued Bisuntianthat the manufacture is carried on at all at the former place. [35]

Having communicated such information as he possessed, the man seemed tothink he had a right to learn something in return, and administeredvarious questions respecting customs which he believed to prevail inEngland. He evidently did not credit the denial of the truth of what hehad heard, nor yet the assertion, in answer to another question, thatEnglish hothouse grapes are three or four times as large as the ordinarygrapes of France, and well-flavoured in at least a like proportion. Theroadside was planted with apple-trees, and these were overgrown withmistletoe; so, by way of correcting his idea that the English are a sadand gloomy people, I informed him of the use made of this parasite byyoung people in the country at Christmas-time. Instead, however, ofbeing thereby impressed with our national liveliness, he looked with asort of supercilious contempt upon a people who could require theintervention or sanction of anything external in such a matter, andturned the conversation to some more worthy subject. 

At length we passed into a pleasant valley, with thrushes singing, andmuch chirping of those smaller birds, in the murder of which, sitting, consists _le sport_ in the eyes of many gentlemen of France. Up to thispoint, nothing could have been more unlike the scenery which I had sofar found to be associated with glacières; but now the country becameslightly more Jurane, and limestone precipices on a small scale rose upon either hand, decked with the corbel towers which result from theweathering of the rock. It was the Jura in softer as well as smallertype, for all the desolate wildness which characterises the more rockypart of that range was gone, and there were no signs of the grandpine-scenery, or needle-foliage, as the Germans call it; the trees wereall oak and ash and beech, and the rocks were much more neat andorderly, and of course less grand, than their contorted kindred farthersouth. The valley speedily became very narrow, and a final bend broughtus face-to-face with the buildings of the Abbaye de Grâce-Dieu, strikingfrom their position--filling, as they do, the breadth of thevalley, --but in no way remarkable architecturally. The journey had beenso long that it was now ten o'clock; and as we were due in Besançon atfive in the evening, we put the horse up as quickly as possible, in ashed provided by the Brothers, and set off on foot for the glacière, half an hour distant. About a mile and a half from the convent, thevalley comes to an end, the rocks on the opposite sides approaching soclose to each other as only to leave room for a large flour-mill, belonging to the Brothers, and for the escape-channel of the streamwhich works the mill. This building is quite new, and might almost betaken for a fortification against inroads by the head of the valley, especially as the words _Posuerunt me custodem_ appear on the face, applying, however, to an image of the Virgin, which presides over theestablishment. The monks have expended their superfluous time andenergies upon the erection of crosses of all sizes on every projectingpeak and point of rock, one cross more sombre than the rest marking thescene of a recent death. As I had no means of determining the elevationof this district above the sea, [36] I made enquiries as to the climatein winter; and one of the Brothers told me, that it was an unusual thingwith them to have a fall of snow amounting to two joints of a remarkablydirty finger. 

At the mill, the path turns up the steep wooded hill on the right, andleads through young plantations to a small cottage near the glacière, where the plantations give place to a well-grown beech wood. Here myconductor startled me by announcing that there was 20 centimes to payto the farmer of the cave for entrance; an announcement which seemed totake all the pleasure out of the expedition, and invested it with thedisagreeable character of sightseeing. The poor driver thought, nodoubt, with some trepidation upon the small amount of _pour-boire_ hecould expect from a monsieur on whom a demand for two pence produced soserious an effect, and it was difficult to make him understand that thefact and not the amount of payment was the trouble. When I illustratedthis by saying that I would gladly give a franc to be allowed to enterthe glacière free, he seemed to think that if I would entrust him withthe franc, he might possibly arrange that little matter for me. 

The immediate approach to the glacière is very impressive. The surfaceof the ground slopes slightly upwards, and the entrance, from north tosouth, is by a broad inclined plane, of gentle fall at first, whichrapidly becomes steep enough to require zigzags. The walls of rock oneither side are very sheer, and increase of course in height as theplane of entrance falls. The whole length of the slope is about 420feet, and down a considerable part of this some grasses and flowers areto be found: the last 208 feet are covered more or less with ice;though, at the time of my visit, the furious rains of the end of June, 1864, had washed down a considerable amount of mud, and so covered someof the ice. There were no ready means of determining the thickness ofthis layer of ice, for the descent of which ten or eleven zigzags hadbeen made by the farmer. In one place, within 24 feet of its uppercommencement, it was from 2-1/2 to 3 feet thick; but the prominence ofthat part seemed to mark it out as of more than the average thickness. Even where to all appearance there was nothing but mud and earth, anunexpected fall or two showed that all was ice below. Whether the driverhad previously experienced the treacherousness of this slope of ice, or whatever his motive might be, he left me to enter and explore alone. 

The roof of the entrance is at first a mere shell, formed by the thincrust of rock on which the surface-earth and trees rest high overhead;but this rapidly becomes thicker, as shown in the section of the cave, and thus a sort of outer cave is formed, the real portal of the glacièrebeing reached about 60 feet above the bottom of the slope. This outercave presents a curious appearance, from the distinctness with which theseveral strata of the limestone are marked, the lower strata weatheredand rounded off like the seats of an amphitheatre of the giants, andall, up to the shell-like roof, arranged in horizontal semicircles ofvarious graduated sizes, showing their concavity; while at the bottom ofthe whole is seen a patch of darkness, with two masses of ice in itscentre, looming out like grey ghosts at midnight. This darkness is ofcourse the inner cave, the entrance to which, though it seems so smallfrom above, is 78 feet broad. 

The glacière itself may be said to commence as soon as this entrance, or perpendicular portal, is passed, and thus includes 60 feet of thelong slope of ice, from the foot of which to the farther end of thecave is 145 feet, the greatest breadth of the cave being 148 feet. Immediately below the portal I found a piece of the trunk of a largecolumn of ice, 7 feet long and 12 feet in girth, its fractured endsgiving the idea of the interior of a quickly-grown tree, inconsequence of the concentric arrangement of convergent prismsdescribed in the account of the Glacière of S. Georges. The wife ofthe farmer told me afterwards that there had been two gloriouscolumns at this portal, which the recent rains had swept away. Excepting a short space at the foot of the slope, and another towardsthe farther end of the cave, the floor was covered with ice, in someparts from 3 to 4 feet thick: of this a considerable area had beenremoved to a depth of 2 1/2 or 3 feet, leaving a pond of water a footdeep, with bottom and banks of ice. The rock which composes the truefloor rises at the farthest end of the cave, and the roof is soarranged that a sort of private chapel is there formed; and from afissure in the dome a monster column of ice had been constructed onthe floor, which, at the time of my visit, had lost its upper parts, and stood as a hollow truncated cone with sides a foot thick, and withseas of ice streaming from it, and covering the rising pavement of thechapel. Without an axe, and without help, I was unable to measure thegirth of this column, which had not been without companions on asmaller scale in the immediate neighbourhood. At the west end of thecave, the wall was thickly covered for a large space with smalllimestone stalactites, producing the effect of many tiers of fringe ona shawl; while from a dark fissure in the roof a large piece of fluteddrapery of the same material hung, calling to mind some of the vastlygrander details of the grottoes of Hans-sur-Lesse in Belgium: downthis wall there was also a long row of icicles, on the edges of anarrow fissure. The north-west corner was very dark, and an opening inthe wall of rock high above the ground suggested a tantalising cave upthere: the ground in this corner was occupied by the shattered remainsof numerous columns of ice, which had originally covered a circulararea between 60 and 70 feet in circumference. 

[Illustration: VERTICAL SECTION OF THE GLACIÈRE OF GRÂCE-DIEU, NEARBESANÇON. ]

The three large masses of ice which rendered this glacière in somerespects more remarkable than any of those I have seen, lay in a linefrom east to west, across the middle of the cave, on that part of thefloor where the ice was thickest. The central mass was extremelysolid, but somewhat unmeaning in shape, being a rough irregularpyramid; its size alone, however, was sufficient to make it verystriking, the girth being 66-1/2 feet at some distance from theice-floor with which it blended. The mass which lay to the east ofthis was very lovely, owing to the good taste of some one who hadfound that much ice was wont to accumulate on that spot, and hadaccordingly fixed the trunk of a small fir-tree, with the upperbranches complete, to receive the water from the corresponding fissurein the roof. The consequence was, that, while the actual tree hadvanished from sight under its icy covering, excepting on one sidewhere a slight investigation betrayed its presence, the mass of iceshowed every possible fantasy of form which a mould so graceful couldsuggest. At the base, it was solid, with a circumference of 37 feet. The huge column, which had collected round the trunk of the fir-tree, branched out at the top into all varieties of eccentricity and beauty, each twig of the different boughs becoming, to all appearance, a solidbar of frosted ice, with graceful curve, affording a point ofsuspension for complicated groups of icicles, which streamed down sideby side with emulous loveliness. In some of the recesses of thecolumn, the ice assumed a pale blue colour; but as a rule it was whiteand very hard, not so regularly prismatic as the ice described informer glacières, but palpably crystalline, showing a structure notunlike granite, with a bold grain, and with a large predominance ofthe glittering element. But the westernmost mass was the grandest andmost beautiful of all. It consisted of two lofty heads, like weepingwillows in Carrara marble, with three or four others less lofty, resembling a family group of lions' heads in a subdued attitude ofgrief, richly decked with icy manes. Similar heads seemed to grow outhere and there from the solid sides of the huge mass. The girth was76-1/2 feet, measured about 2 feet from the floor. When this column waslooked at from the side removed from the entrance to the cave, sothat it stood in the centre of the light which poured down the longslope from the outer world, the transparency of the ice brought it topass that the whole seemed set in a narrow frame of impalpable liquidblue, the effect of light penetrating through the mass at its extremeedges. The only means of determining the height of this column was bytying a stone to the end of a string, and lodging it on the highesthead; but this was not an easy process, as I was naturally anxious notto injure the delicate beauty which made that head one of theloveliest things conceivable; and each careful essay with the stoneseemed to involve as much responsibility as taking a shot at a hostilewicket, in a crisis of the game, instead of returning the ball in theconventional manner. When at last it was safely lodged, the heightproved to be 27 feet. I had hoped to find it much more than this, fromthe grandeur of the effect of the whole mass, and I took the troubleto measure the knotted string again with a tape, to make sure thatthere was no mistake. The column formed upon the fir-tree was 3 or 4feet lower. 

I have since found many notices of this glacière in the Memoirs of theFrench Academy and elsewhere, extracts from which will be found in alater chapter. These accounts are spread over a period of 200 years, extending from 1590 to 1790, and almost all make mention of the columnsor groups of columns I have described; but, without exception, theheights given or suggested in the various accounts are much less thanthose which I obtained as the result of careful measurement. The latestdescription of a visit to the glacière states a fact which probably willbe held to explain, the present excess of height above that of earliertimes. [37] The citizen Girod-Chantrans, who wrote this description, hadprocured the notes of a medical man living in the neighbourhood, fromwhich it seemed that Dr. Oudot made the experiment, in 1779, of fixingstakes of wood in the heads of the columns, then from 4 to 5 feet high, and found that these stakes were the cause of a very large increase inthe height of the columns, ice gathering round them in pillars a footthick. So that it is not improbable that the largest of the three massesof the present day owes its height, and its peculiar form, to a seriesof stakes fixed from time to time in the various heads formed under thefissures in the roof, though nothing but the most solid ice can now beseen. It would be very interesting to try this experiment in one of thecaves where, without any artificial help, such immense masses of ice areformed; and by this means columns might, in the course of a year or two, be raised to the very roof. Further details on this subject will begiven hereafter. 

There was no perceptible draught of air in any part of the cave, and thecandles burned steadily through the whole time of my visit, whichoccupied more than two hours. The centre was sufficiently lighted by theday; but in the western corner, and behind the largest column, artificial light was necessary. The ice itself did not generally showsigns of thawing, but the whole cave was in a state of wetness, whichmade the process of measuring and investigating anything but pleasant. I had placed two thermometers at different points on my firstentrance--one on a drawing-board on a large stone in the middle of thepond of water which has been mentioned, and the other on a bundle ofpencils at the entrance of the end chapel, in a part of the cave wherethe ice-floor ceased for a while, and left the stones and rock bare. Theformer gave 33°, the latter, till I was on the point of leaving, 311/2°, when it fell suddenly to 31°. It was impossible, however, to stayany longer for the sake of watching the thermometer fall lower and lowerbelow the freezing point; indeed, the results of sundry incautiousfathomings of the various pools of water, and incessant contact of handsand feet with the ice, had already become so unpleasant, that I wasobliged to desert my trusty hundred feet of string, and leave it lyingon the ice, from want of finger-power to roll it up. The thermometerswere both Casella's, but that which registered 31° was the more livelyof the two, the other being mercurial, with a much thicker stem: thedifference in sensitiveness was so great, that when they were equallyexposed to the sun in driving home, the one ran up to 93° before theother had reached 85°. 

In leaving the glacière, I found a little pathway turning off along theface of the rock on the left hand, a short way up the slope of entrance, and looking as if it might lead to the opening in the dark wall on thewestern side of the cave. After a time, however, it came to a cornerwhich it seemed an unnecessary risk to attempt to pass alone; and myprudence was rewarded by the discovery that, after all, the supposedcave could not be thus reached. It is said that this other cave was theplace to which the inhabitants fled for refuge when their district wasinvaded, probably by the Duke of Saxe-Weimar with his 10, 000 Swedes, and that a ladder 40 feet long is necessary for getting at it. 

The driver had long ago absconded when I returned to the upper regions;but the wife of the farmer of the grotto was there, and communicatedall that she knew of the statistics of the ice annually removed. Shesaid that in 1863 two chars were loaded every day for two months, eachchar taking about 600 kilos, the wholesale price in Besançon being 5francs the hundred kilos. Since the quintal contains 50 kilos, it willbe seen that this account does not agree with the statement of Renaud asto the amount of ice each char could take. No doubt, a char at S. Georges may mean one thing, and a char in the village of Chaux another;but the difference between 12 quintaux and 50 or 60 is too great to bethus explained, and probably Madame Briot made some mistake. Herhusband, Louis Briot, works alone in the cave, and has twelve men and adonkey to carry the ice he quarries to the village of Chaux, a mile fromthe glacière, where it is loaded for conveyance to Besançon. He usesgunpowder for the flooring of ice, and expects the eighth part of apound to blow out a cubic metre; and if, by ill luck, the ice thusprocured has stones on the lower side, he has to saw off the bottomlayer. Madame Briot said I was right in supposing March to be the greattime for the formation of ice, as she had heard her husband say that thecolumns were higher then than at any other time of the year: she alsoconfirmed my views as to the disastrous effects of heavy rain. As withevery other glacière of which I could obtain any account, excepting theLower Glacière of the Pré de S. Livres, she complained that the ice hadnot been so beautiful and so abundant this year as last, although thewinter had been exceptionally severe. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 26: Jean Bontemps, Conseiller au bailliage d'Arbois. ]

[Footnote 27: 'Allez vous en reposer, rafraischir et boire un coup auchasteau, car vous en avez bon besoin; j'ay du vin d'Arbois en mesoffices, dont je vous envoyeray deux bouteilles, car je scay bien quevous ne le hayés pas. '--_Petitot_. Iii. 9. ]

[Footnote 28: Mém. De la Comté de Bourgougne, Dôle, 1592, p. 486. ]

[Footnote 29: One of the Seigneurs de Chissey, Michaud de Changey, whodied in high office in 1480, was known by preeminence as _le Brave_. ]

[Footnote 30: Dr. Buckland visited these caves in 1826, to look forbones, of which he found a great number. Gollut (in 1592) spelled thename _Aucelle_, and derived it from _Auricella_, believing that theRomans worked a gold mine there. It is certain that both the Doubs andthe Loue supplied very fine gold, and the Seigneurs of Longwy had achain made of the gold of those rivers, which weighed 160 crowns. ]

[Footnote 31: Dion Cass. Lib. Lxiii. ]

[Footnote 32: Ib. Lib. Lxvi. ]

[Footnote 33: Known locally as the _Porte Noire_, like the great _PortaNigra_ at Treves, and other Roman gates in Gaul. ]

[Footnote 34: I should be inclined, from what I saw of the country, togo to the station of Baume-les-Dames on any future visit, and walkthence to the glacière, perhaps three leagues from the station. ]

[Footnote 35: He was in error. The Paris correspondent of the 'Times'gave, some months since (see the impression of Jan. 20, 1865), anaccount of an interesting trial respecting the manufacture of theliqueur peculiar to the Abbey of Grâce-Dieu. From this account itappears that the liqueur was formerly called the Liqueur of theGrâce-Dieu, but is now known as Trappistine. It is limpid and oily;possesses a fine aroma, a peculiar softness, a mild but brisk flavour, and so on. It was invented by an ecclesiastic who was once the BrotherMarie-Joseph, and prior of the convent, but is now M. Stremler, havingbeen released by the Pope from his vows of obedience and poverty, inorder that he might teach Christianity to the infidels of the New World. The Brothers took the question of the renunciation of poverty into theirown hands, by declining to give up the money which Brother Marie-Josephhad originally brought into the society; so M. Stremler, being nowmoneyless, commenced the secular manufacture of the seductiveTrappistine, in opposition to the regular manufacture within the wallsof the Abbey, abstaining, however, from the use of the religious labelwhich is the Brothers' trade-mark. The unfortunate inventor was finedand condemned in costs for his piracy. ]

[Footnote 36: See p. 310. ]

[Footnote 37: _Journal des Mines_, Prairial, an iv. , pp. 65, &c. ]

 * * * * *

CHAPTER VI. 

BESANÇON AND DÔLE. 

The afternoon was so far advanced when I returned to the convent, thatit was clearly impossible to reach Besançon at five o'clock, andconsequently there was time to inspect the Brothers and their buildings. The field near the convent was gay with haymakers; and the brown monks, with here and there a priest in _ci-devant_ white, moved among the hiredlabourers, and stirred them up by exhortation and example, --with thisdifference, that while it was evidently the business of the monks so todo, the priests, on the other hand, had only taken fork in hand for thesake of a little gentle exercise. One unhappy Jacques Bonhomme made hotand toilsome hay in thick brown clothes, plainly manufactured from adefunct Brother's gown; for, to judge from appearances, a cast-off gownis a thing unknown. It was good to see a Brother, in horn spectacles ofmediæval cut, tenderly chopping a log for firewood, and peering at itthrough his spectacles after each stroke, as a man examines somedelicate piece of natural machinery with a microscope; to see anotherBrother, the sphere of whose duties lay in the flour-mill, standing inthe doorway with brown robe and shaven crown all powdered alike withwhite, and a third covered from head to foot with sawdust; or, best ofall, to see an antique Brother, with scarecrow legs, and low shoes whichhad presumably been in his possession or that of his predecessors for along series of years, wheeling a barrow of liquid manure, with his gownlooped up high by means of stout whipcord and an arrangement of largebrass rings. The Brother whose business it was to do such cooking asmight be required by visitors, grinned in the most friendly andengaging manner from ear to ear when he was looked at; and, by fixinghim steadily with the eye, he could be kept for considerable spaces oftime standing in the middle of the kitchen, knife in hand, with thecorners of his mouth out of sight round his broad cheeks. His amplefront was decked with a blue apron, suspended from his shoulders, andconfined round the convexity of his waist by an old strap which norespectable costermonger would have used as harness. The soup served wasby courtesy called _soupe maigre, _ but it was in fact _soupe maigre_diluted by many homoeopathic myriads, and the Brother showed muchcuriosity as to my opinion of its taste--a curiosity which I could notsatisfy without hurting his professional pride. When that course wasfinished, the large-faced cook suggested an omelette, as the mostsubstantial thing allowed on eves, proceeding to draw the materials froma closet which so fully shared in the general abstinence from water as ameans of cleansing, that I shut my eyes upon all further operations, andate the eventual omelette in faith. Its excellence called forth suchhearty commendations, that there seemed to be some danger of the mouthnot coming right again. Then salads, and bread and butter, and wine, andvarious kinds of cheese were brought, which made in all a very fairdinner for a fast-day. 

The culinary monk knew nothing of the history of his convent, beyond thebare year of its foundation, and displayed a monotonous dead level ofignorance on all topographical and historical questions: to him the_Pain d'Abbaye_[38] meant nothing further than the staff of life thereprovided, and he neither knew himself nor could recommend any Brotherwho knew anything about the glacière. He was a German, and we talked ofhis native Baiern and the modern glories of his capital; and when hisquestions elicited a declaration of my profession, he passed up toSaxony, and pinned me with Luther. Finding that I objected to being sopinned, and repudiated something of that which his charge involved, hewaived Luther, of whom he knew nothing beyond his name, and came downupon me triumphantly with the word Protestant. I explained to him, ofcourse, that the worthy Elector, and his friends who protested, had notmuch to do with the Anglican branch of the Church Catholic; and then theold task had to be gone through of assuring the assembled Brothers thatwe in England have Sacraments, have Orders, have a Trinitarian Creed. 

At length, about half-past three, we started for Besançon, paying ofcourse _à volonté_ for food and entertainment, as we did not choose toqualify as paupers. The driver told me on the way that there was anotherglacière at Vaise, a village three or four kilomètres from Besançon, andat no great distance from the road by which we should approach the town;so, when we reached the crest above Morre, where the road passes thefinal ridge by means of a tunnel, I paid the carriage off, and walked tothe village of Vaise. The public-house knew of the glacière--knew indeedof two, --further still, kept the keys of both. This was good news, though the idea of keys in connection with an ice-cave was ratherstrange; and I proposed to organise an expedition at once to theglacières. The male half of the auberge declared that he was forbiddento open them to strangers, except by special order from a certainmonsieur in Besançon; but the female half, scenting centimes, stated herbelief that the monsieur in Besançon could never wish them to turn awaya stranger who had come so many kilomètres through the dust to see theice. She put the proposed disobedience in so persuasive and Christian aform, that I was obliged to take the husband's side, --not that he was inany need of support, for he had been longer married than Adam was, andshowed no signs of giving way. It turned out, after all, that thoughthere was no doubt about the existence of the glacières, there wasequally no doubt that they were _glacières artificielles_, being simplyice-houses dug in the side of a hill, and the property of a _glacier_ inBesançon; so that my friend the driver had sent me to a mare's-nest. 

The pathway across the hills to Besançon was rather intricate, and bygood fortune an old Frenchman appeared, who was returning from his workat a neighbouring church, and served as companion and guide. He had bidfarewell to sixty some years before, and, being a builder, had beengoing up and down a ladder all day, with full and empty _hottes_, to anextent which outdid the Shanars of missionary meetings; and yet hewalked faster than any foreigner of my experience. He talked in dueproportion, and told some interesting details of the bombardment ofBesançon, which he remembered well. When he learned that I was notGerman, but English, he told me they did not say _Anglais_ there, but_Gaudin_, --I was a _Gaudin_. This he repeated persistently many times, with an air worthy of General Cyrus Choke, and half convinced me thatthere was something in it, and that I might after all be a Gaudin. Itwas not till some hours after, that I remembered the indelibleimpression made by the piety of speech of recent generations ofEnglishmen upon the French nation at large, and thus was enabled totrace the origin of the name _Gaudin_. The old man evidently believedthat it was the proper thing to call an Englishman by that name; thusreminding me of a story told of a French soldier in the Austrian serviceduring the long early wars with Switzerland. The Austrians called theSwiss, in derision, Kühmelkers--a term more opprobrious than _bouviers_;and it is said that, after the battle of Frastens--one of the battles ofthe Suabian war, --a Frenchman threw himself at the feet of some Grisonssoldiers, and innocently prayed thus for quarter; '_Très-chers, très-honorables, et très-dignes Kühmelkers! au nom de Dieu, ne me tuezpas_!'

The town of Besançon seems to spend its Sunday in fishing, and isapparently well contented with that very limited success which is wontto attend a Frenchman's efforts in this branch of _le sport_. There is aproverb in the patois of Vaud which says '_Kan on vau dau pesson, sé fomolli_;'[39] and on this the Bisuntians act, standing patiently half-wayup the thigh in the river, as the Swiss on the Lake of Geneva and otherlakes may be seen to do. It is all very well to wade for a good salmoncast, or to spend some hours in a swift-foot[40] Scotch stream for thesake of a lively basket of trout; but to stand in a Sunday coat and hat, and 2-1/2 feet of water, watching a large bung hopelessly unmoved on thesurface, is a thing reserved for a Frenchman indulging in a weeklyintoxication of Sabbatical sport, under the delirious form of the_chasse aux goujons_. 

Clean as the town within the circuit of the river is, the houses whichoverhang the water on the other side are picturesque and dirty in theextreme, story rising above story, and balcony above balcony. It doesnot increase their beauty, and to a fastidious nose it must militateagainst their eligibility as places of residence, that there isapparently but one drain, an external one, which follows the course ofthe pillars supporting the various balconies: nevertheless, from theopposite side of the river, and when the wind sets the other way, theyare sufficiently attractive. In this quarter is found the finest church, the Madeleine, with a very effective piece of sculpture at the east end. The sculpture is arranged on the bottom and farther side of a sort ofcage, which is hung outside the church, but is visible from the insidethrough a corresponding opening in the east wall. The subject of thesculpture is 'The Sepulchre, ' and the ends of the cage or box arecomposed of rich yellow glass, through which the external light streamsinto the cave of the Sepulchre; and when the church itself is becomingdark, the effect produced by the light from the evening sky, passingthrough the deep-toned glass, and softly illuminating the Sepulchre, isindescribably solemn. 

[Illustration: BATH IN THE DOUBS, AT BESANÇON. ]

When Besançon was supplied by the aqueduct with the waters of Arcier, there was a great abundance of baths, as the remains discovered indigging new foundations show; but in the present state of the town suchthings are not easily met with. The floating baths on the river areappropriated to the other sex, and the only thing approaching to a malebath was of a nature entirely new to me, being constructed asfollows:--There is a water-mill in the town, with a low weir stretchingacross the river, down which the water rushes with no very greatviolence. At the foot of this weir a row of sentry-boxes is placed, approached by planks, and in these boxes the adventurer finds hisbath. [41] A stout piece of wood-work is fixed horizontally along theface of the weir, and has the effect of throwing the downward water outof its natural direction, and causing it to describe an arch, so that itdescends with much force on to the weir at a point below the wood-work. Here two planks are placed, forming a seat and a support for the back, and a little lower still another plank for the feet to rest upon, without which the bather would have a good chance of being washed away. The water boils noisily and violently on all sides and in alldirections, coming down upon the subject's shoulders with a heavy thud, which calls to mind the tender years when something softer than a canewas used, and sends him forth like a fresh-boiled lobster. All this, with towels, is not dear at fourpence. 

The citadel is the great sight of Besançon, and the politeColonel-commandant attends at his office at convenient hours to givepasses. What it might be to storm the position under the excitement ofthe sport of war, I cannot say; but certainly it is a most trying affairon a hot Sunday's afternoon, even when all is made smooth, and the gatesare opened, by a comprehensive pass. The wall mentioned by Cæsar as agreat feature of the place cut the site of the citadel off from thetown, and many signs of it were found when the cathedral of S. Stephenwas built, the unfortunate church which went down before the exigenciesof a siege under Louis XIV. The barrack-master proved to be a mostinteresting man, knowing many details of Cæsar's life and campaignswhich I suspect were not known to that captain himself. He had served inAlgeria, and assented to the proposition that more soldiers died thereof absinthe than of Arabs, stating his conviction that three-fourths ofthe whole deaths are caused by that pernicious extract of wormwood, andthat he ought himself to have died of it long ago. He pointed out thedifference between the massive masonry of the period of the Spanishoccupation and the less impressive work of more recent times, and showedthe dungeon from which Marshal Bourmont bought his escape, in the timeof the first Napoleon. 

The floor of one of the little look-out towers is composed of atombstone, representing a priest in full ecclesiastical dress, and myquestion as to how it came there elicited the following story:--WhenLouis XIV. Was besieging the citadel, he placed his head-quarters, and astrong battery, on the summit of the Mont Chaudane, [42] which commandsthe citadel on one side as the Brégille does on the other. Among thebesieged was a monk named Schmidt, probably one of the Low-country mento whom the Franche Comté was then a sort of home, as forming part ofthe dominions of Spain; and this monk was the most active supporter ofthe defence, against the large party within the walls which was anxiousto render the town. He was also an admirable shot; and on one of thelast days of the siege, as he stood in the little tower where thetombstone now lies, the King and his staff rode to the front of theplateau on the Mont Chaudane to survey the citadel; whereupon some onepointed out to Schmidt that now he had a fair chance of putting an endat once to the siege and the invasion. Accordingly, he took a musketfrom a soldier and aimed at the King; but before firing he changed hisaim, remarking, that he, a priest, ought not to destroy the life of aman, and so he only killed the horse, giving the Majesty of France aroll in the mud. When the town was taken, the King enquired for the manwho killed his horse, and asked the priest whether he could have killedthe rider instead, had he wished to do so. 'Certainly, ' Schmidt replied, and related the facts of the case. Louis informed him, that had he beena soldier, he should have been decorated for his skill and his impulseof mercy; but, being a priest, he should be hung. The sentence wascarried out, and the priest's body was buried in the floor of the towerfrom which he had spared the King's life. If this be true, it was one ofthe most unkingly deeds ever done. [43]

This siege took place in the second invasion or conquest of the FrancheComté by Louis XIV. , when Besançon held out for nine days against Vaubanand the King: on the first occasion it had surrendered to Condé afterone day's siege, making the single stipulation that the Holy Shroudshould not be removed from the town. [44] The _Saincte Suaire_ was therichest ecclesiastical treasure of the Bisuntians, being one of the twomost genuine of the many Suaires, the other being that of Turin, whichwas supported by Papal Infallibility. Both were brought from theCrusades; and the one was presented to Besançon in 1206, the other toTurin in 1353. Bede tells a story of the proving of a Shroud by fire inthe eighth century, by one of the caliphs; and as its dimensions were 8feet by 4, like that of Besançon, while the Shroud of Turin measured 12feet by 3, the people of Besançon claimed that theirs was the one spokenof by Bede. 

The Cathedral of Besançon is no longer S. Stephen, since the destructionof that church by Louis XIV. The small Church of the Citadel is nowdedicated to that saint, an inscription on the wall stating that ittakes the place of the larger church, _ex urbis obsidio anno 1674lapsae_, and offering an indulgence of 100 days for every visit paid toit, with the sensible proviso _una duntaxat vice per diem. _ Soldiers notbeing generally made of the confessing sex, or of confessing material, there is only one confessional provided for the 6, 000 souls which thecitadel can accommodate. 

The Cavalry Barracks are in the lower part of the town, and near them isa large building with evident traces of ecclesiastical architecture onthe outside. It is, in fact, a very fine church converted into stables, retaining its interior features in excellent preservation. Under thecorn-bin lies a lady who had two husbands and fifteen children, _Antigone in parentes, Porcia in conjuges, Sempronia in liberos_; whilea few yards further east, less agreeably placed, is an ecclesiastic ofthe Gorrevod family, who reckoned Prince and Bishop and Baron among histitles. The nave of this Church of S. Michael accommodates thirtyhorses, and the north aisle thirteen; the south is considered moreselect, and is boarded off for the decani, in the shape of officers'chargers. The north side of the chancel gives room for six horses, andthe south side for a row of saddle-blocks. It had been an oversight onthe part of the original architect of the church that no place wasprepared for the daily hay; a fault which the military restorers haveremedied by improvising a lady-chapel, where the hay for the day isplaced in the morning. With Spelman in my mind, I asked if the stableswere not unhealthy; but the soldiers said they were the healthiest inthe town. [45]

The Glacière of Vaise had proved, as has been seen, to be amare's-nest; and yet, after all, it produced a foal; for while I wasendeavouring to overcome the evening heat of Besançon in a_spécialité_ for ice, I found that the owner of the establishment wasalso the owner of the two glacières of Vaise; and in the course of theconversation which followed, he told me of the existence of a naturalglacière near the village of Arc-sous-Cicon, twenty kilomètres fromPontarlier, which he had himself seen. As I had arranged to meet mysisters at Neufchâtel, in two days' time, for the purpose of visitinga glacière in the Val de Travers, this piece of information came veryopportunely, and I determined to attempt both glacières with them. 

Some of the trains from Besançon stop for an hour at Dôle in passingtowards Switzerland by way of Pontarlier, and anyone who is interestedin the Burgundian and Spanish wars of France should take thisopportunity of seeing what may be seen of the town of Dôle and itsmassive church-tower. The sieges of Dôle made it very famous in thelater middle ages, more especially the long siege under Charlesd'Amboise, at the crisis of which that general recommended his soldiersto leave a few of the people for seed, [46] and the old sobriquet _laJoyeuse_ was punningly changed to _la Dolente_. It has had other claimsupon fame; for if Besançon possessed one of the two most authentic HolyShrouds, Dôle was the resting-place of one of the undoubted miraculousHosts, which had withstood the flames in the Abbey of Faverney. It wasfor the reception of this Host that the advocates of the Brotherhood ofMonseigneur Saint Yves built the Sainte Chapelle at Dôle. [47]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 38: One of the rights of the sovereigns of Burgundy was knownby this name. The sovereign had the power of sending one soldierincapacitated by war to each abbey in the County, and the authorities ofthe abbey were bound to make him a prebendary for life. In 1602, afterthe siege of Ostend, the Archduke Albert exercised this right in favourof his wounded soldiers, forcing lay-prebendaries upon almost all theabbeys of the County of Burgundy. The Archduchess Isabella attempted toquarter such a prebendary upon the Abbey of Migette, a house of nuns, but the inmates successfully refused to receive the warrior among them(Dunod, _Hist. De l'Église de Besançon_, i. 367). For the similar rightin the kingdom of France, see Pasquier, _Recherches de la France_, l. Xii. P. 37. Louis XIV. Did not exercise this right after his conquest ofthe Franche Comté, perhaps because the Hôtel des Invalides, to which theChurch was so large a contributor, met all his wants. ]

[Footnote 39: '_Quand on veut du poisson, il se faut mouiller_;'referring probably to the method of taking trout practised in the Ormontvalley, the habitat of the purest form of the patois. A man wades in theGrand' Eau, with a torch in one hand to draw the fish to the top, and asword in the other to kill them when they arrive there; a second manwading behind with a bag, to pick up the pieces. ]

[Footnote 40: 'Swift-foot Almond, and land-louping Braan. ']

[Footnote 41: The sentry-box is omitted in the accompanyingillustration. ]

[Footnote 42: Believed to be derived from _Collis Dianæ_. Dunod foundthat _Chaudonne_ was an early form of the name, and so preferred _CollisDominarum_, with reference to the house of nuns placed there. ]

[Footnote 43: Schmidt was not without the support of example in theindulgence of his warlike tastes. Thirty-eight years before, thereligious took so active a part in the defence of Dôle against LouisXIII. , that the Capuchin Father d'Iche had the direction of theartillery; and when an officer of the enemy had seized the BrotherClaude by the cowl, the Father Barnabas made the officer loose his holdby slaying him with a demi-pique. When Arbois was besieged by Henry IV. , the Sieur Chanoine Pécauld is specially mentioned as proving himself a_bon harquebouzier. _]

[Footnote 44: There is a painting by Vander Meulen, representing thissiege, in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. ]

[Footnote 45: The Church of S. Philibert, in Dijon, now a foragemagazine, has an inscription let into the wall almost ludicrously out ofkeeping with the present desecrated state of the building, --_DilexiDomine Decorem Domus tuæ_, 1648. ]

[Footnote 46: 'Qu'on les laisse pour grain!']

[Footnote 47: In the year 1648, it was suspected that some decay wasgoing on in the material of this Host, and the following translationfrom the Latin describes the investigation entered into by the Dean anda large body of clergy and laity, in order to quiet the publicmind:--'Après que tous les susnommés (viz. The Dean, Canons, Presidentof the Parliament, &c. ) étant présents eurent adorés le S. Sacrement, lacustode fut ouverte avec tout le respect possible; et alors le dit Doyenaperçut un vermisseau roulé en spirale, qu'il saisit avec la pointed'une épingle et plaça sur un corporal où chacun l'examina; puis on lebrûla avec un charbon pris dans l'encensoir, et ses cendres furentjetées dans la piscine. On put alors constater tout le dommage que cemisérable petit animal avait causé aux espèces sacrées dont les débrisici tombaient en poussière, là se trouvaient rongés et lacérés, de tellesorte que l'Hostie n'avait presque plus rien de sa forme circulaire, etprésentait de profondes découpures partout où le vermisseau s'étaitlivré à ses sinueus es évolutions. ']

 * * * * *

CHAPTER VII. 

THE GLACIÈRE OF MONTHÉZY, IN THE VAL DE TRAVERS. 

I rejoined my sisters at Neufchâtel on the 5th of July, and proceededthence with them by the line which passes through the Val de Travers. One of them had been at Fleurier, in 1860, on the day of the opening ofthis line, and she added an interest to the various tunnels, by tellingus that a Swiss gentleman of her acquaintance, who had taken a place inone of the open carriages of the first train, found, on reaching thedaylight after one of the tunnels, that his neighbour had been killed bya small stone which had fallen on to his head. Where the stone camefrom, no one could say, nor yet when it fell, for the unfortunate manhad made no sign or movement of any kind. 

Every one must be delighted with the wonders of the line of rail, andthe beauties through which the engineer has cut his way. In valleys on aless magnificent scale, cuttings and embankments on the face of the hillare sad eyesores, as in railway-ruined Killiecrankie; but here Nature'sworks are so very grand, that the works of man are not offensivelyprominent, being overawed by the very facts over which they havetriumphed. When we reached the more even part of the valley, where theReuse no longer roars and rushes far below, but winds quietly throughthe soft grass on a level with the rail, the whole grouping was soexceedingly charming, and the river itself so suggestive of lusty trout, and the village of Noiraigue[48] looked so tempting as it nestled in asheltered nook among the headlong precipices, that I registered in asafe mental pigeon-hole a week at the auberge there with a fishing-rod, and excursions to the commanding summit in which the _Creux de Vent_ isfound. The engine-driver knew that he was in a region of beauties, and, when he whistled to warn his passengers that the train was about to moveon, he remained stationary until the long-resounding echoes died out, floating lingeringly up the valley to neighbouring France. 

We had no definite idea as to the _locale_ of the glacière we were nowbent upon attacking. M. Thury's list gave the followinginformation:--'_Glacière de Motiers, Canton de Neufchâtel, entre lesvallées de Travers et de la Brévine, près du sentier de la Brévine_;'and this I had rendered somewhat more precise by a cross-examination ofthe guard of the train on my way to Besançon. He had not heard of theglacière, but from what I told him he was inclined to think that Couvetwould be the best station for our purpose, especially as the 'Ecu' atthat place was, in his eyes, a commendable hostelry. Some one in Geneva, also, had believed that Couvet was as likely as anything else in thevalley; so at Couvet we descended. [49]

This is a very clean and cheerful village, devoted to the lucrativemanufacture of _absinthe_, and producing inhabitants who look likegentlemen and ladies, and promenade the ways in bonnets and hats, after a most un-Swiss-like fashion. They carefully restrictthemselves to the making of the poisonous product of their village, and have nothing to do with the consumption thereof:[50] hence naturehas a fair chance with them, and they are a healthy and energeticrace. The beauties of the surrounding mountains, with their fitfulalternations of pasture and wood, and grey face of rock, are notmarred by the outward appearance, at least, of that which Bishop Heberlamented in a country where 'every prospect pleases. ' An old lady iscommemorated in the annals of Couvet as an example of the healthinessof the situation, who saw seven generations of her family, havingknown her great-grandfather in her early years, and living to nursegreat-grandchildren in her old age. The landlord of the inn informedus, with much pride, that Couvet was the birthplace of the man whoinvented a clock for telling the time at sea; by which, no doubt, hemeant the chronometer, invented by M. Berthoud. At Motiers, the nextvillage, Rousseau wrote his _Lettres de la Montagne_, and thence itwas that he fled from popular violence to the island on the Lake ofBienne. 

The 'Ecu' promised us dinner in half an hour, and we strolled about inthe garden of that unsophisticated hotel for an hour and a half, reconciled to the delay by the beauty of the neighbouring hills, thewinding of the valley giving all the effect of a mountain-locked plain, with barriers decked with firs. It will readily be conceived, however, that three practical English people could not be satisfied to feed onbeauty alone for any very great length of time, and we caught thelandlady and became peremptory. She explained that dinner was quiteready, but she had intended to give us the pleasure of an agreeablesociety, consisting of sundry Swiss who were due in another half-hour orso: she yielded, nevertheless, to our representations, and promised toserve the meal at once. We were speedily summoned to the_salle-à-manger, _ and entered a low smoke-stained wooden chamber, withno floor to speak of, and with huge beams supporting the roof, dangerousfor tall heads. The date on the door was 1690, and the chamber fullylooked its age. There was a long table of the prevailing hue, with asimilar bench; and on the table three large basins, presumablycontaining soup, were ranged, each covered with its plate, andaccompanied by a ricketty spoon of yellow metal and a hunch of blackbread. A. , who was hungry enough and experienced enough to have knownbetter, began promptly a most pathetic 'Why surely!' but the landladystopped her by opening a side door, and displaying a comfortable room inwhich a well-appointed table awaited us:--she had taken us through thekitchen rather than through the _salon_, in which were peasants smoking. We were somewhat disconcerted when we heard that the unwashed-lookingplace was the kitchen; but the landlady had made up for it by scrubbingher husband, who waited upon us, to a high pitch of presentability, andfurther experience showed that the 'Ecu' is to be highly commended forthe excellence and abundance and cheapness of its foods. 

There are many natural curiosities in and near the Val de Travers, whichwell repay the labour that must be expended upon them. The _Temple desFées_, on the western side of the Valley of Verrières, used to be calledthe most beautiful grotto in Switzerland; and the great Cavern of LaBaume, near Motiers, is said to be exceedingly wonderful. We were shownthe entrance to a line of caverns in the hills above Couvet, and wereinformed that it was possible to pierce completely through the range, and pass out at the other side within sight of Yverdun. One of thecaverns in this valley had been explored by some of A. And M. 's Swissfriends, and the account of what they had gone through was by no meansinviting, seeing that the prevailing material was damp clay of a solidcharacter, arranged in steep slopes, up which progression must be madeby inserting the fingers and toes as far as might be into the clay; and, of course, when the handful of unpleasant mud came away, the result wasthe reverse of progression. To anyone who has only known the rope up thepure white side of some snow mountain, the idea of being roped for thepurpose of grappling with underground banks of adhesive mud and claymust be horrible in the extreme. Another interesting natural phenomenonis presented by the source of the Reuse, that river gushing out from therock in considerable volume, probably formed by the drainage of the Lakeof Etallières, in the distant valley of La Brévine; while theLonge-aigue, on the contrary, is lost in a gulf of such horror that thepeople call the mill which stands on its edge the _Moulin d'enfer_. 

As usual, we were assured that many of these remarkable sights were farbetter worth a visit than the glacière, of which no one seemed to knowanything. A guide was at length secured for the next morning, who hadmade his way to the cave once in the winter-time and had been unable toenter it, and we settled down quietly to an evening of perfect rest. Thewindows of the bedrooms being guiltless of blinds and curtains, theeffect of waking, in the early morning, to find them blocked up, as itwere, by the green slopes of pasture and the dark bands of fir-woodswhich clothed the limiting hills, seemed almost magical, the foregroundbeing occupied solely by the graceful curve of the dome of thechurch-tower, glittering with intercepted rays, and forming a brightomen for the day thus ushered in. 

In due time the promised guide appeared, a sickly boy of unprepossessingappearance, and of _patois_ to correspond. I was at first tempted topropose that we should attack him stereoscopically, A. AdministeringFrench and I simultaneous German, in the hope that the combinationmight convey some meaning to him; but, after a time, we succeeded withFrench alone. Perhaps Latin would have made a more likely _mélange_ thanGerman, and to give it him in three dimensions would not have been a badplan. The route for the glacière runs straight up the face of the hillalong which the railway has been constructed; and as we passed throughwoods of beech and fir, with fresh green glades rolling down below ourfeet, or emerged from the woods to cross large undulating expanses ofmeadow-land, we were almost inclined to believe that we had never doneso lovely a walk. The scenery through which we passed was thoroughlythat of the lower districts of the Alps, with nothing Jurane in itscharacter, and the elevation finally achieved was not very great:indeed, at a short distance from the glacière, we passed a collection ofvery neat châlets, with gardens and garden-flowers, one of the châletsrejoicing in countless beehives, with three or four 'ekes' apiece. Up tothe time of reaching this little village, which seemed to be calledSagnette, our path had been that which leads to _La Brévine_, thehighest valley in the canton; but now we turned off abruptly up thesteeper face on the left hand, and in a very few minutes came upon a drywilderness of rock and grass, which we at once recognised as 'glacièrecountry;' and when I told our guide that we must be near the place, hereplied by pointing to the trees round the mouth of the pit. 

Shortly after we first left Couvet, a gaunt elderly female, with aone-bullock char, had joined our party, and tried to bully us intogiving up the cave and going instead to a neighbouring summit, whenceshe promised us a view of unrivalled extent and beauty. She told us thatthere was nothing to be seen in the glacière, and that it was a placewhere people lost their lives. The guide said that was nonsense; butshe reduced him to silence by quoting a case in point. She said, too, that if a man slipped and fell, there was nothing to prevent him fromgoing helplessly down a run of ice into a subterranean watercourse, which would carry him for two or three leagues underground; and on thishead our boy had no counter-statement to make. She asserted that withoutladders it was utterly impossible to make the descent to thecommencement of the glacière; and she vowed there was no ladder now, norhad been for some time. Here the boy came in, stating that the cavebelonged to a mademoiselle of Neufchâtel, who had a summer cottage at nogreat distance, and loved to be supplied with ice during her residencein the country, for which purpose she kept a sound ladder on the spot, and had it removed in the winter that it might not be destroyed. Therewas a circumstantial air about this statement which for the moment gotthe better of the old woman; but she speedily recovered herself, andrepeated positively that there was no ladder of any description, adding, somewhat inconsequently, that it was such a bad one, no Christian coulduse it with safety. The boy retorted, that it was all very well for herto run the glacière down, as she lived near it, but for the world from adistance it was a most wonderful sight; and, as for the ladder, hehappened to know that it was at this time in excellent preservation. Theevent proved that in saying this he drew entirely upon his imagination. It is, perhaps, only fair to suppose that they don't mean anything byit, and it may be mere ignorance on their part; but the simple fact is, that some of those Swiss rustics tell the most barefaced liesconceivable, --_unblushing_ is an epithet that cannot be safely appliedwithout previous soap and water, --and tell them in a plodding systematicmanner which takes in all but the experienced and wary traveller. I havemyself learned to suspend my judgment regarding the most simple thing innature, until I have other grounds for forming an opinion than thesolemn asseverations of the most stolid and respectable Swiss, if it sobe that money depends upon his report. [51]

As in the case of two of the glacières already described, the entranceis by a deep pit, which has the appearance of having been at one timetwo pits, one less deep than the other; and the barrier between the twohaving been removed by some natural process, a passage is found down thesteep side of the shallower pit, which lands the adventurer on a smallsloping shelf, 21 feet sheer above the surface of the snow in the deeperpit, the sides of the latter rising up perpendicularly all round. It isfor this last 21 feet that some sort of ladder is absolutely necessary. Our guide flung himself down in the sun at the outer edge of the pit, and informed us that as it was cold and dangerous down below, heintended to go no farther: he had engaged, he said, to guide us to theglacière, and he felt in no way bound to go into it. He was not good formuch, so I was not sorry to hear of his determination; and when mysisters saw the sort of place they had to try to scramble down, theyappeared to be very glad that only I was to be with them. 

Leaving them to make such arrangements with regard to dress as mightseem necessary to them, I proceeded to pioneer the way down the firstpart of the descent. This was extremely unpleasant, for the rocks weresteep and very moist, with treacherous little collections ofdisintegrated material on every small ledge where the foot mightotherwise have found a hold. These had to be cleared away before itcould be safe for them to descend, and in other places the broken rockhad to be picked out to form foot-holes; while, lower down, where thefinal shelf was reached, the abrupt slope of mud which ended in thesheer fall required considerable reduction, being far too beguiling inits original form. Here there was also a buttress of damp earth to begot round, and it was necessary to cut out deep holes for the handsand feet before even a man could venture upon the attempt with anycomfort. The buttress was not, however, without its advantage, for onit, overhanging the snow of the lower pit, was a beautiful clump ofcowslips (_Primula elatior_, Fr. _Primevère inodore_), which was atonce secured as a trophy. The length of the irregular descent to thispoint was between 70 and 80 feet. On rounding the buttress, the upperend of the ladder presented itself, and now the question, between theboy and the old woman was to be decided. I worked down to the edge ofthe shelf, and looked over into the pit, and, alas! the state of theremaining parts of the ladder was hopeless, owing partly to the decayof the sidepieces, and partly to the general absence of steps--asomewhat embarrassing feature under the circumstances. A furtherinvestigation showed that for the 21 feet of ladder there were onlyseven steps, and these seven were not arranged as conveniently as theymight have been, for two occurred at the very top, and the other fivein a group at the bottom. A branchless fir-tree had at some timefallen into the pit, and now lay in partial contact with the ruinedladder; and there were on the trunk various little knobs, which mightpossibly be of some use as a supplement to the rare steps of theladder. The snow at the bottom of the pit was surrounded on all sidesby perpendicular rock, and on the side opposite to the ladder I saw anarch at the foot of the rock, apparently 2 or 3 feet high, leadingfrom the snow into darkness; and that, of course, was the entrance tothe glacière. I succeeded in getting down the ladder, by help of thesupplement, and looked down into the dark hole to see that it waspracticable, and then returned to report progress in the upperregions. We had brought no alpenstocks to Couvet, so we sent the guideoff into the woods, where we had heard the sound of an axe, to getthree stout sticks from the woodmen; but he returned with suchwretched, crooked little things, that A. Went off herself to forage, and, having found an impromptu cattle-fence, came back with weaponsresembling bulbous hedge-stakes, which she skinned and generallymodified with a powerful clasp-knife, her constant companion. She thencut up the crooked sticks into _bâtons_ for a contemplated repair ofthe ladder, while M. And I investigated the country near the pit. Wefound two other pits, which afterwards proved to communicate with theglacière. We could approach sufficiently near to one of these to seedown to the bottom, where there was a considerable collection of snow:this pit was completely sheltered from the sun by trees, and was 66feet deep and 4 or 5 feet in diameter. The other was of larger size, but its edge was so treacherous that we did not venture so near as tosee what it contained: its depth was about 70 feet, and the stone anda foot or two of the string came up wet. The sides of the main pit, bywhich we were to enter the glacière, were, as has been said, verysheer, and on one side we could approach sufficiently near the edge todrop a plummet down to the snow: the height of this face of rock was59 feet, measuring down to the snow, and the level of the ice waseventually found to be about 4 feet lower. Although it was now notvery far from noon, the sun had not yet reached the snow, owing partlyto the depth of the pit as compared with its diameter, and partly tothe trees which grew on several sides close to the edge. One or twotrees of considerable size grew out of the face of rock. 

We were now cool enough to attempt the glacière, and I commenced thedescent with A. The precautions already taken made the way tolerablypossible down to the buttress of earth and the shelving ledge, and sofar the warm sun had accompanied us; but beyond the ledge there wasnothing but the broken ladder, and deep shade, and a cold dampatmosphere, which made the idea, and still more the feel, of snow verymuch the reverse of pleasant. A. Was not a coward on such occasions, and she had sufficient confidence in her guide; but it is rathertrying for a lady to make the first step off a slippery slope of mud, on to an apology for a ladder which only stands up a few inches abovethe lower edge of the slope, and so affords no support for the hand:nor, after all, can bravery and trust quite make up for the want ofsteps. We were a very long time in accomplishing the descent, for herfeet were always out of her sight, owing to the shape which femaledress assumes when its wearer goes down a ladder with her face to thefront, especially when the ladder has suffered from ubiquitouscompound fracture, and the ragged edges catch the unaccustomedpetticoats. It was quite as well the feet were out of sight, for someof the supports to which they were guided were not such as would havecommended themselves to her, had she been able to see them. At length, owing in great measure to the opportune assistance of two of thebatons we had brought down with us for repairs, thanks also to thetrunk of the fir-tree, we reached the snow; and poor A. Was plantedthere, breaking through the top crust as a commencement of heracquaintance with it, till such time as I could bring M. Down to joinher. The experience acquired in the course of A. 's descent led us tocall to M. That she must get rid of that portion of her attire whichgives a shape to modern dress; for the obstinacy and power of_mal-à-propos_ obstructiveness of this garment had wonderfullycomplicated our difficulties. She objected that the guide was there;but we assured her that he was asleep, or if he wasn't it made nomatter; so when I reached the top, she emerged shapeless from atemporary hiding-place, clutching her long hedge-stake, and feeling, she said--and certainly looking--a good deal like a gorilla. The mostbaffling part of the trouble having been thus got over, we soon joinedA. , blue already, and shivering on the snow. The sun now reached verynearly to the bottom of the pit, and I went up once more forthermometers and other things, leaving a measure with my sisters, andbegging them to amuse themselves by taking the dimensions of the snow:on my return, however, to the top of the ladder, I found themcombining over a little bottle, and they informed me plaintively thatthey had been taking medicinal brandy and snow instead ofmeasurements, --a very necessary precaution, for anyone to whom brandyis not a greater nuisance than utter cold. We found the dimensions ofthe bottom of the pit, i. E. Of the field of snow on which we stood, tobe 31-1/2 feet by 21; but we were unable to form any idea of the depthof the snow, beyond the fact that 'up to the ancle' was its prevailingcondition. The boy told us, when we rejoined him, that when he andothers had attempted to get ice for the landlord, when it was orderedfor him in a serious illness the winter before, they had found the pitfilled to the top with snow. 

[Illustration: VERTICAL SECTION OF THE GLACIÈRE OF MONTHÉZY, IN THE VALDE TRAVERS. ]

As we stood at the mouth of the low entrance, making finalpreparations for a plunge into the darkness, I perceived a strong coldcurrent blowing out from the cave--sufficiently strong and cold torender knickerbocker stockings a very unavailing protection. Whileengaged in the discovery that this style of dress is not without itsdrawbacks, I found, to my surprise, that the direction of the currentsuddenly changed, and the cold blast which had before blown out of thecave, now blew almost as strongly in. The arch of entrance was so low, that the top was about on a level with my waist; so that our faces andthe upper parts of our bodies were not exposed to the current, and thestrangeness of the effect was thus considerably increased. As amatter of curiosity, we lighted a _bougie_, and placed it on the edgeof the snow, at the top of the slope of 3 or 4 feet which led down thesurface of the ice, and then stood to watch the effect of the currenton the flame. The experiment proved that the currents alternated, and, as I fancied, regularly; and in order to determine, if possible, thelaw of this alternation, I observed with my watch the exact durationof each current. For twenty-two seconds the flame of the _bougie_ wasblown away from the entrance, so strongly as to assume a horizontalposition, and almost to leave the wick: then the current ceased, andthe flame rose with a stately air to a vertical position, moving downagain steadily till it became once more horizontal, but now pointingin towards the cave. This change occupied in all four seconds; and thecurrent inwards lasted--like the outward current--twenty-two seconds, and then the whole phenomenon was repeated. The currents kept suchgood time, that when I stood beyond their reach, and turned my back, Iwas enabled to announce each change with perfect precision. On oneoccasion, the flame performed its semicircle in a horizontal insteadof a vertical plane, moving round the wick in the shape of apea-flower. The day was very still, so that no external winds couldhave anything to do with this singular alternation; and, indeed, thepit was so completely sheltered by its shape, that a storm might haveraged outside without producing any perceptible effect below. It wouldbe difficult to explain the regularity of these opposite currents, butit is not so difficult to see that some such oscillation might beexpected. It will be better, however, to defer any suggestions on thispoint till the glacière has been more fully described. 

[Illustration: GROUND PLAN OF THE GLACIÈRE OF MONTHÉZY. Note: Thecandle stood at this point. ]

We passed down at length through the low archway, and stood on the floorof ice. As our eyes became accustomed to the darkness, we saw that anindistinct light streamed into the cave from some low point at aconsiderable distance, apparently on a level with the floor; and this weafterwards found to be the bottom of the larger of the two pits we hadalready fathomed, the pit A of the diagram; and we eventually discovereda similar but much smaller communication with the bottom of the pit B. In each of these pits there was a considerable pyramid of snow, whosebase was on a level with the floor of the glacière: the connectingarchway in the case of the pit A was 3 or 4 feet high, allowing us topass into the pit and round the pyramid with perfect ease, while thatleading to the pit B was less than a foot high, so that no passage couldbe forced. 

As we stood on the ice at the entrance and peered into the comparativedarkness, we saw by degrees that the glacière consisted of a continuoussea of smooth ice, sloping down very gently towards the right hand. Therock which forms the roof of the cave seemed to be almost as even as thefloor, and was from 4 to 5 feet high in the neighbourhood in which wenow found ourselves, gradually approaching the floor towards the bottomof the pit B, where it became about a foot high, and rising slightly inthat part of the cave where the floor fell, so as to give 9 or 10 feetas the height there. The ice had all the appearance of great depth; butthere were no means of forming a trustworthy opinion on this point, beyond the fact that I succeeded in lowering a stone to a considerabledepth, in the small crevice which existed between the wall and the blockof ice which formed the floor. The greatest length of the cave we foundto be 112 ft. 7 in. , and its breadth 94 ft. , the general shape of thefield of ice, which filled it to its utmost edges, being elliptical. Thesurface was unpleasantly wet, chiefly in the line of the currents, whichwere now seen to pass backwards and forwards between the pits A and C. In the neighbourhood of the pit B the water stood in a very thin sheeton the ice, which there was level, and rendered the style of locomotionnecessitated by the near approach of the roof extremely disagreeable, asI was obliged to lie on my face, and push myself along the wet andslippery ice, to explore that corner of the cave, being at lengthstopped by want of sufficient height for even that method ofprogression. 

The circle marked D represents a column from the roof, at the foot ofwhich we found a small grotto in the ice, which I entered to a depth of6 feet, the surface of the field of ice showing a very gracefullyrounded fall at the edges of the grotto. At the point E there was abeautiful collection of fretted columns, white and hard as porcelain, arranged in a semicircle, with the diameter facing the cave, measuring22 ft. 9 in. Along this face. On the farther side of these columns therewere signs of a considerable fall in the ice; and by making use of theroots of small stalagmitic columns of that material, which grew on theslope of ice, I got down into a little wilderness of spires andflutings, and found a small cave penetrating a short way under the solidice-floor. G marks the place of a free stalagmite of ice, formed under afissure in the roof; and each F represents a column from the roof, orfrom a lateral fissure in the wall. 

The most striking features of this cave were the three domes, marked Hin the ground-plan, in which they ought strictly not to appear, as beingconfined to the roof: one of them is shown also in the vertical sectionof the cave. They occur where the roof is from 3 to 4 feet above thefloor. It will be understood, that the bent attitude in which we wereobliged to investigate these parts of the cave was exceedinglyfatiguing, and we hailed with delight a sudden circular opening in theroof which enabled us to stand upright. This delight was immenselyincreased when our candles showed us that the walls of this verticalopening were profusely decorated with the most lovely forms of ice. Thefirst that we came under passed up out of sight; and in this, two solidcascades of ice hung down, high overhead, apparently broken off short, or at any rate ending very abruptly: the others did not pass so farinto the roof, and formed domes of very regular shape. In all three, thedetails of the ice-decoration were most lovely, and the effect producedby the whole situation was very curious; for we stood with our legsexposed to the alternating cold currents, the remaining part of ourbodies being imbedded as it were in the roof; while the candles in ourhands brought out the crystal ornaments of the sides, flashing fitfullyall round us and overhead, when one or other of us moved a light, as ifwe had been surrounded by diamonds of every possible size and setting. One of the domes was so small, that we were obliged to stand up by turnto examine its beauties; but in the others we all stood together. Onevery side were branching clusters of ice in the form of club-mosses, with here and there varicose veins of clear ice, and pinnacles of theprismatic structure, with limpid crockets and finials. The pipes of icewhich formed a network on the walls were in some cases so exquisitelyclear, that we could not be sure of their existence without touchingthem; and in other cases a sheet 4 or 6 inches thick was found to be noobstruction to our view of the rock on which it was formed. In one ofthe domes we had only one candle, and the bearer of this after a timecontrived to let it fall, leaving us standing with our heads in perfectdarkness; while the indistinct light which strayed about our feet showedfaintly a circle of icicles, hanging from the lower part of the dome, the fringe, as it were, of our rocky petticoats. 

In one of the lower parts of the cave, where darkness prevailed, andlocomotion was only possible on the lowest reptile principles, M. Announced that she could see clear through the ice-floor, as if therewere nothing between her and the rock below. I ventured to doubt this, for there was an air of immense thickness about the whole ice; and assoon as A. And I had succeeded in grovelling across the interveningspace, and converged upon her, we found that the appearance she hadobserved was due to a most perfect reflection of the roof, as shown bythe candles we carried, which may give some idea of the character of theice. We did not care to study this effect for any very prolonged time, inasmuch as we were obliged meanwhile to stow away the length of ourlegs on a part of the ice which was thinly covered with water, --oneresult of its proximity to the arch communicating with the smallest pit. 

It has been said that the whole ice-floor sloped slightly towards oneside of the cave, the slope becoming rather more steep near the edge. [52]Clearly, ever so slight a slope would be sufficiently embarrassing, whenthe surface was so perfectly smooth and slippery; and this added much tothe difficulty of walking in a bent attitude. On coming out of one ofthe domes, I tried progression on all-fours--threes, rather, for thecandle occupied one hand, --and I cannot recommend that method, owing tothe impossibility of putting on the break. The pace ultimately acquiredis greater than is pleasant, and the roof is too near the floor to allowof any successful attempt to bring things to an end by the reassumptionof a biped character. 

We placed a thermometer in the line of greatest current, and another ina still part of the cave. The memorandum is lost of their register--if, indeed, we ever made one, for we were more concerned with the beautiesthan the temperature was surprisingly high in the line of current, ascompared with the ordinary temperature of ice-caves. 

When we came to compare backs, after leaving the cave, we mutually foundthat they were in a very disreputable condition. The damp and raggedroof with which they had been so frequently in contact had produced amarked effect upon them, and I eventually paid a tailor in Geneva threefrancs for restoring my coat to decency. M. Took great credit to herselffor having been more careful of her back than the others, and declinedto be laughed at for forgetting that she was only about half as high asthey, to begin with. A. Still remembers the green-grey stains, as themost obstinate she ever had to deal with, especially as her three-days'knapsack contained no change for that outer part of her dress. 

The 'Ecu' gave us a charming dinner on our return; then a moderate bill, and an affectionate farewell; and we succeeded in catching the earlyevening train for Pontarlier. [53]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 48: _Aigue_, or _egue_, in the patois of this district, isequivalent to _eau_, the Latin _aqua_. ]

[Footnote 49: Ebel, in his _Swiss Manual_ (French translation of 1818, t. Iii. ), mentions this glacière under the head _Motiers_, and observesthat it and the grotto of S. Georges are the only places in the Jurawhere ice remains through the summer. This statement, in common with agreat part of Ebel, has been transferred to the letterpress of_Switzerland Illustrated_. ]

[Footnote 50: Switzerland sent 7, 500, 000 gallons of absinthe to Francein 1864. ]

[Footnote 51: _Point d'argent, point de Suisse_, is a proverbialexpression which the Swiss twist into a historical compliment, assertingthat it arose in early mercenary times, from the fact that they were toovirtuous to accept the suggestion of the general who hired them, andwished them to take their pay in kind from the defenceless people of thecountry they had served. ]

[Footnote 52: It is probable that the ice is on the increase in thisglacière, and that an archway, now filled up by the growing ice, has atone time existed in the wall on this side of the care, through which theice and water used to pour into the subterranean depths of which the oldwoman had told us. At the time of our visit, we could find no outlet. ]

[Footnote 53: The following remarks may give some explanation of thephenomenon of alternating currents in this cave, I should suppose thatduring the night there is atmospheric equilibrium in the cave itself, and in the three pits A, B, C. When the heat of the sun comes intooperation, the three pits are very differently affected by it, C beingcomparatively open to the sun's rays, while A is much less so, and B isentirely sheltered from radiation. This leads naturally to atmosphericdisturbance. The air in the pit C is made warmer and less heavy thanthat in A and B, and the consequence is, that the column of air in C canno longer balance the columns in A and B, which therefore begin todescend, and so a current of air is driven from the cave into the pit C. Owing to the elasticity of the atmosphere, even at a low temperature, this descent, and the consequent rush of air into C, will be overdone, and a recoil must take place, which accounts for the return current intothe cave from the pit C. The sun can reach A more easily than B, andthus the air is lighter and more moveable in the former pit, so that therecoil will make itself more felt in A than in B: accordingly, we foundthat the main currents alternated between A and C, with very slightdisturbance in the neighbourhood of B. B will, however, play its part, and the weighty column of air contained in it will oscillate, thoughwith smaller oscillations than in the case of A. Probably, when the sunhas left A, while acting still upon C, the return current from C will bemuch slighter, and there will be a general settling of the atmosphere inthe pits A and B, until C also is freed from the sun's action, when thewhole system will gradually pass into a state of equilibrium. 

With respect to the action of the more protected pits, the principle ofthe hydraulic ram not unnaturally suggests itself. 

In considering the minor details of the currents, such elements as therefrigeration of the air in its passage across the face of the ice mustbe taken into account. It may be observed that the candle did not occupyan _intermediate_ position with respect to two opposing currents, for itwas practically on the floor of the cave, owing to the continuity of theslope of snow on which it stood, as shown in the vertical section on p. 108. ]

 * * * * *

CHAPTER VIII. 

THE GLACIÈRE AND NEIGIÈRE OF ARC-SOUS-CICON. 

The beauties of the Val de Travers end only with the valley itself, atthe head of which a long tunnel ushers the traveller into a tamercountry, --a preparation, as it were, for France. After the border ispassed, the scenery begins to improve again, and the effect of the twocastles of Joux, the new and the old, crowning the heights on eitherside of the narrow gorge through which the railway runs, is very fine. The guide-books inform us that the Château of Joux was the place ofimprisonment of the unfortunate Toussaint L'Ouverture, and that there hedied of neglect and cold; and it was in the same strong fortress thatMirabeau was confined by his father's desire. The old castle, however, is more interesting from its connection with the history of Charles theBold, who retired to La Rivière after the battle of Morat, and spenthere those sad solitary weeks of which Philip de Comines tells with somany moral reflections; weeks of bodily and mental distress, which lefthim a mere wreck, and led to his wild want of generalship and hismiserable death at Nancy. He had melted down the church-bells in thispart of Burgundy and Vaud, to make cannon for the final effort whichfailed so fatally at Morat; and the old chroniclers relate--without anyallusion to the sacrilege--that the artillery was wretchedly served onthat cruel[54] day. It is some comfort to Englishmen to know that theirancestors under the Duke of Somerset displayed a marvellous courage onthe occasion. 

We reached Pontarlier in time for a stroll through the quiet town; butwe searched in vain for the tempting convents and gates, which weremarked on my copy of an old plan of the place, dedicated to the Princed'Arenberg, in the well-known times when he governed the FrancheComté. The convents had become for the most part breweries, and thegates had been improved away. Our enquiries respecting the place ofour destination were fortunately more successful. The idea of aglacière was new to the world of Pontarlier; but the landlord of theHôtel National had heard of Arc-sous-Cicon, and had no doubt that wecould find a carriage of some sort to take us there. His own horseswere all engaged in haymaking, but his neighbours' horses might beless busy, and accordingly he took us first to call upon M. Paget, afriend who added to his income by keeping a horse and voiture forhire. The Pagets in general had gone to bed, and the door wasfastened; but our guide seemed to know the ways of the house, and wefound Madame in the stables, and arranged with her for a carriage atseven o'clock the next morning. 

At the time appointed, M. Paget did not come, and I was obliged to goand look him up. He proved to me that it was all right, somehow, andevidently understood that his convenience, not ours, was the thing to beconsulted. The hotel is in a narrow street, and, apparently on thataccount, a stray passer-by was caught, and pressed into M. Paget'sservice to help to turn the carriage, --a feat accomplished by a bodilylifting of the hinder part, with its wheels. After-experience showedthat the narrowness of the street had nothing to with it, and wediscovered that the necessity for the manoeuvre was due to a chronicaffection of some portion of the voiture; so that whenever in the courseof the day it became necessary for us to turn round, M. Paget wasconstrained to call in foreign help. 

The country through which we passed was uninteresting in the extreme, although we had been told by the landlord that our drive would introduceus to a succession of natural beauties such as few countries in theworld could show. The line of hills, at the foot of which we expectedour route to lie, looked exceedingly tempting as seen from Pontarlier;but, to our disappointment, we left the hills and struck across theplain. About ten or eleven kilomètres from Pontarlier, however, thecharacter of the country changed suddenly, and we found the landlord'spromise in some part fulfilled. Rich meadow-slopes were broken bysolitary trees arranged in Nature's happiest style, and grey precipicesof Jurane grimness and perpendicularity encroached upon the woods andgrass. We were coming near the source of the Loue, M. Paget said, whichit would be necessary for us to visit. He told us that we must leave thecarriage at an _auberge_ on the roadside, and walk to the neighbouringvillage of Ouhans, which was inaccessible for voitures, and thence weshould easily find our way to the source. The distance, he declared, wastwenty minutes. The woman at the _auberge_ strongly recommended thesource, but did her best to dissuade us from the glacières, of which shesaid there were two. She had visited them herself, and told her husband, who had guided her, that there was nothing to see. That, we thought, proved nothing against the glacières, and her dulness of appreciation wewere willing to accept without further proof than her personalappearance. Besides, to go to the source, and not to Arc, would meandining with her; so that she was not an impartial adviser. 

M. Paget was a short square man, of very few words, and his one objectin life seemed to be to save his black horse as much as possible; avery creditable object in itself, so long as he did not go too far inhis endeavours to accomplish it. On the present occasion he certainlydid go too far. The road was quite as good as that which we had left, and there was no reason in the world why the carriage should not havetaken us to the village. Worse still, we discovered eventually thatthe 'twenty minutes' meant twenty minutes from the village to thesource, and represented really something like half the time necessaryfor that part of the march, while there was a hot and dusty walk ofhalf an hour before we reached the village. As he accompanied us inperson, we had the satisfaction of frequently telling him our mindwith insular frankness. He pretended to be much distressed, butassured us each time we returned to the charge--about every quarter ofan hour--that we were close to the desired spot. From the village tothe source, the way led us through such pleasant scenery and suchacceptable strawberries, that we only kept up our periodicalremonstrances on principle, and, after we had wound rapidly downthrough a grand defile, and turned a sudden angle of the rock, thefirst sight of that which we had come to see amply repaid us all thetrouble we had gone through. The source of the Orbe is sufficientlystriking, but the Loue is by far more grand at the moment of itsbirth. The former is a bright fairy-like stream, gushing out of asmall cavern at the foot of a lofty precipice clothed with clingingtrees; but the Loue flows out from the bottom of an amphitheatricalrock much more lofty and unbroken. The stream itself is broader anddeeper, and glides with an infinitely more majestic calmness from avast archway in the rock, into the recesses of which the eye canpenetrate to the point where the roof closes in upon the water, and socuts off all further view. The calmness of the flow may be in partattributed to a weir, which has been built across the stream at themouth of the cave, for the purpose of driving a portion of the waterinto a channel which conveys it to various mill-wheels; for, at a veryshort distance below the weir, the natural stream makes a fall of 17feet, so that, if left to itself, it might probably rush out moreimpetuously from its mysterious cavern. The weir is a single timber, below the surface, fixed obliquely across the stream on a shelvingbank of masonry, and the farther end meets the wall of rock inside thecave. Near it we saw some glorious hart's-tongue ferns, which excitedour desires, and I took off boots and stockings, and endeavoured tomake my way along the weir; but the face of the masonry was so veryslippery, and the nails in the timber so unpleasant for bare feet, andthe stream was so unexpectedly strong, that I called to mind theproverbial definition of the better part of valour, and came backwithout having achieved the ferns. The biting coldness of the water, and the boiling of the fall close below the weir, did not add to myconfidence in making the attempt, but I should think that in a morefavourable state of the water the cave might be very well explored bytwo men going alone. The day penetrated so completely into thefarthest corners, that when I got half-way along the weir, I coulddetect the oily look on the surface where it first saw the light, which showed where the water was quietly streaming up from its unknownsources. The people in the neighbourhood were unable to suggest anylake or lakes of which this river might be the subterranean drainage. It is liable to sudden and violent overflows, which seldom last morethan twenty-four hours; and from the destruction of property caused bythese outbursts, the name of _La Loue_, sc. _La Louve_, has been givento it. The rocky valley through which the river runs, after leavingits underground channel, is exceedingly fine, and we wandered alongthe precipices on one side, enjoying the varying scenes so much thatwe could scarcely bring ourselves to turn; each bend of the frettingriver showing a narrow gorge in the rock, with a black rapid, and afoaming fall. It is said that although the mills on the Doubs aresometimes stopped from want of water, those which derive their motivepower from this strange and impressive cavern have never known thesupply to fail. 

Before we started for our ramble among the woods and precipices whichoverhang the farther course of the Loue, we had sent off M. Paget to the_auberge_, with strict orders that he should at once get out the blackhorse, and bring the carriage to meet us at Ouhans, as one of us was notin so good order for walking as usual, and the day was fast slippingaway. Of course we saw nothing of him when we reached Ouhans; and as itwas not prudent to wait for his arrival there, which might never takeplace, we walked through the broiling sun in the direction of the_auberge_, and at last saw him coming, pretending to whip his horse asif he were in earnest about the pace. We somewhat sullenly assisted himto turn the old carriage round, and then bade him drive as hard as hecould to Arc-sous-Cicon, still a long way off. This he said he would doif he knew which was the way; but since he was last there, as a muchyounger man, there had been a general change in the matter of roads, andhow the new ones lay he did not know. This was not cheerfulintelligence, especially as we had set our hearts upon getting back toPontarlier in time for the evening train, which would give us a night atthe charming _Bellevue_ at Neufchâtel, instead of the poisonous coffeeand the trying odours of the _National_: the old man's instinct, however, led him right, and we reached Arc at half-past twelve. Oneobstacle to our journey on the new road promised at first to beinsurmountable, being an immense _sapin_, the largest I have seenfelled, which lay on a combination of wood-chairs straight across theroad. It had been brought down a narrow side-road through a wheat-field, and one end occupied this road, while the other was jammed against thewall on the opposite side of the main road; and half-a-dozen men, withas many draught oxen, were mainly endeavouring to turn it in the rightdirection. M. Paget knew how much was required to turn his own carriage, and he calculated that the road would not be free for two or threehours, which involved a rest for his black horse, a pipe for himself, and, possibly, a short sleep. The oxen were lazy, and their hidesimpervious; the whips were cracked in vain, and in vain were broughtmore directly to bear upon the senses of the recusants; the men howled, and rattled the chains, and re-arranged the clumsy head-gear, but all tono purpose. The man who did most of the howling was a black Burgundiandwarf, in a long blouse and moustaches; and he did it in so frightful apatois, that the oxen were right in their refusal to understand. Werepresented to M. Paget that it would be possible to make our waythrough the wheat; but he declared himself perfectly happy where he was, and declined to take any steps in the matter; whereupon I assumed thecommand of the expedition, and led the horse through the corn, thusturning the flank of the _sapin_ and its attendants. Our driversubmitted to this act of violence much as a member of the Society ofFriends allows a chamberlain to remove his hat from behind when he isfavoured with an audience of the sovereign; and when we regained thehigh road, he meekly took up the reins and drove us at a good pace toArc. 

The village lies in a curiously open plain, with a girdle of hills, inone of which the glacières were supposed to lie. The first _auberge_refused us admittance, on the ground that the dinner was allpre-engaged, and the result was that we found a pleasanter place higherup the village, near a vast new _maison de ville_ with every windowshattered by recent hail. The people groaned over the unnecessaryexpense of this huge building, which might well, from its size, havebeen a home for the whole village; and they told us that the communalforests had been terribly over-cut to provide the money for it. Ourfirst demand was for food; our next, for a guide to the glacières. Foodwe could have; but why _should_ we wish to go to the glacières, whenthere was so much else worth seeing at a little distance?--a guide mightwithout doubt be found, but there was nothing to be seen when we gotthere. We ordered prompt dinner, anything that happened to be ready, anddesired the landlord to look out for a man to show us the way up thehills. When the dinner came, it was cold; and the main dish consistedapparently of something which had made stock for many generations ofsoup, and had then been kept in a half-warm state, ready to be heatedfor any passer-by who called for hot meat, till the cook had despairedof its ever being used, and had allowed it to become cold: at least, noother supposition seemed to account for its utter want of flavour, andthe wonderful development of its fibres. As a matter of politeness, Iasked the man what it was; when he took the dish from the table, smelledat it, and pronounced it veal. 

There were also several specimens of the original old turnip-radish, with large shrubs of heads, and mature feelers many inches long. As allthis was not very inviting, we ordered an omelette and some cheese; andwhen the omelette came, we found that the cook had combined our ideasand understood our order to mean a cheese-omelette, which was not so badafter all. 

By this time, the landlord's visit to his drinking-room had procured aman willing to act as our guide. He was, unfortunately, more willingthan able; for his sojourn in the drinking-room had told upon hispowers of equilibrium. He asserted, as every one seemed in all casesto assert, that neither rope nor axe was in any way necessary. When Ipressed the rope, he said that if monsieur was afraid he had betternot go; so we told the landlord privately that the man was rather toodrunk for a guide, and we must have another. The landlord thereuponoffered himself, at the suggestion of his wife, who seemed to be thechief partner in the firm, and we were glad to accept his offer; whilethe incapacitated man whom we had rejected acquiesced in the newarrangement with a bow so little withering, and with such genuinepoliteness, that, in spite of his over-much wine, he won my heart. Thelandlord himself did not profess to know the glacières; but he knewthe man who lived nearest to them, and proposed to lead us to hisfriend's châlet, whence we should doubtless be able to find a guide. 

We stole a few moments for an inspection of the Church of Arc, andfound, to our surprise, some very pleasing paintings in good repair, andopen sittings which looked unusually clean and neat. Then we crossed theplain towards the north, and proceeded to grapple with a stiff paththrough the woods which climb the first hills. It turned out that therewas no one available for our purpose in the châlet to which the landlordled us; but a small child was despatched in search of the master or thedomestic, and returned before long with the latter individual, whoreceived the mistress's instruction respecting the route, and receivedalso an axe which I had begged in case of need. The accounts we hadheard of the glacière or glacières--every one declined to call themcaves--were so various, and the total denials of their existence somany, that we quietly made up our minds to disappointment, and agreedthat what we had seen at the source of the Loue was quite sufficient torepay us for the trouble we had taken; while the idea of a rapid raidinto France had something attractive in it, which more thancounterbalanced the old charms of Soleure. Besides, we found that wewere now in a good district for flowers, and the abundant _Gnaphaliumsylvaticum_ brought back to our minds many a delightful scramble inglacier regions, where its lovely velvet kinsman the _pied-de-lion_grows. On the broad top of the range of hills, covered with rich grass, we came upon large patches of a plant, with scented leaves and pungentseeds, which we had not known before, _Meum athamanticum_, and, toplease our guide, we went through the form of pretending that we ratherliked its taste. My sisters were in ecstasies of triumph over a wildeverlasting-pea, which grew here to a considerable height--_Lathyrussylvestris_, they said, Fr. _Gesse sauvage_, distinct from _G. Hétéropyhlle, _ which is still larger, and is almost confined to afavourite place of sojourn with us, the little Swiss valley of LesPlans. It is said that on the top of these hills springs of water riseto the surface, though there is no higher ground in the neighbourhood; aphenomenon which has been accounted for by the supposition of adifference of specific gravity between these springs and the waterswhich drive them up. 

The character of the ground on the plateau changed suddenly, and wepassed at one step, apparently, from a meadow of flowers to a wildernessof fissured rock, lying white and skeleton-like in the afternoon sun. Weonly skirted this rock in the first instance, and made for a clump oftrees some little way off, in which we found a deep pit, with a path ofsufficient steepness leading to the bottom. Here we came to a collectionof snow, much sheltered by overhanging rocks and trees; and this, ourguide told us, was the _neigière_, a word evidently formed on the sameprinciple as _glacière_. The snow was half-covered with leaves, and wasunpleasantly wet to our feet, so that we did not spend much time on it, or rather in it. A huge fragment of rock had at some time or otherfallen from overhead, and now occupied a large part of the slopingbottom of the pit: by squeezing myself through a narrow crevice betweenthis and the live rock, which looked as if it ought to lead tosomething, I found a veritable ice-cave, unhappily free from ornament, and of very small size, like a round soldier's tent in shape, with wallsof rock and floor of ice. We afterwards found an easier entrance to thecave; but the floor was so wet, and the constant drops of water from theroof so little agreeable, that we got out again as soon as possible, especially as this was not the glacière we had come to see. 

When we reached the surface once more, the landlord and the domesticboth assured us that the _neigière_ was the great sight, the glacièrebeing nothing at all, but, such as it was, they would lead us to it. They took us to the fissured rock mentioned above; and when we lookeddown into the fissures, we saw that some of them were filled at thebottom with ice. They were not the ordinary fissures, like the crevassesof a glacier, but rather disconnected slits in the surface, opening intolarger chambers in the heart of the rock, where the ice lay. In one partof this curious district the surface sank considerably, and showednothing but a tumbled collection of large stones and rocks, piled in amost disorderly manner. By examining the neighbourhood of the larger ofthese rocks, we found a burrow, down which one of the men and I made ourway, and thus, after some windings in the interior, reached a point fromwhich we could descend to the ice. The impression conveyed to my mindby the whole appearance of the rock and ice was not unlike that of thedomes in the Glacière of Monthézy; only that now the lower part of thedome was filled with ice, and we stood in the upper part. There were twoor three of these domes, communicating one with another, and in all Ifound abundant signs of the prismatic structure, though no columns orwall-decoration remained. My sisters were accomplished in the art ofburrowing, but they did not care to come down, and we soon rejoinedthem, spending a little time in letting down lighted _bougies_ into thevarious domes and fissures, in order to study the movements of the air, but our experiments did not lead to much. 

The landlord had evidently not believed in the existence of ice insummer, and his first thought was to take some home to his wife, toprove that we had reached the glacière and had found ice: such at leastwere the reasons he gave, but evidently his soul was imbued with a deepobedience to that better half, and the offering of a block of ice wassuggested by a complication of feelings. When we reached the _auberge_again, we found the rejected guide still there, and more unstable thanbefore. The general impression on his mind seemed to be that he had beenwronged, and had forgiven us. In our absence he had been meditating uponthe glacière, and his imagination had brought him to a very exalted ideaof its wonders. Whereas, in the former part of the day, he had stoutlyasserted that no cord could possibly be necessary, he now vehementlyaffirmed that if I had but taken him as guide, he would have let me downinto holes 40 mètres deep, where I should have seen such things as manhad never seen before. Had monsieur seen the source of the Loue? Yes, monsieur had. Very fine, was it not? Yes, very fine. Which did monsieurthen prefer--the glacière, or the source? The source, infinitely. _Then_it was clear monsieur had not seen the glacière:--he was sure beforethat monsieur had not, _now_ it was quite clear, for in all the worldthere was nothing like that glacière. The Loue!--one might rather seethe glacière once, than live by the source of the Loue all the days ofone's life. 

It was now five o'clock, and the train left Pontarlier at half-pastseven. We represented to M. Paget that he really ought to do the twentykilomètres in two hours and a quarter, which would leave us a quarter ofan hour to arrange our knapsacks and pay the _National_. He promised todo his best, and certainly the black horse proved himself a most willingbeast. There was one long hill which damped our spirits, and made usgive up the idea of catching the train; and here our driver came to therescue with what sounded at first like a promising story--the only onewe extracted from him all through the day--_à propos_ of amemorial-stone on the road-side, where a man had lately been killed bytwo bears; but, when we came to examine into it, the romance vanished, for the man was a brewer's waggoner with a dray of beer, and the bearswere tame bears, led in a string, which frightened the brewer's horses, and so the man was killed. Contrary to our expectations and fears, wedid catch the train, and arrived in a thankful frame of mind atcomfortable quarters in Neufchâtel. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 54: _Cruel comme à Morat_ was long a popular saying. ]

 * * * * *

CHAPTER IX. 

THE SCHAFLOCH, OR TROU-AUX-MOUTONS, NEAR THE LAKE OF THUN. 

The next morning, my sisters went one way and I another; they to avalley in the south-west of Vaud, where our head-quarters were to beestablished for some weeks, and I to Soleure, where a Swiss _savant_ hadvaguely told us he believed there was a glacière to be seen. That town, however, denied the existence of any approach to such a thing, with aunanimity which in itself was suspicious, and with a want of imaginationwhich I had not expected to find. One man I really thought might bepersuaded to know of some cave where there was or might be ice, butafter a quarter of an hour's discussion he finally became immovable onthe negative side. A Frenchman would certainly have been polite enoughto accommodate facts to my desires. It was all the more annoying, because the Weissenstein stood overhead so engagingly, and I should havebeen only too glad to spend the night in the hotel there, if anyone hadgiven me the slightest encouragement. I specially pointed at theneighbourhood of this hotel to my doubtful friend, as being likely forcaves; but he was not in the pay of the landlord, and so failed to takethe hint. There is a curious hole in which ice is found nearWeissenstein in Carniola, [55] and it is not impossible that this mayhave originated the idea of a glacière near Soleure. 

The Schweizerhof at Berne is a very comfortable resting-place; but, inspite of its various excellences, if a tired traveller is told that No. 53 is to be his room, he will do well to seek a bed elsewhere. No. 53 isa sort of closet to some other number, with a single window opening lowon to the passage, and is adjudged to the unfortunate individual whoarrives at that omnipresent crisis which raises the charge forbed-rooms, and silences all objections to their want of comfort--namely, when there is only one bed left in the house. In itself, No. 53 would bewell enough; but the throne of the chambermaid is in the passage, by theside of the window, and the male attendant on that particular stagenaturally gravitates to the same point, when the bells of the stage donot summon him elsewhere, and often enough when they do. Thiscombination leads of course to local disturbances of a somewhat noisycharacter, and however entirely a sleepy man may in principle sympathisewith the causes of the noise, it becomes rather hard to bear aftermidnight. The precise actors on the present occasion have, no doubt, quarrelled or set up a _café_ before now, or perhaps have achieved bothresults by taking the latter first; but there is reason to believe thatso long as the window of No. 53 is the seat of the chambermaid for thetime being, so long will that room be--as the landlord neatly expressedit when a protest was made--_etwas unruhig_. 

All Switzerland has been playing at soldiers for some time, and as weleft Berne the next morning, we saw three or four hundred Federal men ofwar marching down the road which runs parallel with the rails. The threeofficers at the head of the column were elderly and stout; moreover, they were mounted, and that fact was evidently due rather to themeekness of their chargers than to the grip of their own legs. When theysaw the train coming, they took prompt measures. They halted the troops, and rode off down a side lane to be out of harm's way; and when we hadwell passed, they rejoined the column, and the march was resumed. 

The early train from Berne catches the first boat on the Lake of Thun, and I landed at the second station on the lake, the village of Gonten orGunten. M. Thury's list states that the glacière known as the Schaflochis on the Rothhorn, in the Canton of Berne, 4, 500 mètres of horizontaldistance from Merligen, a village on the shore of the lake; and fromthese data I was to find the cave. Gonten was apparently the neareststation to Merligen, and as soon as the small boat which meets thesteamer had deposited me on the shore, I asked my way, first to the_auberge_, and then to Merligen. The _auberge_ was soon found, andcoffee and bread were at once ordered for breakfast; but when the peoplelearned my eventual destination, they would not let me go to Merligen. Aman, to whom--for no particular reason--I had given two-pence, called acouncil of the village upon me, and they proceeded to determine whetherI must have a guide from Gonten, or only from a nameless châlet higherup. The discussion was noisy, and was conducted without words: they donot speak, those men of Gonten--they merely grunt, and each interpretsthe grunts as he wills. My two-penny friend told me what it all meant, in an obliging manner, but in words less intelligible than the grunts;and one member of the council drew out so elaborate a route--the verycharacters being wild patois--splitting the morning into quarter-stundesand half-quarter-stundes, with a sharp turn to the right or left at theend of each, that, as I drank my coffee, I determined to take a guidefrom the village, whatever the decision of the council might be. Fortunately, things took a right turn, and when breakfast was finished, a deputation went out and found a guide, suspiciously like one of theirnumber who did not return, and I was informed that Christian Opligerwould conduct me to the Schafloch for five francs, and a _Trinkgeld_ ifI were satisfied with him. In order to prove to me that he had reallybeen at the cave, six days before, with two Bernese gentlemen, he seizedmy favourite low-crowned white hat, and endeavoured to knead it into theshape of the cave. 

Our affairs took a long time to arrange, for grunts and pantomime arenot rapid means of communication, when it comes to detail. The greatquestion in Christian's mind seemed to be, what should we take with usto eat and drink? and when he propounded this to me with steadypertinacity, I, with equal pertinacity, had only one answer--a cord anda hatchet. At last he provided these, vowing that they were ridiculouslyunnecessary, but comprehending that they must be forthcoming, as apreliminary to anything more digestible; and then I told him, some drybread and no wine. This drove him from grunts to words. No wine! itwould be so frightfully hot on the mountains!--I told him I never drankwine when I was hot. But it would be so terribly cold in the cave!--Inever drank wine when I was cold. But the climbing was _sehr stark_--weshould need to give ourselves strength!--I never needed to give myselfstrength. There was no good water to be found the whole way!--I neverdrank water. Then, at last, after a brief grunt with the landlord, hestruck:--he simply would not go without wine! I never wished him to doso, I explained; he might take as much as he chose, and I would pay forit, but he need not count me for anything in calculating how much wasnecessary. This made him perfectly happy; and when I answered hisquestion touching cheese in a similar manner, only limiting him to apound and a half, he rushed off for a large wicker _hotte_, spaciousenough for the stowage of many layers of babies; and in it he packed allour properties, and all his provisions. The landlord had made his owncalculations, and put it at 3lbs. Of bread and 2lbs. Of cheese; but Icut down the bread on account of its bulk, before I saw the size of the_hotte_, and Christian seemed to think he had quite enough to carry. 

It was about half-past nine when we started from the _auberge_; andafter a short mount in the full sun, we were not sorry to reach thepleasant shade of walnut trees which accompanied us for a considerabledistance. The blue lake lay at our feet on the right, and beyond it theNiesen stood, with wonted grandeur, guarding its subject valleys; morein front, as we ascended transversely, the well-known snow-peaks of theBernese Oberland glittered high above the nearer foreground, and, sheerabove us, on the left, rose the ragged precipices whose flank we were toturn. The Rothhorn of the Canton Berne lies inland from the Lake ofThun, and sends down towards the lake a ridge sufficiently lofty, terminating in the Ralligstöcke, or Ralligflue, the needle-like point, so prettily ridged with firs, which advances its precipitous sides tothe water. These precipices were formed in historic times, and the sheerface from which half a mountain has been torn stands now as clear andfresh as ever, while a chaos of vast blocks at its foot gives a point tothe local legends of devastation and ruin caused by the variousberg-falls. Two such falls are clearly marked by the _débris_: one ofthese, a hundred and fifty years ago, reduced the town of Ralligen to asolitary Schloss; and the other, in 1856, overwhelmed the village ofMerligen, and converted its rich pastures into a desert cropped withstones. A traveller in Switzerland, at the beginning of this century, found that the inhabitants of Merligen were considered in theneighbourhood to be _d'une stupidité et d'une bêtise extrêmes_, and Iam inclined to believe that after the last avalanche a general migrationto Gonten must have taken place. 

Christian's patois was of so hopeless a description, that I was temptedto give it up in despair, and walk on in silence. Still, as we weretogether for a whole long day, for better or for worse, it seemed worthwhile to make every effort to understand each other, else I could learnno local tales and legends, and Christian would earn but little_Trinkgeld_; so we struggled manfully against our difficulties. Aconfident American lady, meditating Europe, and knowing little Frenchand no German, is said to have remarked jauntily that if the worst cameto the worst she could always talk on her fingers to the peasants; but Idid not attempt to avail myself of the results of early practice in thatuniversal language. Christian's answers--the more intelligible parts ofthem--were a stratified succession of _yes_ and _no_, and as he was aman naturally polite and acquiescent, the assentient strata were of morefrequent occurrence; but of course, beyond showing his good-will, suchanswers were of no practical value. At length, after long perseverance, we were rewarded by the appearance of a curiosity which eventually gaveeach the key to the other's cipher. This was a strong stream of water, flowing out of the trunk of a growing tree, at a height of six feet orso from the ground; and I was so evidently interested in the phenomenon, that Christian exerted himself to the utmost, at last with success, toexplain the construction of the fountain. A healthy poplar, seven oreight years old, is taken from its native soil, and a cold iron borer isrun up the heart of the trunk from the roots, for six feet or more, bywhich means the pith is removed, and the trunk is made to assume thecharacter of a pipe. A hole is then bored through from the outside ofthe trunk, to communicate with the highest point reached by the formeroperation, and in this second hole a spout is fixed. The same is doneat a very short distance above the root, in the part of the trunk whichwill be buried in the earth when the tree is replanted, and the poplaris then fixed in damp ground, with the pipe at its root in connectionwith one of the little runs of water which abound in meadows at the footof hills. A well-known property of fluids produces then the strangeeffect of an unceasing flow of water from an iron spout in the trunk ofa living tree; and, as poplars love water, the fountain-tree thrives, and is more vigorous than its neighbours. This sort of fountain may becommon in some parts of Switzerland, but I have not seen them myselfexcept in this immediate neighbourhood. There is said to be one nearStachelberg. 

In the endeavour to explain all this to me, Christian succeeded soperfectly, that for the rest of the day we understood each other verywell. When I told him that he spoke much better German than the rest ofthe people in Gonten, he informed me that he had worked amongforeigners, in proof whereof he held out his fingers; but all that Icould gather from the invited inspection was, that, whatever hisemployment might have been, he could not be said to have come out of itwith clean hands. He had been employed, he explained, in Germandye-works, and there had learned something better than the nativepatois. About this time, too, I was able to make him understand that, ashe carried more than I, he must call a halt whenever he felt soinclined; upon which he patted me affectionately on the back, and, if Icould remember the word he used, I believe that I should now know theSwiss-German for a brick. 

Our object was to pass along the side of the lake, at a considerableelevation, till we reached the east side of the Rothhorn range, when wewere to turn up the Jüstisthal, and mount towards the highest point ofthe ridge, the glacière lying about an hour below the summit, in theface of the steep rock. The cliffs became very grand on either side, assoon as we entered this valley, the Jüstisthal, especially theprecipices of the Beatenberg on the right; and our path lay throughwoods which have sprung up on the site of an early _Berg-lauine. _ Theguide-books call attention to a cavern with a curious intermittentspring in this neighbourhood. English tourists should feel some interestin the Cave of S. Beatus, inasmuch as its canonised occupant went fromour shores to preach the Gospel to the wild men of the district, anddied in this cave at a very advanced age. His relics remaining there, his fête-day attracted such crowds of pilgrims, that reforming Bernesent two deputies in 1528 to carry off the saint's skull, and bury itbetween the lakes; but still the pilgrimages continued, and at lengththe Protestant zeal of Berne went to the expense of a wall, and theybuilt the pilgrims out in 1566. S. Beatus is said to have been convertedby S. Barnabas in Britain, and to have gone to Rome, whence S. Petersent him out to preach. His relics were conveyed to Lucerne in 1554, because heresy prevailed in the country where his cave lies, and an armis among the proud possessions of pilgrim-pressed Einsiedeln. The saintwas originally a British noble, by name Suetonius; and Dempster drops aletter from his name, and with much ingenuity makes him collateralancestor of a Scottish family--'The Setons, tall and proud. '[56]

When we arrived at the last châlet, Christian turned to mount the grassslope on our left hand, which led to the part of the rocks in which theentrance to the Schafloch was to be sought. I never climbed up grass sosteep, and before we had gone very far we were hailed by a succession ofgrunts, which my companion interpreted into assurances from someinvisible person that we were going wrong. The man soon appeared, in theshape of a charcoal-burner, and told us that we were making the ascentmuch more difficult than it need be made, and also, that we should cometo some awkward rock-climbing by the route we had chosen. It was toolate, however, to turn back; so we persevered. 

Before long, I heard a _Meinherr_! from Christian, in a tone which Iknew meant rest and some food. He explained that he would rather taketwo small refreshments, one here and one at the Schafloch, than onelarge refreshment at the cave; so we propped ourselves on the grass, andtapped the _hotte_. The cheese proved to be delightful--six years old, the landlady told us afterwards, and apparently as hard as a bone, butwhen once mastered its flavour was admirable. Christian persuaded me totaste the wine, of which he had a high opinion, and he was electrifiedby the universal shudder the one taste caused. The grapes from which itwas brewed had been grown in a gooseberry garden, and all the saccharinematter carefully extracted; the wine had been left without a cork sincethe first dawn of its existence, and the heat and jolting of its travelson Christian's back had reduced it to the condition of warm flatvinegar. He drank it with the utmost relish, and was evidentlyreconciled to my verdict by the consideration that there would be allthe more for him. 

From the appearance of the bread and cheese when the meal had come to anend, I concluded that my companion had changed his mind in the course offeeding, and had resolved to compress the whole eating of the day intoone large refreshment here. The consumptive powers of the Swiss-Germanpeasant, when his meal is franked, has not unfrequently reminded me ofthe miraculous eating performed by a yellow domino of that nation, atthe fête by which Louis XIV. Celebrated the second marriage of theDauphin. This domino was of large size, and ate and drank voraciouslythroughout the entertainment, which lasted many hours, retiring everyfive minutes or so, and returning speedily with unabated appetite. Thething became at length so portentous, that enquiries were instituted, and it was found that the trusty _Cent-Suisses_ had joined at a domino, and were drawing lots all through the evening for the next turn ateating; so that each man's time was necessarily limited, and heaccordingly made the most of it. 

We soon took to the rocks, and found them, as the charcoal-burner hadpromised, sufficiently stiff work. Colonel (now General) Dufour visitedthe Schafloch with a party of officers in 1822, and he describes[57] thepath as a dangerous one, so much so that several of the gallant membersof his party could not reach the cave: he uses rather large words aboutthe precipices, and it is a matter of observation that military serviceon the Continent tends to induce a habit of body which is not the mostsuitable for doubtful climbing. The mountain seemed to be composed, inthis part, of horizontal layers of crumbling shale, with a layer now andthen of stone, about the thickness of an ordinary house-tile. The stonelayers project from the looser masonry, and afford an excellentfoot-hold; but a slip might be unpleasant. Every one who has done even asmall amount of climbing has met with an abundance of places where 'aslip would be certain death, ' as people are so fond of saying; butequally he has discovered that a slip is the last thing he thinks ofmaking in such situations. Christian had told me that if I had theslightest tendency to _Schwindelkopf_, I must not go by the improvisedroute; but it proved that there were really no precipices at all, muchless any of sufficient magnitude to turn an ordinary head dizzy. Hechose these rocks as the text for a long sermon on the necessity forgreat caution when we should arrive at the cave, telling of anEnglishman who had tried to visit it two years before, and had cut hisknee so badly with his guide's axe that he had to be carried down themountain to Gonten, and thence to the steamer for Thun, in which town helay for many weeks in the hands of the German doctor; this lastassertion being by no means incredible. Also, of a native who attemptedthe cave alone, and, making one false step near the top of a fall ofice, slipped down and down almost for ever, and finally landed withbroken limbs on a floor of ice, where he was found, two days after, frozen stiff, but still alive. 

It was not necessary to mount much, for we were almost as high as themouth of the cave, according to Christian's belief, and our workconsisted chiefly in passing along the face of the rock, roundprojecting buttresses and re-entering angles, till we reached that partof the mountain where we might expect to find our glacière. While wewere thus engaged, two hoarse and ominous ravens took us under theircharge, and accompanied us with unpleasant screams, which argued theproximity of food or nest. We soon found that we had disturbed theirmeal, for we came to marks of blood, and saw that some animal hadslipped on the rocks above, and landed on the ledge on which we werewalking, bounding off again on to a shelf below, where the ravens hadalready torn the body to pieces. I must confess to a very considerableshudder when we discovered the reason of their screams, and neither ofus seemed to enjoy the circling and croaking of the unclean birds. 

Very soon after this, Christian announced that we had reached the cave, and a steep little climb of six feet or so brought us to the entrance. Here we were haunted still by the presence of pieces of the fallen goat, which lay about here and there on the ground; and the flutter of wingsoverhead explained to us that the old ravens had built their nest in themouth of the cave, and had brought morsels of raw flesh to their youngones, which were scarcely able to fly. I am ashamed to say that we wereso angry with the old birds for shrieking so suggestively in our ears, and parading before us the results of a slip on the rocks, that wecharged ourselves with stones, and put an end to the most noisy memberof the foul brood; Christian making some of the worst shots it ispossible to conceive, and raining blocks of stone and lumps of wood inall directions, with such reckless impartiality, that the only safeplace seemed to be between him and the bird. One of us, at least, regretted the useless cruelty as soon as it was perpetrated, and it cameback upon me very reproachfully at an awkward part of our returnjourney. 

The Schafloch does not take its name from the bones contained in it, asis the case with the Kühloch in Franconia, [58] but from the fact thatwhen a sudden storm comes on, the sheep and goats make their way to thecave for shelter, never, I was told, going so far as the commencement ofthe ice. The entrance faces ESE. , and is of large size, with a low wallbuilt partly across it to increase the shelter for the sheep: Dufourcalls the entrance 50 feet wide and 25 feet high, but I found the widthat the narrowest part, a few yards within the entrance, to be 33feet. [59] For a short distance the cave passes horizontally into therock, in a westerly direction, and is quite light; it then turns sharpto the south, the floor beginning to fall, and candles becomingnecessary. Here the height increases considerably, and the way lies overa wild confusion of loose masses of rock, which have apparently fallenfrom the roof, and make progression very difficult. We soon reached apoint where ice began to appear among the stones; and as we advanced itbecame more and more prominent, till at length we lost sight of therock, and stood on solid ice. 

On either side of the cave was a grand column of ice forming theportal, as it were, through which we must pass to further beauties. The ice-floor rose to meet these columns in a graceful swelling curve, perfectly continuous, so that the general effect was that of twocolumns whose roots expanded and met in the middle of the cave; and, indeed, that may have been really the order of formation. Theright-hand column was larger than its fellow, but, owing to the moregradual expansion of the lower part of its height, and the steepnessof the consequent slope, we were unable to measure its girth at anypoint where it could be fairly called a column. Christian had been inthe cave a few days before, and he assured me that the swelling baseof this column had increased very considerably since his last visit, pointing out a solid surface of ice, at one part of our track, wherehe had before walked on bare rock. The cave was by no means extremelycold, that is to say, it was rather above than below the freezingpoint, and the splashing of drops of water was audible on all sides;so that, if Christian spoke the truth, --it was sad to be so oftenreminded of Legree's plaintive soliloquy in the opening pages of'Uncle Tom's Cabin, '--the explanation, I suppose, might be that thedrops of water, falling on the top of the column or stalagmite, rundown the sides, and carry with them some melted portion from the upperpart of the column, and after a course of a few yards become so farrefrigerated as to form ice. [60] The pillar on the left was moreapproachable, but we were unable to determine its dimensions; for onthe outer side, where it stood a few feet or yards clear of the sideof the cave, the rounded ice at its foot fell off at once into a darkchasm, a sort of smooth enticing _Bergschrund_, which we did not careto face. Christian declared that this column was not so high as it wasa day or two before, which may go to support the theory expressedabove, or at least that part of it which depends upon the suppositionof water dropping on to the head of the column, and melting certainportions of it. 

If we were unable to take the external dimensions of this column, Ihad no doubt that we should find internal investigations interesting;so, to Christian's surprise, I began to chop a hole in it, about twofeet from the ground, and, having made an entrance sufficiently large, proceeded to get into the cavity which presented itself. The flooringof the dome-shaped grotto in which I found myself, was loose rock, ata level about two feet below the surface of the ice-floor on whichChristian still stood. The dome itself was not high enough to allow meto stand upright, and from the roof, principally from the centralpart, a complex mass of delicate icicles passed down to the floor, leaving a narrow burrowing passage round, which was itself invaded byicicles from the lower part of the sloping roof, and by stubbornstalagmites of ice rising from the floor. [61] The details of thiscentral cluster of icicles, and in fact of every portion of theinterior of the strange grotto, were exceedingly lovely, and I crushedwith much regret, on hands and knees, through fair crystal forests andfrozen dreams of beauty. In making the tour of this grotto, contortingmy body like a snake to get in and out among the ice-pillars, and doas little damage as might be, but yet, with all my care, accompaniedby the incessant shiver and clatter of breaking and falling ice, Icame to a hole in the ground, too dark and deep for one candle to showits depth; so I called to Christian to come in, thinking that twocandles might show it better. He asked if I really meant it, andassured me he could be of no use; but I told him that he must come, and informed him that he, being the smaller man, would find thepassage quite easy. It was very fortunate that I had not waited aminute longer before summoning him, for just as he had dropped intothe hollow, and was beginning his journey to the side where I now was, a drop of water and a simultaneous icicle came upon my candle, andleft me in darkness, curled up like a dormouse in a nest of ice, atthe edge of the newly discovered shaft; while my troubles were broughtto a climax by an incursion of icy drops, which had me at their mercy. If all this had happened while Christian was still outside, he wouldprobably have staid there wringing his hands till it was time to gohome, and I should certainly not have liked to move without a light. As it was, I did not inform him of the catastrophe, but let him cometoiling on, wondering audibly what madness could drive Herrschaft intosuch places; and when he arrived, we cut off the wet wick, and lightedthe candle again. We could make nothing of the hole, so he returned bythe way he had come, and I completed the tour of the grotto, findingthe same difficult passage, and the same ice beauties, all the wayround. 

Having squeezed ourselves out again through the narrow hole, we nowpassed between the two gigantic columns, and found that the sea of icebecame still broader and bolder. I much regret that I neglected to takeany measurements in this part of the cave; but farther down, where itwas certainly not so broad, I found the width of the ice to be 75 feet. It was throughout of the crystalline character which prevails in all thelarge masses in the glacières I have visited. For some distance beyondthe columns, we found neither stalactites nor stalagmites--indeed, Iforgot to look at the roof--until we came to the edge of a gloriousice-fall, down which Christian said it was impossible to go--no one hadever been farther than where we now stood. I have seen no subterraneanice-fall so grand as this, round and smooth, and perfectly unbroken, passing down, like the rapids of some river too deep for its surface tobe disturbed, into darkness against which two candles prevailed nothing. The fall in the Upper Glacière of the Pré de S. Livres was strangeenough, but it was very small, and led to a confined corner of thecavern; whereas this of the Schafloch rolls down majestically, cold andgrey, into a dark gulf of which we could see neither the roof nor theend, while the pieces of ice which we despatched down the steep slopecould be heard going on and on, as M. Soret says, _à une très-grandedistance_. The shape, also, of the fall was very striking. Beginning atthe left wall of the cave, the edge ran out obliquely towards themiddle, when it suddenly turned and struck straight across to theright-hand wall, so that we were able to stand on a tongue, as it were, in the middle of the top of the fall. To add to the effect, preciselyfrom this tongue or angle a fine column of ice sprang out of the verycrest of the fall, rising to or towards the roof, and to this we clungto peer down into the darkness. 

The rope we had brought was not long, and the idea was hopeless ofcutting steps down this great fall, leading we knew not where, with anincline which it frightened Christian even to look at. I began toconsider, however, whether it was not possible to make our way down theleft branch of the ice, which fell rather towards the side wall thaninto the dark gulf below. On examining more closely, I found that alarge stone, or piece of rock, projected from the face of this branch ofthe fall, about 12 feet from the top, and to this I determined todescend, as a preliminary to further attempts, the candles not showingus what there was beyond. Accordingly, I tied on the rope, and plantedChristian where he had a safe footing, telling him to hold tight if Islipped, for he seemed to have little idea what the rope was meant for. The ice was very hard, and cutting steps downwards with a short axe isnot easy work; so when I came within 3 or 4 feet of the rock, I forgotthe rope, and set off for a short glissade. Christian, of course, thought something was wrong, and very properly put a prompt strain uponthe rope, which reduced his Herr to a spread-eagle sort of condition, inwhich it was difficult to explain matters, so as to procure a release. When that was accomplished, I saw it would be easy to reach the pointwhere the ice met the wall, so I called to Christian to come down, whichhe did in an unpremeditated, avalanche fashion; and then, by cuttingsteps here and there, and making use of odd points of rock, we skirteddown the edge of the great fall, and reached at last the lower regions. 

When I came to read Dufour's account of his visit in 1822, I found thatthe ice must have increased very much since his time. He usessufficiently large words, speaking of the _vaste, horrible et pourtantmagnifique_--of the _horreur du séjour_, and the _grandeur des demeuressouterraines_; but he only calls the glorious ice-fall a _plan incliné_, and says that the whole was less remarkable for the amount of ice, thanfor the characteristics indicated by the words I have quoted. He saysthat it required _une assez forte dose de courage_ to slip down to thestone of which I have spoken; the fact being that at the time of myvisit it would have been impossible to do so with any chance of stoppingoneself, for the flat surface of the stone was all but even with theice. M. Soret, who saw the cave in 1860, determined that cords were thenabsolutely necessary for the descent, which he did not attempt; and theonly Englishman I have met who has seen this cave, tells me that he andhis party went no farther than the edge of the fall. [62] Probably eachyear's accumulation on the upper floor of ice has added to the heightand rapidity of the fall; but at any rate, when Dufour was there, _desmilitaires_--as he dashingly tells--were not to be stopped, and he andhis party--such of them as had not been already stopped by theprecipices outside--let themselves slip down to the stone, and thencedescended as we did. 

We soon found that the larger ice-fall looked extremely grand when seenfrom below, and that in a modified form it reached far down into thelower cave, and terminated in a level sea of ice; but, before making anyfurther investigations into its size, we pressed on to look for the endof the cave. This soon appeared, and as a commentary on Christian'sassertion that no one had ever been beyond the head of the fall, Icalled his attention to some initials smoked on the wall by means of atorch. There was an abrupt piece of rock-floor between this end and thetermination of the ice. The western wall was ornamented with a longarcade of lofty columns of very white ice, looking strangely ghostlikeby the light of two candles, crystallised, and with the porcelainappearance I have described before. We could not measure the height ofthese columns, but we found that they extended continuously, so as to bein fact one sheet of columns, connected by shapes of ice now gracefuland now grotesque, for 27 yards. The ice from their feet flowed down tojoin the terminal lake, which formed a weird sea 28 yards by 14. Mynotes, written on the spot, tell me that between this lake, which I havecalled terminal, and the end of the cave, there is a sheet of ice 48yards long, but it has entirely vanished from my recollection. 

I now sent Christian back with a ball of string, up the steps we had cutfor the descent, with directions to get as near as he could to the topof the main fall, and then send down a stone tied to the string, as Iwished to determine the length of the fall. While he was making his wayup, I amused myself by chopping and carving at the ice at variouspoints to examine its structure, until at length a _Jodel_ from aboveannounced that Christian had reached his post; and a vast amount ofhammering ensued, of which I could not understand the meaning. Presentlyhe called out that 'it' was coming, and assuredly it did come. There wasa loud crash on the upper part of the fall, and a shower of fragments ofice came whizzing past, and almost dislodged me; while the sound ofpieces of ice bounding and gliding down the slope seemed as if it neverwould cease. It turned out to mean that my friend had not been able tofind a stone; so he had smashed a block of ice from the column whichpresided over the fall, and having attached the string to this, hadhurled the whole apparatus in my direction, fortunately not doing asmuch damage as he might have done. My end of the string was not to beseen, so he repeated the experiment, with a piece of wood in place ofthe block of ice, and this time it succeeded. We found that from top tobottom of the fall was 45 yards. There was all the appearance of immensethickness, especially towards the upper part. 

Christian had placed his candle in a niche in the column, while hearranged the string for measuring the fall, and the effect of the sparkof light at the top of the long steep slope was extremely strange frombelow. The whole scene was so remarkable, that it required some effortto realise the fact that I was not in a dream. Christian stood at thetop invisible, jodeling in a most unearthly manner, and developing anastonishing falsetto power, only interrupting his performance to assureme that he was not coming down again; so I was obliged to measure thebreadth of the fall by myself. I chose a part where the ice was not verysteep, and where occasional points of rock would save some of the labourof cutting steps; but even so it was a sufficiently tedious business. The string was always catching at something, and mere progression, without any string to manage, would have been difficult enough under thecircumstances. It was completely dark, so a candle occupied one hand, and, as every step must be cut, save where an opportune rock or stoneappeared, an axe occupied the other; then there was the string to beattended to, and both hands must be ready to clutch at some projectingpoint when a slip came, and now and then a ruder rock requiredcircumvention. Add to all this, that hands and feet had not beenrendered more serviceable by an hour and a half of contact with ice, andit will easily be understood that I was glad when the measurement wasover. At this point the breadth was 25 yards, and, a few feet above theline in which I crossed, all traces of rock or stone disappeared, andthere was nothing but unbroken ice. I had of course abundantopportunities for examining the structure of the ice, and I found in allparts of the fall the same large-grained material, breaking up, whencut, into the usual prismatic nuts. 

I now rejoined Christian, and we worked our way upwards to the mouth ofthe cave, penitently desisting from stoning a remaining raven. Weobserved at the very mouth, by watching the flame of the candles, aslight current outwards, extremely feeble, and on our first arrival Ihad fancied there was a current, equally slight, inwards, but neitherwas perceptible beyond the entrance of the cave. M. Soret was fortunateenough to witness a curious phenomenon, at the time of his visit to theSchafloch, in September 1860, which throws some light upon theatmospheric state of the cave. The day was externally very foggy, andthe fog had penetrated into the cavern; but as soon as M. Soret began todescend to the glacière itself, properly so called, he passed down outof the fog, and found the air for the rest of the way perfectlyclear. [63]

M. Soret states that he has not absolute confidence in histhermometrical observations, but as he had more time than I to devote tosuch details, inasmuch as he did not pass down into the lowest part ofthe cave, I give his results rather than my own, which were carelesslymade on this occasion:--On a stone near the first column of ice, 0°·37 C. ; on a stick propped against the column on the edge of the greatice-fall, 2°·37 C. ; in a hole in the ice, filled with water by dropsfrom the roof, 0° C. Approximately. [64] The second result issufficiently remarkable. My own observations would give nearer 33° F. Than 32° as the general temperature of the cave. 

Christian was so cold when we had finished our investigations, that hedetermined to take his second refreshment _en route_, and, moreover, time was getting rather short. We had started from Gonten at half-pastnine in the morning, and reached the glacière about half-past twelve. It was now three o'clock, and the boat from Gonten must reach thesteamer at half-past six precisely, so there was not too much time forus; especially as we were to return by a more mountainous route, whichinvolved further climbing towards the summit of the Rothhorn, and wasto include a visit to the top of the Ralligflue. On emerging from thecave, we were much struck by the beauty of the view, the upper half ofthe Jungfrau, with its glittering attendants and rivals, soaring abovea rich and varied foreground not unworthy of so glorious atermination. There was not time, however, to admire it as it deserved, and we set off almost at once up the rocks, soon reaching a moreelevated table-land by dint of steep climbing. The ground of thistable-land was solid rock, smoothed and rounded by long weathering, and fissured in every direction by broad and narrow crevasses 2 or 3feet deep, at the bottom of which was luxuriant botany, in the shapeof ferns, and mallows, and monkshood, and all manner of herbs. Thelearned in such matters call these rock-fallows _Karrenfelden_. Whenwe had crossed this plateau, and came to grass, we found a gorgeouscarpet of the huge couched blue gentian (_G. Acaulis_, Fr. _Gentianesans tige_), with smaller patterns put in by the dazzling blue of thedelicate little flower of the same species (_G. Verna_ ); while thewhite blossoms of the grass of Parnassus, and the frailer white of the_dryade à huit petales_, and the modest waxen flowers of the _Azaleaprocumbens_ and the _airelle ponctuée_ (_Vaccineum vitis idaea_), tempered and set off the prevailing blue. There were groves, too, rather lower down, of Alpine roses (the first I had come across thatyear), not the fringed or the green-backed species which botanistslove best, but the honest old rust-backed rhododendron, which everySwiss traveller has been pestered with in places where the childrenare one short step above mere mendicity, but, equally, which everySwiss traveller hails with Medean delight when he comes upon it on themountain-side. We were now, too, in the neighbourhood of the firstcreated Alpen rose. The story is, that a young peasant, who hadclimbed the precipices behind Oberhausen for rock-flowrets, as theprice of some maiden's love, fell at the moment when he had securedthe flowers, and was killed. From his blood the true Alpen rosesprang, and took its colour. 

We were now passing along the summit of one of the lower spurs of theRothhorn range, and making for the peak of the Ralligflue, which layconsiderably below us. In descending near the line of crest, we found alarge number of very deep fissures, narrow and black, some of themextending to a great distance across the face of the hill; sometimesthey appeared as mere holes, down which we despatched stones, sometimesas unpleasant crevasses almost hidden by flowers and the shrubs ofrhododendron. In many of these we dimly discovered accumulated snow atthe bottom, and we observed that the Alpine roses which overhung thesnow-holes were by far the deepest coloured and most beautiful we couldfind. 

To reach the Ralligflue, we had to cross a smooth green lawn completelycovered with the sweet vanilla orchis (_O. Nigra_), which perfumed theair almost too powerfully. No one can ever fully appreciate the grandeurof the lion-like Niesen till he has seen it from this verdant littleparadise, on the slope near the Bergli Châlet, with a diminutive limpidlake in the meadow at his feet, and the blue lake of Thun below. TheKanderthal and the Simmenthal lie exposed from their entrance at thefoot of the Niesen; and when the winding Kanderthal is lost, theAdelbodenthal takes up the telescope, and guides the eye to the parentglaciers. This view I was fortunately able to enjoy rather longer thanthat from the mouth of the Schafloch; for we had made such rapid way, that Christian found there was time for a meal of milk in the châlet, and meanwhile left me lying in perfect luxury on the sweet grass. 

From the Ralligflue a long and remarkably steep zigzag leads to thelower ground, and down this Christian ran at full speed, jodeling in amost trying manner; indeed, at one of the sudden turns of the path hewent off triumphantly into a falsetto so unearthly, that he lost hislegs, and landed in a promiscuous sort of way on a lower part of thezigzag, after which he was slower and less vocal. 

We eventually reached Gonten so soon, that there was time to cool andhave a bath in the lake; and when that was nearly finished, Christianbrought a plate of cherries and a detachment of the village, and Iate the cherries and held a levée in the boat--very literally a levée, as the dressing was by no means accomplished when the deputationarrived. My late guide, now, as he said, a friend for life, made aspeech to the people, setting forth that he had done that day what hehad never thought to do; for, often as he had been to the entrance ofthe Schafloch--five or six times at the least--he had never beforereached the end of the cave. And to whom, he asked, did he owe it? Allprevious Herrschaft under his charge had cried _Immer zurück!_ butthis present Herr had known but one cry, _Immer vorwärts!_ Luckily thesteamer now approached, so the speech came to an end, and he shookhands affectionately, with a vigour that would certainly havetransmitted some of the dye, if that material had not become a part ofthe skin which it coloured. Then the village also shook hands, havingevidently understood what Christian said, notwithstanding the factthat it was intelligible German, and I returned to Thun and Berne. 

No. 53 was still the only bed disengaged, for it was very late when Ireached Berne; but on my vehement protestations against that unquietchamber, the landlord most obligingly converted a sofa in his ownsitting-room into a temporary bed, and made it over to me. This room wasseparated by a door of ground-glass from another sitting-roombrilliantly lighted, in which a number of German young gentlemen werefêting the return of a comrade after the national manner. The landlordsaid he thought it must soon be over, for he doubted whether they couldlast much longer; but their powers of endurance were greater than he hadsupposed. It will readily be imagined that German songs with a goodchorus, the solo parts being very short, and received with the utmostimpatience by the chorus, were even less soporific in their effect thanthe flirtations--though boisterous beyond all conventional propriety--ofGerman housemaids and waiters. [65]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 55: See p. 258. ]

[Footnote 56: Acta SS. Bolland. May 9. --If possessed of thecharacteristics of his race--'tall and proud'--his activity belies thefirst line of the old saying, 'Lang and lazy, Little and loud; Red and foolish, Black and proud:'

though possibly the personal habits which a modern spirit loves to pointout, as the great essential of hermit-life, united with the familycharacteristic of the early Seton to verify the last line of thesaying. ]

[Footnote 57: _Bibl. Univ. De Genève_, First Series, xxi. 113. See also_Edinburgh Philosophical Journal_, viii. 290. ]

[Footnote 58: _Philosophical Magazine_, Aug. 1829. ]

[Footnote 59: Colonel Dufour guessed the elevation of the cave, in 1822, at two-thirds the height of the Niesen, and forty years after, asGeneral Dufour, he published the result of the scientific survey ofSwitzerland, which makes it 1, 780 mètres; so that his early guess wasnot a bad one. ]

[Footnote 60: There is a hint of something of this kind in an editorialnote in the _Journal des Mines_ (now _Annales des Mines_) of Prairial, an. Iv. Pp. 71, 72, in connection with the glacière near Besançon. ]

[Footnote 61: M. Soret, who visited the Schafloch in September 1860, andcommunicated his notes to M. Thury, speaks of many columns in this partof the glacière, where we found only two. 'L'un d'entre eux, ' he says, 'présentait dans sa partie inférieure une petite grotte ou cavité, assezgrande pour qu'un homme pût y entrer en se courbant. ']

[Footnote 62: See also the note at the end of this chapter. ]

[Footnote 63: 'Toute la couche supérieure au plan de niveau passant parle seuil était chargée de brouillard; toute la couche inférieure à ceniveau était parfaitement limpide. ' (_Thury_, p. 37. )]

[Footnote 64: Respectively, 32°·666, 36°·266, and 32°, Fahrenheit. ]

[Footnote 65: Since I wrote this chapter, my attention has been calledto a tourist's account of the Schafloch in _Once a Week_ (Nov. 26, 1864), in an article called _An Ice-cavern in the Justis-Thal. _ Thewriter says--'We proceeded to the farther end of the cavern, or at leastas far as we thought it prudent, to ascertain where the flooring of icerounded off into the abyss of unfathomable water we heard tricklingbelow. ' One of the party 'having taken some large stones with him, hebegan hurling them into the profound mystery. Presently a heavydouble-bass gurgle issued forth with ominous depth of voice, indicatingthe danger of farther progress. Having thus ascertained that if eitherof us ventured farther he would most probably not return by the way hewent, the signal of retreat was given, and in about forty minutes, afterencountering the same amusing difficulties which had enlivened ourdescent, Æneas-like we gained the upper air. ' It will be seen from myaccount of what we found in the 'abyss of unfathomable water, ' that alittle farther exploration might have effected a change in the writer'sviews. ]

 * * * * *

CHAPTER X. 

THE GLACIÈRE OF GRAND ANU, ON THE MONTAGNE DE L'EAU, NEAR ANNECY. 

M. Thury's list contained a bare mention of two glacières on the M. Parmelan, near Annecy, without any further information respecting them, beyond the fact that they supplied ice for Lyons. Their existence hadbeen apparently reported to him by M. Alphonse Favre, but he hadobtained no account of a visit to the caves. Under these circumstances, the only plan was to go to Annecy, and trust to chance for finding someone there who could assist me in my search. 

After spending a day or two in the library at Geneva, looking up M. Thury's references, with respect to various ice-caves, and trying todiscover something more than he had found in the books there, I startedfor Annecy at seven in the morning in the banquette of the diligence. Ona fresher day, no doubt the great richness of the orchards andcorn-fields would have been very striking; but on this particularmorning the fields were already trembling with heat, and the trees andthe fruit covered with dust; and there was nothing in the grouping ofthe country through which the road lay to refresh the baked andhalf-choked traveller. The voyage was to last four and a half hours, andit soon became a serious question how far it would be possible to facethe heat of noon, when the earlier morning was so utterly unbearable. 

Before very long, a counter-irritant appeared in the shape of afellow-traveller, whose luggage consisted of a stick and an old pair ofboots. The man was not pleasant to be near in any way, and he wasevidently not at all satisfied with the amount of room I allowed him. Hekept discontentedly and doggedly pushing his spare pair of boots fartherand farther into my two-thirds of the seat, and once or twice was on thepoint of a protest, in which case I was prepared to tell him that as hefilled the whole banquette with his smell, he ought in reason to besatisfied with less room for himself; but instead of speaking, hebrought out a tobacconist's parcel and began to open it. Tobacco-smokeis all very well under suitable circumstances, but it is possible to betoo hot and dusty and bilious to be able to stand it, and I watched hisproceedings with more of annoyance than of resignation. The parcelturned out, however, to be delightful snuff, tastefully perfumed andvery refreshing; and the politeness with which the owner gave a pinch tothe foreign monsieur, after apportioning a handful to the driver andconductor, won him a good three inches more of seat. The inevitablecigar soon came; but it was a very good one, and no one could complain:all the same, I could not help feeling a malicious satisfaction when the_douaniers_ on the French frontier investigated the spareboots--guiltless, one might have thought, of anything except theextremity of age and dirt--and drew from them a bundle or two ofsmuggled cigars, the owner trying in vain to look as if he rather likedit. 

The Hôtel de Genève is probably the least objectionable of the hotelsof Annecy; but the Poste-bureau is at the Hôtel d'Angleterre, and itwas much too hot for me to fight with the waiters there, and carry offmy knapsack to another house. It is generally a mistake--a greatmistake--to sleep at a house which is the starting-place and the goalof many diligences. All the night through, whips are cracking, bellsjingling, and men are shouting hoarsely or blowing hoarser horns. Moreover, the Hôtel d'Angleterre had apparently needed a fresh coat ofpaint and universal papering for many years, and the latter need hadat this crisis been so far grappled with that the old paper had beentorn down from the walls and now lay on the various floors, whilelarge pies of malodorous sizing had been planted at the angles of thestairs. The natural _salle-à-manger_ was evidently an excellent room, with oleander balconies, but it was at present in the hands ofjoiners, and a card pointed the way to the 'provisionary_salle-à-manger'_--not a bad name for it--in the neighbourhood of thekitchen. 

There was one redeeming feature. The people of the house werenice-looking and well-dressed. But experience has taught me to view sucha phenomenon in French towns of humbler rank with somewhat mixedfeelings. When the house is superintended with a keen and watchful eyeby a young lady of fashionable appearance, who takes a personal interestin a solitary traveller, and suggests an evening's _course_ on the lake, or a morning's drive to some good view, and makes herself most winningand agreeable; who takes the words, moreover, out of the mouth of a manmeditating an ordinary dinner, and assures him that she knows exactlywhat he wants, and he shall be well satisfied, with a sisterly air thatmakes the idea of francs and sous not sordid only, but impossible; Ihave slowly learned to expect that this fashion and condescension willappear in the bill. Prettiness is a very expensive item in such a case;and as these three were all combined to a somewhat remarkable degree atthe Hôtel d'Angleterre, the eventual bill made me angry, and I shouldcertainly try the Hôtel de Genève on any future visit to Annecy. 

The first thing to be done was to determine the position of the MontParmelan. I was prepared to find the people of the town denying theexistence of such a mountain; but, as it was visible from the door ofthe hotel, they could not go quite so far as that. The small crowd atthe door repudiated the glacières with one voice, and pointed out howunlikely it was that Lyons should be supplied with ice from Annecy;nevertheless, I continued to ask my way in spite of protestation, tillat length a lame man passed by, who said monsieur was quite right--hehimself knew two glacières on the Mont Parmelan very well. He had neverseen either of them, but he knew them as well as if he had. It wasuseless to go to them now, he added, for the owners extracted all theice early in the year, and stored it in holes in the lower part of themountain. He had no idea by what route they were to be approached fromAnnecy, or on which side of the Mont Parmelan they lay. 

I now looked on the local map, and determined that the best plan wouldbe to take the Bonneville diligence as far as Charvonnaz, the point onthe road which seemed to lie nearest to the roots of the Mont Parmelan, and then be guided by what I might learn among the peasants. Everyonesaid there was no chance of getting to anything by that means; but asthe hotel people saw that it was of no use to deny the glacières anylonger, they proposed to take me to a man who knew the M. Parmelan well, and could tell me all about it. This man proved to be a keeper ofvoitures, --an ominous profession under the circumstances, --and heassured me that I could make a most lovely _course_ the next day, through scenery of unrivalled beauty; and he eloquently told on hisfingers the villages and sights I should come to. I suggested--withoutin the least knowing that it was so--that the drive might be all verywell in itself, but it would not bring me to the glacières; on which heassured me that he knew every inch of the mountain, and there was notsuch a thing as a glacière in the whole district. At this moment, agentlemanlike man was brought up by the waiter, and introduced to me asa monsieur who knew a monsieur who knew the proprietor of one of theglacières, and would he happy to conduct me to this second monsieur: so, without any very ceremonious farewell to the owner of the profferedvoiture, we marched off together down the street, and eventually turnedinto a _café_, whose master was the monsieur for whom we were in search. Know the glacière?--yes, indeed! he had ice from it one year everymorning. His wife and he had made a _course_ to the campagne of M. TheMaire of Aviernoz, and he--the cafétier--had descended for miles, as itwere, down and down, till he came to an underground world of ice, wonderful, totally wonderful: there he perceived so immense a cold, thathe drank a bottle of rhoom--a whole bottle--and drank it from the neck, _à l'Anglaise_. And when they had gone so far that great dread came uponthem, they rolled a stone down the ice, and it went into thedarkness--boom, boom, boom, --and he put on a power of ventriloquismwhich admirably represented the strange suggestive sound. Hold a moment!had monsieur a crayon? Yes, monsieur had; so the things were impetuouslyswept off a round marble table, and the excited little man drew a fancyportrait of the glacière. The way to reach it? Go by diligence toCharvonnaz--exactly what I had determined upon--and walk up to Aviernoz, where his good friend the maire would make me see his beautifulglacière, through the means of a letter which he went to write. It wasabsurd to see this hot little man sign himself 'Dugravel, _glacier_, 'that being the style of his profession, naturally recalling thecontradictory conduct of the Latin noun _lucus_. 

The bones of S. Francis of Sales lie in the church of S. François inAnnecy, and I made a pilgrimage in search of them through veryunpleasant streets. After a time, the Italian west front of the churchappeared; but the main door led into a demonstrative bakery, and thedoor of the north aisle was obscured by oleanders and a striped awning, and over it appeared the legend, '_Entrée de l'Hôtel_. ' As a manpolitely explained, they had built S. Francis another church, andutilised the old one. The town itself seemed to be of the squalid styleof antiquity--old, no doubt, but very dirty. It is pervaded by streams, which crop up among the houses, and flow through dark alleys and vaultedpassages, rarely coming into daylight, and suggesting all manner of darkcrimes. The red-legged French kettledrums are, if possible, moreinsolent here than in other places, and it is evident that the dogs arenot yet reconciled to the annexation, for the guard swept through thestreets amid a perfect tornado of howls from the negligent scavengers ofthe place. For my own part, I was not pleased with the change of rule, when I found that since Annecy has become French, the _vin d'Asti_ hasbecome dear, as being now a foreign wine. 

The diligence for Bonneville was to leave Annecy at half-past four inthe morning; so I told them to call me at four, intending to breakfastsomewhere on the way. But of course, when four o'clock came, I had tocall myself, and in a quarter of an hour a knock at the door announcedhalf-past four. I pounced upon the man, and remonstrated with him, buthe assured me it did not matter; and when I reminded him that thediligence was to leave at half-past four, he observed philosophicallythat it was quite true, and I had better make haste, for the poste wasvery punctual. At the door of the bureau a loaded diligence stood, marked _Annecy--Aix_, and I asked had the Bonneville diligence gone? Itdid not go till six, the clerk told me; but I reminded him he had saidhalf-past four when I asked him last night. Half-past four?--true, herewas the carriage standing at the door. But that was for Aix, notBonneville, I pointed out to him. Pardon--it was marked Aix, but was infact meant for Bonneville. 

The diligence reached the end of the by-road leading to Villaz in abouthalf an hour, and all the fever of Geneva and Annecy seemed to fly awaybefore the freshness of this green little lane, with clematis in fullflower pervading the hedges, and huge clusters of young nuts peepingout, and promising later delights to fortunate passers-by. But, alas!the little lane soon came to an end, and as I faced the fields of cornup the mountain-side, the hot thunderous air came rolling down inpalpable billows, and oppressive clouds took possession of thesurrounding hills. Three-quarters of an hour brought me to Villaz, aclose collection of houses on the hill-side, with arched stone gatewaysleading into the farmyards, --a fortified style of agricultural buildingwhich seems to prevail in that district. After an amount of experiencein out-of-the-way places which makes me very cautious in saying that onein particular is dirtier than a dozen others, I venture to say that the_auberge_ of Villaz is the most squalid I have come across; and I wouldnot feed there again, except in very robust health, even for a newglacière. Still, it was absolutely necessary to eat something, and thelandlady promised coffee and bread. She showed me first into thekitchen; but as it was also the place where the domestics slept, withmany quadrupeds, I declined to sit there. Upon this she led me to the_salon_, where the window resisted all our efforts for some little time, and then opened upon such a choice assortment of abominations, that Ifled without my baggage. The next attempt she made was the one remainingroom of the house, the family bedroom; but that was so much worse thanall, that I took final refuge on the balcony, a sort of ante-room to thehen-house. The cocks at the _auberge_ of Villaz are the loudest, thehens the most talkative, and the cats the most shaggy and presuming, Ihave ever met with. Even here, however, all was not unmitigateddarkness; for they ground the coffee while the water was boiling, andthe consequent decoction was admirable. Moreover, the bread had a skinof such thickness and impervious toughness, that the inside waspresumably clean. 

Aviernoz lay about an hour farther. Almost as soon as I left Villaz, the thunderstorm came on in earnest, with sheets of rain, a regular_Wolkenbruch_. [66] The rain was most refreshing; but lightning is nota pleasant companion in presence of a bright ice-axe, and I was gladwhen the houses of Aviernoz came in sight. The village had theappearance of being lost; and the houses were scattered about soirregularly, that it was difficult to know which was the best point tomake for. The road studiously avoided the scattered houses, and the_Mairie_ seemed especially difficult to find. When at length it wasfound, the maire, like the queen in the poets, was in the kitchen; andhe sat affably on the end of a bench and read the letter ofintroduction aloud, asking me, at the conclusion, how was our friendDugravel, a man amazing in many ways. When I confessed that I had onlymade the acquaintance of the amazing man the night before, andtherefore did not feel competent to give any reliable account of thestate of his health, beyond the fact that he seemed to be inexcellent spirits, the maire looked upon me evidently with greatrespect, as having won so far upon a great character like Dugravel inso short a time, and determined to accompany me himself. Meantime, wemust drink some kirsch. The maire was a young man, spare and vehement. He talked with a headlong impetuosity which caused him to be alwayshot, and his hair limp and errant; and at the end of each sentencethere were so many laggard halves of words to come out together, withso little breath to bring them out, that he eventuated in a stutteringscream. His clothes were of such a description, that the mostspeculative Israelite would not have gone beyond copper for hiswardrobe, all standing. There were two women in the house, to whom hewas exceedingly imperious: one of them received his orders and hisvehemence with a certain amount of defiance, but the other was subduedand obedient, and I believe her to have been the mayoress. He pouredhimself and his household at my feet, knocked a child one way and hiswife another, and, from the air with which he dragged off thetablecloth they had laid, and ordered a better, and swept away theglasses because they were not clean enough--which in itself wassufficiently true, --and screamed for poached eggs for monsieur, andthen impetuously ate them himself--I fancy that he might have beentaught to play Petrucio with success. 

When we had sat for a quarter of an hour or so, a heavy-looking youngman, in fustian clothes and last year's linen, came into the room, andwas introduced as the communal schoolmaster. We shook hands with muchimpressment on the strength of the similarity of our professions, andthe maire explained that the new arrival acted also as his secretary, for there was really so much writing to be done that it was beyond hisown powers; and as the schoolmaster lived _en pension_ at the _Mairie_, it was very convenient. M. Rosset, the schoolmaster, stated that he hadheard us, as he sat in his room, talking of the proposed visit to theglacière, and he should much wish to accompany us. We both expressed thewarmest satisfaction; but the maire suggested--how about the boys? That, M. Rosset said, was simple enough. The world would go to the school atnine o'clock, and, finding no schoolmaster, would go home again, orotherwise employ itself; and he could have school on the weekly holiday, to make up for the lost day. This weekly holiday is universally onThursday, he said, because that day divides the week so well; and Ifailed to persuade him that there was a commemoration intended in thechoice of that day, as in the observance of Friday and Sunday. The maireutterly refused to take a cord, on the ground that there was nopossibility of such a thing being of the least use. Fortunately, I hadnow my own axe, which in more able hands had mounted more than once MontBlanc and Monte Rosa, so I had not the usual fight to procure thatinstrument. 

Half an hour from the _Mairie_, when we had well commenced the steepascent of the mountain-side, the maire turned suddenly round andexclaimed, 'But the inspector!' Rosset was a sallow man, but hecontrived to turn white, while M. Métral (the maire) explained to methat the inspector of schools was to visit Aviernoz that day. Theschoolmaster recovered before long, and said he should inform theinspector that a famous _savant_ had come from England, and requiredthat the maire and the _instituteur_ should accompany him to theglacière, to aid him in making scientific observations. In order that hemight have documentary proof to advance, he asked for my card, and mademe write on it my college and university in full. 

As I have already said, the maire's style of talking required a gooddeal of breath, and so it was not unnatural that the ascent shouldreduce him to silence. The schoolmaster talked freely about scholasticaffairs, and gave me an account of the ordinary tariff in villageschools, though each commune may alter the prices of its school if itplease. Under seven years of age, children pay 4 francs a year, or, forshorter periods than a year, at the rate of 75 centimes a month; betweenseven and thirteen, 6 francs a year, or 1 franc a month; from thirteento eighteen, 8 francs a year, or 1 f. 50 c. A month. There is the samedifficulty in France, of course, as with us, in keeping children atschool after they are old enough to earn a few centimes bycattle-keeping; and the Ministry of Education had shortly beforeaddressed questions to every schoolmaster in the country, asking whatremedy each could suggest. My present friend had replied, that if theGovernment would give the education gratis, something might be done; buthe had expressed his opinion that nothing short of an actual subsidy toparents of children beyond eight or nine years of age would ensure ageneral improvement. 

Having given me this information, he observed that it was every man'sbusiness to learn, though he and I might be teachers also, and thereforehe was sure monsieur would pardon him if he asked what those blackpatches on monsieur's hands might mean, --pointing to certain large areasof Epsom plaster which covered the tokens of many glacières. When hismind was set at rest as to this phenomenon, the maire called a halt, andtook his turn of talking. He began to tell me about himself and hiswealth, Rosset backing him up and putting in the most telling parts. Hehad very extensive property, and the more level parts of it werecertainly valuable, consisting of 200 _journaux_ of good arable land:the forests through which we walked were his, and he possessed three_montagnes_ and châlets higher up on the mountain. The glacière was hisown property; and two years ago he had discovered another in theneighbourhood, which he had not since visited. He was assisted in hiscapacity of maire by twelve councillors--in a larger commune it wouldhave been fifteen--and the council met four times in the year. If it wasdesirable that they should meet on any other occasion, he must write tothe prefect of the arrondissement for permission, specifying thebusiness which they wished to conduct, and to this specified businessthey must confine themselves entirely. Then he wished to know, had wemaires such as he in England? Hereupon I drew a fancy picture of theLord Mayor of London, receiving the Queen and the Royal Family ingeneral in a friendly way, and giving them a dinner, --which, heobserved, must cost a good deal, a great deal. However, he looked roundupon his fields and houses and mountains, and seemed to think that hecould himself stand a considerable drain upon his purse for thereception of royalty; and possibly he is now anxious that the Emperorshould pass that way, during the five years to which the tenure of themayoralty is restricted. Both of my companions were strong in theirFrench sympathies--the one because under the new rule all communalaffairs were so much better organised, the other because a wonderfulchange for the better had taken place in the government superintendenceof schools. Theirs was formerly an odd corner of a kingdom that did notcare much about them, and was not homogeneous; it was now an integralpart of a well-ordered empire. They confessed that the present state ofthings cost them much more in taxes, &c. , excepting in the uppermountains, where Rosset had a cousin who paid even less than underSardinian rule. 

Of course, we talked a little on Church questions; and they wereastonished to hear that I was not only an ecclesiastic, but an ordainedpriest, --a sort of thing which they had fancied did not exist in theEnglish Church. Rosset said the _curés_ of small communes had about £40a year, but I must have more than that, or I could not afford to travelso far from home. Had I already said the mass that morning? Had I myrobes in the _sac_ I had left at the _Mairie_? Was the red book they hadseen in my hands (Bädeker's _Schweiz_) a Breviary? They branched off tomatters of doctrine, and discussed them warmly; but some things they soaccommodatingly understated, and others they stated so fairly, that Iwas able to tell them they were excellent Anglicans. 

Higher up in the forest, we were nearly overwhelmed by a party ofcharcoal-porters, who came down with their _traîneaux_ like a blackavalanche. A _traîneau_ is nothing more than a wooden sledge, on tworunners, which are turned up in front, to the height of a yard, to keepthe cargo in its place. In the more level parts the porter is obliged todrag this, but on the steep zigzags its own weight is sufficient to sendit down; and here the porter places himself in front, with his backleaning against the sacks of charcoal and the turned-up runners, and thewhole mass descends headlong, the man's legs going at a wild pace, andnow one foot, now the other, steering a judicious course at the turns ofthe zigzags. The charcoal is made by Italians, who live on polenta andcheese high up in the mountains, and bring their manufacture down to acertain distance, after which the porters take it in charge. The men wesaw told us that by hard work they could make four journeys in the day, earning a franc by each; out of which, as they said, they must supportstomach and boots, one journey making them ready for a meal, and eightjourneys finishing a pair of soles. 

It cost us an hour and a half to reach the maire's first châlet, wherewe were to lunch on such food as the old woman who managed it might haveon hand; that is to say, possibly bread, and, beyond that, milk only, insome shape or other. The forms under which milk can be taught to appearare manifold. A young Swiss student, who in the madness of his passionfor beetle-hunting had spent fifteen days in a small châlet atAnzeindaz, sleeping each night on the hay, [67] gave me, some timesince, a list of the various foods on which he lived and grew fat. Thefollowing is the _carte_, as he arranged it:--

Viandes. Vins. 

Du séret. Du lait de vache. [68]

Du caillé. Du lait froid. 

Du beurre. Du lait de chèvre. 

Du fromage gras. Petit lait. 

Du fromage mi-gras. De la crême. 

Du fromage maigre. Du lait de beurre. [69]

Tome de vache. Petit lait de chèvre. 

Tome de chèvre. 

_Pour les Cochons_. 

Du lait gâté. 

Cuite. 

Some of the solids and fluids in the earlier part of this _carte_ wefelt tolerably sure of finding at the maire's châlet, and accordinglyany amount of cream and _séret_ proved to be forthcoming. The maireasserted that _cérac_ was the true name of this recommendable articleof food, _céré_ being the patois for the original word. Others hadtold us that the real word was _serré_, meaning _compressed_ curds;but the French writers who treat learnedly of cheese-making in the_Annales de Chimie_ adopt the form _sérets_; and in the _AnnalesScientifiques de l'Auvergne_ I find both _seret_ and _serai_, from theLatin _serum_. There was also bread, which arrived when we weresitting down to our meal: it had been baked in a huge ring, forconvenience of carriage, and was brought up from the low-lands on astick across a boy's shoulder. When the old woman thought it safe toexpose a greater dainty to our attacks, at a later period of the meal, she brought out a pot of _caillé_, a delightful luxury which prevailsin the form of nuggets of various size floating in sour whey. Owing toa general want of table apparatus, we placed the pot of caillé on abroken wall, and speared the nuggets with our pocket-knives. 

After the meal, the two Frenchmen found themselves wet and exceedinglycold; for Frenchmen have not yet learned the blessing of flannel shirtsunder a broiling sun. They set to work to dry themselves after anoriginal fashion. The fire was little more than a collection ofsmouldering embers, confined within three stone walls about a foot high;so they took each a one-legged stool--_chaises des vaches_, or _chaisedes montagnes_--and attached themselves to the stools by the usualleathern bands round the hips; then they cautiously planted the prods ofthe stools in the middle of the embers, maintaining an unstableequilibrium by resting their own legs on the top of the walls. Here theysat, smoking and being smoked, till they were dry and warm. Of course, in case of a slip or an inadvertent movement, they would have gonesprawling into the fire. A well-known Swiss botanist, who has seen manystrange sleeping-places in the course of sixty years of flower-huntingin the mountains of Vaud and Valais, has told me that on one occasion hehad reached with great difficulty the only châlet in the neighbourhoodof his day's researches, at a late hour of the night, the whole mountainbeing soaked with rain. It was a little upland châlet, which the peoplehad deserted for the autumn and winter; and meantime a mud avalanche hadtaken possession, and covered the floor to a depth of several inches. Noplank was to be found for lying on; but he discovered a brokenone-legged stool, and on this he sat and slept, propped as well as mightbe in a corner. It is difficult to say which would be worse--a fall fromthe stool by daylight into the embers of a wood fire, or the shudderingslimy waking about midnight, after a nod more vigorous than the rest, tofind oneself plunged in eight cold inches of soft mud. 

About half an hour beyond the châlet, we found the mouth of theglacière, on a large plateau almost bare of vegetation, and showing thelive rock at the surface. They told me that in a strong winter therewould be an average of 12 feet of snow on the ground here. [70] Theglacière itself is approached by descending one side of a deep pit, whose circumference is larger than that of any other of thepit-glacières I have seen. A few yards off there is a smaller shaft inthe rock, which we afterwards found to communicate with the glacière. The NW. Side of the larger pit, being the side at the bottom of which isthe arch of entrance, is vertical, and we spent the time necessary forgrowing cool in measuring the height of this face of rock from above. The plummet ran out 115 feet of string, and struck the slope of snow, down which the descent to the cave must be made, about 6 feet above thejunction of the snow with the floor of the glacière, which was visiblefrom the S. Side of the edge of the pit; so that the total depth fromthe surface of the rock to the ice-floor was 121 feet. 

[Illustration: VERTICAL SECTION OF THE GLACIÈRE OF GRAND ANU, NEARANNECY. ]

When we were sufficiently cool, we scrambled down the side of the pitopposite to that in which the archway lies, finding the rock extremelysteep, and then came to a slope of 72 feet of snow, completely exposedto the weather, which landed us at the mouth of the glacière. The archis so large, that we could detect the change of light in the cave, caused by the passage of clouds across the sun, and candles were notnecessary, excepting in the pits shortly to be described. We saw at oncethat rapid thaw was going on somewhere or other; and when we stepped offthe snow, we found ourselves in a couple of inches of soft greenvegetable mud, like a _compote_ of dark-coloured duckweed--or, to use amore familiar simile, like a mass of overboiled and ill-strainedspinach. To the grief of one of us, there was ice under this, of mostpersuasive slipperiness. The maire said that he had never seen thesesigns of thaw in his visits in previous years; and as we went fartherand farther into the cave, he was more and more surprised at each stepto find such a large quantity of running water, and so much less icethan he had expected. The shape of the glacière is a rough circle, 60feet in diameter; and the floor, which is solid ice, slopes graduallydown to the farther end. The immediate entrance is half-closed by asteep and very regular cone of snow, lying vertically under the smallshaft we had seen in the rock above. The snow which forms the conedescends in winter by this shaft; and the formation must have been goingon for a considerable time, since the lower part of the cone has becomesolid ice, under the combined influences of pressure and of _dégel_ and_regel_. I climbed up the side of this, by cutting steps in the lowerpart, and digging feet and hands deep into the snow higher up; and Ifound the length of the side to be 30 feet. I had no means ofdetermining the height of the cave, and a guess might not be of muchvalue. 

At first sight, the farther end of the cave was the most striking. Thewater which comes from the melting snow down which we had passed inreaching the glacière, had cut itself deep channels in the floor, andthrough these it coursed rapidly till it precipitated itself into alarge pit or _moulin_ in the ice, at the lowest point. This pit, a willbe seen by the section of the cave given on p. 174, [71] terminates theglacière; and the rock-wall at the farther edge falls away into a sortof open fissure, down which magnificent cascades of ice streamemulously, clothing that side of the pit, which would otherwise be solidrock. We cut a few steps about the upper edge of this _moulin_, to makeall safe, and proceeded to let down a lighted candle, which descendedsafely for 36 feet, showing nothing but ice on all sides; it then camein contact with one of the falls of water, and the light was of courseextinguished. We next tied a stone to the string, and found that after40 feet it struck on ice and turned inwards, under our feet, stoppingfinally at the end of 51 feet; but whether it was really the bottom ofthe pit that stopped it, or only some ledge or accidental impediment, wecould not determine. The diameter of this pit might be 3 yards, but wetook no measure of it. 

At the extreme right of the cave we found another pit, a yard and ahalf across, two-thirds of the circumference of which was formed bythe plateau of ice on which we stood, and the remaining third by afluting in the wall of rock. The maire said that, two years ago, thishole was not visible, being concealed by a large ice-column which hadsince fallen in. Here again I let down a lighted candle, with morehopes of getting it to the bottom, as no part of the cave drained intothe pit. The candle descended steadily, the flame showing no signs ofatmospheric disturbance, and revealing the fact that the opposite sideof the pit, viz. The rock, which alone was visible from our position, became more and more thickly covered with ice, of exquisite clearness, and varied and most graceful forms. As foot after foot, and yard afteryard, ran out, and our heads craned farther and farther over the edgeof the pit to follow the descending light, (we lay flat on the ice, for more safety, ) the cries of the schoolmaster became mere howls, andthe maire lapsed into oaths heavy enough to break in the ice. It isalways sufficiently disagreeable to hear men swear; but in situationswhich have anything impressive, either of danger or of grandeur, itbecomes more than ever unbearable. I remember on one occasionover-taking a large party in the descent from the Plateau to theGrands Mulets, in a place where the snow was extremely soft, and anymoment might land one of us in a crevasse; and I shall never forgetthe oaths which caught my ear, from a floundering fellow-countrymanenveloped from the waist downwards. 

When 60 feet had run out, the candle stopped, and on stretching over Isaw that it had reached a slope of ice which inclined very steeplynorthwards, and passed away under the rock, apparently into a freshcavern. By raising the candle slightly and then letting it drop, we madeit glide down this slope for 8 feet; and then it finally rested on ashelf of ice, showing us the shadowy beginnings of what should be a mostglorious ice-cave. The little light which the candle gave was made themost of by the reflecting material which surrounded it; and we were ableto see that the archway in the rock was rounded off with grey ice, andrested, as it were, on icy pillars. As far as we could judge, therewould have been abundant room to pass down the slope under the archway, if only the preliminary 60 feet could by any means have beenaccomplished; and I shall dream for long of what there must be downthere. 

As I was anxious to know whether the side of the pit was vertical iceunder our feet, I contrived to get about a third of the way round theedge, so as almost to reach the fluting in the rock which formed thefarther side of the pit, and then desired the schoolmaster to raise thecandle slowly from the ledge on which it still rested. As he pulled itgradually up, I was startled to find that the ice fell away sharplyimmediately below the spot where we had been collected, and then formeda solid wall; so that we had been standing on the mere edge of a shelf, with nothing but black emptiness below. How far the solid wall recededat the bottom I was unable to determine, for the light of one candle wasof very little use at so great a distance, and in darkness so profound. I persuaded the maire to make an effort to reach a point from which hecould see the insecurity of the ice which had seemed to form so solid afloor; and he was so much impressed by what he saw, that he fled withprecipitation from the cave, and we eventually found him asleep under abush on the rocks above. In reaching the farther side of the pit, wecrossed unwittingly an ice-bridge formed by a transverse pit or tunnelin the ice, which opened into the pit we were examining. The maireafterwards promised to rail off all that end of the glacière, and forbidhis workmen to venture upon it. Considering that the hole itself wasonly opened two years before by the fall of a column, and has alreadyundergone such changes, I shall be surprised if the ice-bridge, and allthat part on which we lay to fathom the pit, does not fall in beforevery long; and then, by means of steps and ropes and ladders, it may bepossible to reach the entrance to the lower cave, 190 feet below thesurface of the earth. May I be there to see![72]

The left side of the glacière, near the entrance, was occupied by acolumnar cascade, behind which I forced a passage by chopping away somelovely ornaments of ice. Here also the solid ground-ice falls away alittle under the surface, leaving a cavern 8 or 9 feet deep, on the rockside of which every possible glacial fantasy was to be found. Thestalactites here presented the peculiar prismatic structure so oftennoticed; but on the more exposed side of the column they were tippedwith limpid ice, free from all apparent external or internal lines. Thisreminded me of what we had observed in the Glacière of La Genollière, namely, that the surface-lines tended to disappear under thaw; so I cuta piece of prismatic ice and put it in my mouth. In a short time itbecame perfectly limpid, and on breaking it up I could discover no signsof prism. On some parts of the floor of the glacière, the ice wasapparently unprismatic, generally in connection with running water orother marks of thaw; but, to my surprise, I found that it split intoprisms very readily. 

The maire could not understand how it was that, after a winterespecially severe, as that of 1863-4 had been, there should be even lessice than in the preceding summer, and we could see the marks of lastyear's cutting, down to the edge of the _moulin_. He said that they hadnever before cut down in that direction; but in the summer of 1863 theyhad been so much struck by the clearness of the ice which formed thefloor, that they had cut it freely, and removed a large quantity. This, I believe, was the cause of the absence of any great amount of freshice. The slope of the whole ice-floor is considerable, and the workmenincreased the slope by cutting away the ice in the neighbourhood of theedge of the _moulin_: they had also, as we could see quite plainly, excavated the clearer parts of the ice between the entrance to the caveand the _moulin_, so that a sort of trough ran down from near the footof the snow to the pit at the lower end of the glacière. When we werethere, the water rushed down this trough, and was lost in the pit; andvery probably the same may have been the case in the earlier parts ofthe year, when, according to the view I have already expressed, the icewould under ordinary circumstances have been formed. If this be so, thecaverns below must have received immense additions to their stores ofice or water. We observed, by the way, that the slope of ice to whichthe candle descended in the deeper pit, and the shelf on which itrested, were quite dry, or at any rate free from all apparent signs ofthe abundant water we should have seen, had that been the outlet for thestreams which poured into the _moulin_. The maire said that the columnsand cascades of ice in the cave had been much more beautiful in theprevious summer. 

The whole cavern would thus appear to be something of the shape of anegg, with the longer axis vertical, and the entrance about half-way upthe side. The lower end of this egg-shaped cavity in the rock is filledwith ice, which in some parts shrinks from the rock below the surface, though, as far as outward appearance goes, it fills the cavern to itsfarthest corners. The depth of this ice at one side is 60 feet, and howmuch more it may be in the middle it is impossible to say. As we haveseen, there is a second ice-cave opening out of the principal one, at adepth of 190 feet below the surface; and with respect to this secondcave imagination may run riot. Rosset told me that he had noticed, theyear before, a strong source of water springing out of the side of arock, at some little distance from the glacière; but he could not reachit then, and could not find it now. This may possibly be the drainage ofthe glacière in its summer state. 

The thermometer stood at 34° in the middle of the cave; and though theothers felt the cold very much, I was myself surprised to find so low aregister, for the atmosphere seemed to be comparatively warm, judgingfrom what I had experienced in other glacières. The only current of airwe could detect was exceedingly slight, and came from the deeper of thetwo pits in the ice. It was so slight, that the flame of the candleburned apparently quite steadily when we were engaged in determining thedepth and shape of the pit. 

The sun had by this time produced such an effect upon the slope of snowoutside the glacière, that we found the ascent sufficiently difficult, especially as our hands were full of various instruments. Theschoolmaster was not content to choose the straight line up, and inattempting to perform a zigzag, he came to a part of the slope where thesnow lay about 2 inches thick on solid ice, and the result was anunscholastic descent in inverted order of precedence. He got on betterover the rolling stones after the snow was accomplished, but the clumsystyle of his climbing dislodged an unpleasant amount and weight ofmissiles; and though he was amiable enough to cry '_Garde_!' with everystep he took, it will be found by experiment that it is not much use tothe lower man to have '_Garde_!' shouted in his ears, when his footingis insecure to begin with, and a large stone comes full at his head, atthe precise moment when two others are taking him in the pit of thestomach. 

We found the maire, as was said, asleep under a bush near the mouth ofthe pit; and he pronounced himself completely recovered from the effectsof the cold, and ready to guide us to a second glacière. He told us thatthe amount of ice he sold averaged 4, 000 _quintaux métriques_ a week, for the three months of July, August, and September; but the last winterhad been so severe, that the lake had provided ice for the artificialglacières of Annecy, and no one had as yet applied to him this year. Asonly a fortnight of his usual season had passed, he may have since hadplenty of applications, later in the year. The railways have opened upmore convenient sources of ice for Lyons, and for some time he has sentnone to that town. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 66: A Yorkshire farmer unconsciously adapts the German_Wolkenbruch_, declaring on occasion that the rain is so heavy, it is'ommust as if a clood had brussen someweers. ']

[Footnote 67: I tried the hay in this châlet one night, with suchresults that the next time I slept there, two years after, I preferred acombination of planks. ]

[Footnote 68: _i. E. _ New milk, warm. ]

[Footnote 69: Otherwise graphically called _battu_. ]

[Footnote 70: I had no means of determining the elevation of the ground. The fact of 12 feet of snow is of no value as a guide to the height. Last winter (1864-5) there was 26 feet of snow on the Jura, at a heightof less than 4, 000 feet, and the position of some of the larger châletswas only marked by a slight boss on the plane surface. ]

[Footnote 71: In the section of the cave, I have brought out the deeperpit from the side into the middle, so as to show both in one section: Ihave also slightly shaded the pits, instead of leaving them blank likeshafts in the rock. ]

[Footnote 72: I have made arrangements for completing the exploration ofthis cave, and the one which is next described, in the course of thepresent summer. ]

 * * * * *

CHAPTER XI. 

THE GLACIÈRE OF CHAPPET-SUR-VILLAZ, ON THE MONT PARMELAN, NEAR ANNECY. 

We started southwards from the Glacière of _Grand Anu_, for such theysaid was the proper name for the cave last described, and passed oversome of the wildest walking I have seen. All the most striking featuresof a glacier were here reproduced in stone: now narrow deep crevasseswhich only required a slight spring; now much more formidable rents, which we were obliged to circumvent by a détour; now dark mysteriousholes with vertical shell-like partitions at various depths; and now aperfect _moulin_, with fluted sides and every detail appertaining tothose remarkable pits, the hollow plunge of falling water aloneexcepted. In other parts, the smooth slab-like appearance of the surfacereminded me of a curious district on one of the summits of the Jura, where the French frontier takes the line of crest, and the old stonesmarked with the _fleur-de-lys_ and the Helvetic cross are still to befound. In those border regions the old historic distinctions are stillremembered, and the frontier Vaudois call the neighbouring French_Bourguignons_--or, in their patois, _Borgognons_. They keep up thetradition of old hatreds; and the strange bleak summit, with its smoothslabs of Jura-chalk lying level with the surface, is so much like a vastcemetery, that the wish in old times has been father to the thought, andthey call it still the Cemetery of the Burgundians, _Cimetiros aiBorgognons_. [73]

After a time, we reached a tumbled chaos of rock, much resembling theice-fall of a glacier, and, on descending, and rounding a low spur ofthe mountain so as to take a north-westerly course, we found ourselvesin a perfect paradise of flowers. One orchis I shall always regret. There seemed to be only a single head, closely packed with flowerets, and strongly scented; it was a pure white, not the green andstraw-coloured white of other scented orchises. There were large patchesof the delicate _faux-lis (Paradisia liliastrum)_; and though theremight not be anything very rare, and the lovely glacier-flowers were ofcourse wanting, the whole was a rich feast for anyone who cares more fordelicacy and colour than for botany. 

The maire told us that he had found the glacière, for which we were nowin search, two years before, when he accompanied the government surveyorto show him the forests and mountains which formed his property. As hehad on that occasion approached the spot from the other side, we walkeda long way to place him exactly where the surveyor and he had crossedthe ridge of the mountain, and then started him down from the Col in thedirection they had taken. He was certain of two things: first, thatthey had passed by the Col between the Mont Parmelan and the Montagne del'Eau; and, secondly, that the glacière was within five minutes of thehighest point of the Col. For three-quarters of an hour we all broke ourshins, and the officials the Third Commandment. They invoked more saintsthan I had ever heard of, and, in default, did not scruple to appealwith shocking volubility to darker aid. It was all of no use, --and wellit might be; for when we had given it up in despair, after long patienceand a considerable period of the contrary, and had descended for half anhour in the direction of a third glacière, I chanced to look back, andsaw that the Col in the neighbourhood of which we had been searching laybetween two points of the Montagne de l'Eau; while the true Col betweenthat mountain and the Mont Parmelan lay considerably to the west. Whenit appears that a guide has probably made a mistake, the only plan is toassume quietly that it is so, as if it were a matter of no consequence, and then he may sometimes be decoyed into allowing the fact: I thereforepointed out to the maire the true Col, and told him that was the one bywhich he had passed southwards, when he found the glacière; to which, with unnecessary strength of language, he at once assented. But all myefforts to take him back were unavailing. Nothing in the world shouldcarry him up the mountain again, now that he had happily got so fardown. I worked his best and his worst feelings with equal want ofsuccess; even national jealousy failed, and he was content to know thata French maire had not pluck to face three-quarters of an hour ofclimbing, when an English priest was ready to lead the way. Theschoolmaster declined to go alone with me, on the ground that neither ofus knew the mountain, and threatening clouds were gathering all around. When, at last, I proposed to go by myself, they became menacinglyobstructive, and declared that I should certainly not be allowed toface the intricacy of the mountain in a fog. Besides, as the maire putit, he was sure of the way to the third glacière; and if I were to go upalone to look for the second, I should lose a certainty for a chance, asthere was not time to visit both. So with an ill grace I continued thedescent with them, being restored to good humour before long by thebeauty of the Lake of Annecy, as seen from our elevated position. 

It is so impossible to accept in full the accounts one picks up ofnatural curiosities, that I give the maire's description of the strayglacière only for what it is worth. It was not extracted without muchlaborious cross-examination--_sais paw vous le dire_ being the averageanswer to my questions. The entrance to the cave is about twice as highas a man, and is in a small shallow basin of rock and grass. The flooris level with the entrance, and the roof rises inside to a good height. In shape it is like a Continental bread-oven; and at the time of themaire's visit, the floor was a confused mass of ice and stones, theformer commencing at the very entrance. There was no ice except on thefloor, the area of which might be as large as that of the surface of theice in the Glacière of Grand Anu. No pit was to be seen, and not a dropof water. Snow could have drifted in easily, but they saw no signs ofany remaining. If this account be true, especially with respect to theposition of the entrance and the horizontal direction of the floor, Ihave seen no glacière like it. 

We descended for a time through fir-woods, and then again down steep andbarren rocks, till we reached the sharp slope of grass which sofrequently connects the base of a mountain with the more civilisedforests and the pasturages below. The maire led us for some distancealong the top of this grass slope, towards the west, skirting the rockstill they became precipitous and lofty, when he said we must be nearour point. Still we went on and on without seeing any signs of it, andour guide seemed in despair; and I, for one, entirely gave up the thirdcave to the same fate as the second, and became very sulky andremonstrative. The entrance to the glacière, the maire told us, was ahole in the face of the highest rocks, 3 or 4 yards only above thegrass; and as we had now reached a part of the mountain where the rocksprings up smooth and high, and we could command the whole face, and yetsaw nothing, the schoolmaster came over to my side, and told the mairehe was a humbug. However, we were then within a few yards of the desiredspot, and half-a-dozen steps showed us a small _cheminée_, downwhich a strong and icy current of wind blew. The maire shouted a shoutof triumph, and climbed the _cheminée_; and when we also had done thenecessary gymnastics, we found a hole facing almost due north, allwithin being dark. The current blew so determinedly, that matches wereof no use, and I was obliged to seek a sheltered corner before I couldlight a candle; and, when lighted, the candle was with difficulty keptfrom being blown out. No ice was visible, nor any signs of such athing, --nothing but a very irregular narrow cave, with darkness at thefarther end. As we advanced, we found that the floor of the cave came toa sudden end, and the darkness developed into a strange narrow fissure, which reached out of sight upwards, and out of sight below; and downthis the maire rolled stones, saying that _there_ was the glacière, ifonly one could get at it without a _tourneau_. Considering thepersistency with which he had throughout declared that there was nopossible need for a rope, I gave him some of my mind here, in thatsoftened style which his official dignity demanded; but he excusedhimself by saying that the gentleman who owned the glacière, andextracted the ice for private use only, was now living at his summerchâlet, a mile or two off, and he, the maire, had felt confident thatthe _tourneau_ would have been fitted up for the season. 

On letting a candle down from the termination of the floor, we foundthat the perpendicular drop was not more than 12 feet, and from theshelf thus reached it seemed very possible to descend to the fartherdepths of the fissure; but I had become so sceptical, that I persistedin asserting that there was no ice below. The maire's manner, also, wasstrange, and I suspected that the cold current of air had caused theplace to be called a glacière, with any other qualification on the partof the cave. One thing was evident, --no snow could reach the fissure. M. Métrai was determined that I must not attempt the descent, pointing out, what was quite true, that though the fall was not great, there seemed nopossibility of getting back up the smooth rock. His arguments increasedmy suspicions; so, leaving all apparatus behind, I dropped down to jointhe candle, rather hoping to have the satisfaction of sending them offfor a rope, in case I could not achieve the last few feet in returning, and knowing that there was no danger of the fate which once threatenedthe chamois-hunting Kaiser Max. [74]

The drop turned out to be a mere nothing, and, taking the candle, Iscrambled on, down the sloping floor of the fissure, towards the heartof the mountain, expecting every moment that my further passage would bestopped by solid rock. But, after reaching a part so narrow that I wasobliged to mount by both sides at once in order to get past it, I founda commodious gallery, opening out into a long and narrow and very loftycavern, still only a fissure, the floor of which continued the regularand rapid slope down which I had so far come. A short way farther down, an opening appeared to the left; and I turned off the main passage intoa horizontal gallery or chamber, with a floor of ice resting on rock andstones. This chamber seemed to be 3 or 4 yards wide at the entrance, narrowing regularly to 4 1/2 feet. It was 40 feet long, and at thefarther end, which would not have been visible from the entrance, onaccount of a slight bend in the ice-gallery, even if there had been anylight, it was closed by an ice-cascade 7 yards high and 4 1/2 feet broadat the bottom. The ice of much of this cascade was so clear, that I sawthe rock upon which it rested, or in some parts did not rest, quiteplainly, and the large air-cavities in the structure were beautifullyshown by the richly-coloured rock behind. None of the current which wehad observed above, and which had nearly baffled my protecting care ofthe candle during the descent, came from this gallery; but I find itwritten in my notes that the gallery was _very_ cold. Thaw was going on, rather rapidly; and the water stole out by the entrance, and ran downthe main descent, over ice and among rocks, into the farther darkness. 

When I came out again from this gallery, I mounted the slope towards mycompanions, and tried to tempt them down. The maire felt himself to betoo valuable to his country to be lightly risked, and declined to come;but Rosset took a bold heart, and dropped, after requiring from me asolemn promise that I would give him a back for his return up the rock. We visited the gallery I had already explored, and, as we stood admiringthe cascade of ice, a skilful drop of water came from somewhere, andextinguished our only candle. My matches were with the maire; and I wasequally sure that he would not bring them down to us, and that we couldnot go up to fetch them without a light. Rosset, however, veryfortunately, had a box in his pocket for smoking purposes; and we cutoff the wet wick, and cut down the composition to form another, and socontrived to light the candle again. While we were thus engaged, Ichanced to look up for a moment, and saw far above our heads a smallopening in the roof, through which a few rays of light entered from theouter world. It was so very far above us, that the uncertain rays werelost long before they got down to our level, being absorbed in theuniversal darkness, and being in fact rather suggested than visible evenat their strongest. Those who have been at Lauterbrunnen in a very dryseason, will understand how these rays presented the appearance of aghostly Staubbach of unreal light. We must have been at an immense depthbelow the surface in which the opening lay; and if there had been a longday before us, it would have been curious to search for the fissureabove. Sir Thomas Browne says, in the _Religio Medici, _ 'Conceive lightinvisible, and that is a spirit. ' We very nearly saw a spirit here. 

The descent from the mouth of this chamber to the deeper recesses of themain fissure was very rough, but was speedily accomplished, and wereached a point where solid rock stopped us in face; while, to theright, a chamber with a threshold of ice was visible, and, to the left, a dark opening, down which the descent appeared to continue. From thisopening all the strong cold current came. We took the ice-chamber first. 

The entrance had evidently been closed till very lately by a largecolumn of ice, and we passed over the débris, between rock portals andon a floor of solid grey ice, into a triangular cave of any height theimagination might choose to fix. The entire floor of the cave was ofice, giving the impression of infinite thickness and firmness. A littlewater stood on it, near the threshold, so limpid that we could not seewhere it commenced. The base of this triangular floor we found to be 17feet, and its altitude 30 feet; and though these dimensions may seemcomparatively small, the whole effect of the thick mass of ice on whichwe stood, with the cascades of ice in the corners, and the ice-figureson the walls, and the three sides of the cave passing up into sheerdarkness, was exceedingly striking, situated, as it all was, so deepdown in the bowels of the earth. The original entrance to the fissure, at the top of the _cheminée_, was, as has been said, at the base oflofty rocks, and we had descended very considerably from the entrance;so that, even without the strange light thrown upon the matter by thesmall hole overhead, through which we had seen the day struggling toforce its way into the cavern, we should have been sure that we were nowat an immense distance below the surface. One corner of the cave wasoccupied by a broad and solid-looking cascade, while another cornershowed the opening of a very narrow fissure, curved like one of theshell-shaped crevasses of a glacier. Into this fissure the ice-floorstreamed; and Rosset held my coat-tails while I made a few steps downthe stream, when the fall became too rapid for further voluntaryprogress. I let down a stone for 18 feet, when it stuck fast, and wouldmove neither one way nor the other. The upper wall of this fissure wasclothed with moss-like ice, and ice of the prismatic structure, --withhere and there large scythe-blades, as it were, attached by the sharpedge to the rock, and lying vertically with the heel outwards. One ofthese was 11 inches deep, from the heel to the rock, and only one-eighthof an inch thick at the thickest part. 

The angle occupied by the cascade or column was the most striking. Thebase of the column was large, and apparently solid, like a smoothunbroken waterfall suddenly frozen. It fitted into the angle of thecave, and completely filled up the space between the contiguous walls. Icommenced to chop with my axe, and before long found that this ice washollow, though very thick; and when a sufficient hole was made for me toget through, I saw that what had looked like a column was in truth onlya curtain of ice hung across the angle of the cave. Within the curtainthe ice-floor still went on, streaming down at last into a fissuresomething like that in the other corner. The curtain was so low, that Iwas obliged to sit on the ice inside to explore; and after a foot or twoof progress, the slope towards the fissure became sufficiently greatto require steps to be cut. The stream of ice turned round a bend in thefissure, very near the curtain, and was lost to view; but Rosset stoodby the hole through which I had passed--on the safer side of it--anddespatched blocks of ice, which glided past me round the corner, andwent whizzing on for a long time, eventually landing upon stones, andsometimes, we fancied, in water. It is very awkward work, sitting on agentle slope of the smoothest possible ice, with a candle in one hand, and an axe in the other, cutting each step in front; especially whenthere is nothing whatever to hold by, and the slope is sufficient tomake it morally certain that in case of a slip all must go together. Ofcourse, a rope would have made all safe. When I groaned over the maire'sobstinacy, Rosset asked what could possibly be the use of a rope, if Iwere to slip; and, to my surprise, I found that he had no idea what Iwanted a rope for. When he learned that, had there been one, he wouldhave played a large part in the adventure, and that he might have had medangling over an ice-fall out of sight round the corner, he added hisgroans to mine, and would evidently have enjoyed it all very much. Atthe same time, he was prudent, and, as each block of ice made its finalplunge, he told me that was what would happen to me if I went anyfarther: and, really, the pictures he drew of deep lakes of icy waterand jagged points of rock, between which I must make my choice downthere, were so unpleasant, that at last I desisted, and pushed myself upbackwards, still in a sitting posture, calling Rosset and the maire theworst names I could feel justified in using. On the way, I found one ofthe large brown flies which we had seen in the Glacière of LaGenollière, and in the Lower Glacière of the Pré de S. Livres. 

Rosset now told me he was so cold he could stand it no longer; but, after a little pressure, and a declaration on my part that he should nothave a candle for going up again, he consented to remain with me while Iexplored the remaining chamber, the lowest of all. This chamber may becalled a continuation of the main passage. It is of about the same widthas the highest of the three chambers, and the floor descends rapidly, the cold current of air becoming very strong and biting as we penetratedinto the darkness. As the Genevese _savans_ seemed to believe in 'coldcurrents' as the cause of underground ice, I was naturally anxious tosee as much as possible of the state of this gallery, from which everyparticle of the current seemed to come. We very soon reached a narrowdark lake, and, exclaiming that here was ice again, I stepped, not onto, but into it, and found that it was water. When our solitary candlewas brought to bear upon it, we saw that it was so clear as not in anyway to impede our view, producing rather the effect of slightly-cloudedspectacles upon the stones at the bottom. This lake filled up the wholebreadth of the gallery, here perhaps 4 or 5 feet, and rapidly passed tothe depth of a yard; but for a little distance there were unstablestones at one edge, and steps in the rock-wall, by which I could passon still into the darkness, supported by an alpenstock planted in thewater. The current of cold air blew along the surface of the water fromthe farther extremity of the gallery, wherever that might be. As far asour eyes could reach, we saw nothing but the black channel of water, with its precipitous sides passing up beyond our sight. It might havebeen possible to progress in a spread-eagle fashion, with one hand andone foot on each side; but a fall would have been so bitterlyunpleasant, that I made a show of condescension in acceding to Rosset'srequest that I would not attempt such a thing. In the course of myreturn to the rocks where he stood, I involuntarily fathomed thedepth of the lake, luckily in a shallower part, and was so much struckby the coldness of the water, that I left Rosset with the candle, andstruggled up without a light to the place where we had left the maire, or rather to the bottom of the drop from the entrance-cave, to get thethermometer. The maire was sunning himself on the rock, out of reach ofthe cold current; but he came in, and let down the case, and I quicklyrejoined the schoolmaster. At first, it would have been impossible tomove about without a light; but our eyes had now become to some extentaccustomed to the darkness, and I had learned the difficulties of theway. 

When the thermometers were suspended in the water, Rosset asked how longthey must stay there. I rashly answered, a quarter of an hour; on whichhe demanded indignantly whether I supposed he meant to stay in that coldfor a quarter of an hour. He had now the candle in his own possession, and I was propped on a stone and an alpenstock in the lake, so he turnedto go, vowing that he would leave me alone in the dark if I did not comeout at once. There was no help for it, as the thermometer would havebeen of no use without a candle, and a step in the dark is not pleasantwhen all around is water, so I slowly drew up the thermometer and read33° F. In making final arrangements for departure, I let it lie in thewater for a few seconds longer, and it fell to 32½°; but Rosset wouldnot stay a moment longer, and I was obliged to be content with thatresult. He made himself very easy about the matter, and said we mustcall it zero; and in the evening I heard him telling the maire that thegreatest of the wonders he had missed, by his patriotic care for hisneck, was a lake of water which did not freeze, though its temperaturewas zero (centigrade). 

Among the stones at the bottom of this water, I saw here and therepatches of a furry sort of ice. I have often watched the freezing of arapid Scotch stream, where, in the swifter parts, the ice forms first atthe bottom and gradually creeps up the larger stones till it appears onthe surface, and becomes a nucleus, round which pieces of floating icecollect; and the substance in the glacière-lake had exactly the sameappearance as the Scotch ground-ice. But it could not be the same thingin reality, for, as far as I understand the phenomenon of ground-ice, some disturbed motion of the water is necessary, to drive down below thesurface the cold particles of water, which become ice the moment theystrike upon any solid substance shaped like fractured stone;[75] thespecific gravity of freezing water being so much less than that of waterat a somewhat higher temperature, that without some disturbing cause itwould not sink to the bottom. [76] So that it seems probable that the iceat the bottom of the lake was the remains of a solid mass, of which thegreater part had been converted into water by some warm influence orother. We noticed that a little water trickled down among the stoneswhich formed the slope of descent into the lowest gallery, so thatperhaps the lake was a collection of water from all parts of the variousramifications of the fissure. Whence came the icy wind, it is impossibleto say, without further exploration. It was satisfactory to me to findthat the 'cold current' of the Genevese _savans_ was thus associatedwith water, and not with ice, in the only cave in which I had detectedits presence to any appreciable extent, the currents of the Glacière ofMonthézy being of a totally different description. 

When we reached the final rock, in ascending, I offered Rosset thepromised back, but he got up well enough without it. Before leaving theentrance-cave, we inspected the thermometer which we had left to testthe temperature of the current of air, and, to my surprise, found itstanding at 48°. We saw, however, that it had been carelessly propped ona piece of rock which sheltered it from the influence of the current, soI exposed it during the time occupied in arranging the bag of tapes, &c. , and it fell to 36°: whether it would have fallen lower, theimpatience of Rosset has left me unable to say. If I can ever make anopportunity for visiting the Mont Parmelan again, I shall hope to take acord, in order to investigate the mysterious corner of the triangularchamber; and I shall certainly make myself independent of shiveringFrenchmen while I measure the temperature of the lake and the current ofair. We met a man outside who said that he was employed by the owner, M. De Chosal of Annecy, to cut the ice; he had been down three times to thelowest gallery in different years, in the end of July, and had alwaysfound the same collection of water there. The glacière, he told us, wasdiscovered about thirty years ago. 

The maire had basked in the sun all the time we were down below, andhe expressed himself as much pleased that we had found so much tointerest us, in spite of the miscarriage of our efforts to reach thesecond glacière. We set off down the steep grass at a scramblingsliding run, against which I was speedily obliged to protest, explaining that a certain ugly inflammation above the left knee wasbecoming worse every other step, and as the leg must last three dayslonger, it would be as well to humour it. They saw the force of thisreasoning, and we descended with much gravity till we came in sight ofthe _Mairie_, still half an hour off, when Rosset cried out that hesmelled supper, and rushed off at an infectious pace down theremainder of the mountain-side. 

We reached the _Mairie_ at six o'clock, and sat down at once 'to eatsomething. ' The first course was bread and kirsch; and when that wasfinished, six boiled eggs appeared, and a quart _carafe_ of white wine. These having vanished, their place was taken by a dish of soddencabbage, and another quart of wine; but, to save the credit of the maireand the schoolmaster, I will not say how often the former functionarydescended to the cellar with a quart pitcher, with increasingimpetuosity. Next came a dish of onions, with a pretence of_mange-tout, _ broiled brown after boiling, and served in a compound fat;and then haricots with a like condiment, and with a flavour reminiscentof the previous course. There was some talk of a _poulet_; but the birdstill lived, and the talk came to nothing. The dinner ended with theharicots, and we then relapsed into dessert, namely, bread and kirsch. The mayoress came in with the dessert, and sat on the end of the bench, below the hats and the bread-tin, eating the remaining onions off thedish with the spoon of nature. 

During one of the maire's frequent visits to the cellar, I propoundeda question to the schoolmaster which had puzzled me for some time: WasI to pay the maire? M. Rosset said that it was certainly not_necessary_, but I had better propose it, and I should then see how M. Métral took it. This I accordingly did, when the adieux in the househad been said, and my host was showing me the way to Thorens, where Iwas to sleep, he, also, declared that it was not necessary--thepleasure he had experienced in accompanying me had already fullyrecompensed him: still, if I wished to reimburse him for that which Ihad actually cost, he was a man reasonable, and in all cases content. I calculated that the dinner and wine which had fallen to my sharewould be dear at a franc, and the day's wage of a substitute to do themaire's neglected work could not come to much, so I boldly andunblushingly gave that great man four francs, and he said regretfullythat it was more than enough. To his son and heir--the identical boywho had brought the ring of bread up the mountain to the châlet wherewe lunched. I gave something under two-pence, for guiding me acrosstwo doubtful fields into a beaten track, and he expressed himself aseven more content than the maire. They both told me that it wasimpossible to miss the way; but I imagine that I achieved thatimpossibility, as I had to walk through two streams in the deepeningtwilight, and the prevailing fear of water in that region is veryconsiderable. 

The _auberge_ at Thorens to which the maire had recommended me, as beingthe best, and kept by a personal friend of his, bore the sign _à laParfaite Union_. The entry was by the kitchen, and through the steam andodour of onions, illuminated by one doubtful oil-lamp, I saw theguest-room filled with people in Sunday dress, while two fiddles playedeach its own tune in its own time. Nothing but the potent name of M. TheMaire of Aviernoz gained me even a hearing; and, for a bed, I wasobliged to stretch my intimacy with that exalted personage to the veryfurthest bounds of truth. Chappaz Nicolai, whose name the maire hadwritten in my note-book, that there might be no mistake, appeared to beof that peculiar mental calibre which warrants Yorkshire peasants indescribing a man as 'half-rocked, ' or 'not plumb. ' His wife, on theother hand, was one of those neat, gentle, sensible women, of whom onewonders how they ever came to marry such thick-lipped and blear-eyedmen. Between them they informed me that if I did not object to share aroom, I could be taken in; otherwise--maire or no maire--not. I askedwhether they meant half a bed; but they said no, that would not benecessary at present; and I accepted the offered moiety of accommodation, as it was now seventeen hours since I had started in the morning, and Iwas not inclined to turn out in the dark to look for a whole roomelsewhere. 

The stairs were a sort of cross between a ladder and nothing, and whenwe reached the proposed room a large mastiff was in possession, whowould not let us enter till the master was summoned to expel him. Thefurniture consisted of a table and five chairs, with no bed or beds. Onthe chairs were various articles of clothing, blouses and garments moreprofound, belonging probably to members of the party below; and on thetable, a bottle of water and a soup-plate, the pitcher and basin of thehouse. It was a mere slip of a room, with two diamond-shaped holes inone wall, whose purpose I discovered when my guide opened a papereddoor, in which were the holes, and displayed two beds foot to foot in analcove. One of these, she was sure, would be too short for me, but shefeared I must be satisfied with it, as the other was much broader andwould therefore hold the two messieurs. How the _two_? I asked, and wastold that two _pensionnaires_ lived in this room; but they were oldfriends, and for one night would sleep in the same bed to obligemonsieur. The ideas of length and breadth in connection with the bedswere entirely driven from my head by the fact of their dirtiness; and Idetermined that if the two _pensionnaires_ occupied the one, the othershould be unoccupied. 

After arranging things a little, I struggled down the steps again, andordered coffee and bread in a little room, which commanded the assemblywith the fiddles in the larger _salle_. The head waitress, busy as shewas, found time to come now and then to an open window near where I sat, and talked to a male friend sitting outside in the dark: indeed, shedid more than talk, and people had to rattle their glasses very hardbefore they could make her hear. From her I learned that this was amarriage party which had arrived; and when I asked why they did notdance, as the fiddles were engaged at that moment with unwontedunanimity upon dance-music, she gave me to understand that these werenot people of Thorens, but only a party from another village, making theevening promenade after the wedding: from which it would seem that it isnot the etiquette for people to dance under such circumstances, exceptin the home village. They sat round a table, men and women alternately, with their hats on, and with glasses before them. The bride andbridegroom were accommodated with a bench to themselves at the head ofthe table, he likewise with his hat on, and with a pipe in his mouth, which, seeing that he was a demonstrative bridegroom, one might havesupposed to be an inconvenience. He managed very well, however, andevery one seemed contented: indeed, the pipe must, I think, be held tobe no difficulty; for the men all smoked, and yet, to judge fromappearances, there was a prospect of as many marriages as there werecouples in the room. The unruffled gravity, however, and the apparentwant of zest, both in giving and receiving, which characterised theproceedings specially referred to, led me to suppose that it might beonly a part of the etiquette, and so meant nothing serious. 

Between ten and eleven the fiddles and the party vanished, and I wentup-stairs more determined than ever not to touch a bed, after myexperience of the room below. Three chairs were speedily arrangedbetween the table and wall, and on these I lay and tried to sleep. Butthe very chairs were populous, as I had found below, and sleep wasimpossible. Moreover, soon after eleven, a soldier came into the room, to arrange about his breakfast with one of the maidens in thehouse. He had heard me order fresh butter for six o'clock, and he wasanxious to know, whether, by breakfasting at five o'clock, he couldget my butter. The chairs which formed my bed were under the lee ofthe table, so that the figure recumbent on them was invisible, and thegallant soldier, under the impression that there was no one in theroom, enforced his arguments by other than conventional means. Butmilitary lips, when applied personally, proved to be a rhetoric asunsuccessful as military words. The maid was platonic, and somethingmore than platonic; and the hero got so much the worst of it, that hegave up the battle, and changed the subject to a conscript in hischarge, who had locked himself in his bed-room and would not answer. How was he to know whether he had the conscript safe? All this lastedsome time; and when they were gone, one of the _pensionnaires_ camein. With him I had to fight the battle of the window, which I hadopened to its farthest extent. After he had got over the firstsurprise and shock of finding me on the chairs instead of in the bed, for whose comfort he vouched enthusiastically, he became confidentthat it was merely out of complaisance to him and his comrade that Ihad opened the window, and assured me that they really did not carefor fresh air, even if they could feel the difference in the alcove, which he declared they could not. As soon as that was arranged to mysatisfaction, the other _pensionnaire_ came in, and with him thebattle was fought with only half success, for he peremptorily closedone side of the window. He was a particularly noisy _pensionnaire_, and shied his boots into every corner of the room before they wereposed to his satisfaction. As far as I could tell, the removal of theboots was the only washing and undressing either of them did; and thenthey arranged their candles in the alcove, lighted cigars, and gotinto bed. There the wretches sat up on end, smoking and talkingvehemently, till sheer exhaustion came to my aid, and I fell asleep;but the edges of the rush-bottomed chairs speedily became so sharpthat a recumbent posture ceased to be possible, and I sat dozing onone chair. A little before four o'clock, the noisier man got up tolook for his boots; and as the friends continued their discussion, Ialso turned out and made for the nearest stream, where I bathed in arapid at half-past four, to wash away, if possible, the horrors of thenight. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 73: The true _Cimetière des Bourguignons_ is the enclosurewhere René, the victor of Nancy, buried the Burgundians who fell on thesad Sunday when Charles the Bold went down before the deaf châtelainClaude de Bagemont. ]

[Footnote 74: Neither of my companions, I fear, would have acted asSejanus did, when another emperor was in danger of his life in the caveon the Gulf of Amyclæ. (Tacit. Ann. Iv. 59. )]

[Footnote 75: Water reduced to a temperature below 32° withoutfreezing, begins to freeze as soon as a crystal is dropped into it, theice forming first on the faces of the crystal. ]

[Footnote 76: Water attains its maximum of specific gravity at 40°. Below 40° it becomes lighter. ]

 * * * * *

CHAPTER XII. 

THE GLACIÈRES OF THE BREZON, AND THE VALLEY OF REPOSOIR. 

The bill _à la Parfaite Union_ was as small as the accommodation at that_auberge_, and it was an immense relief to get away from the scene of mysufferings. The path to Bonneville lies for the earlier part of the waythrough pleasant scenery; and when the highest ground is reached, thereis a lovely view of the Lake of Geneva, which may be enjoyed under thecool shade of a high hedge of trees, in the intervals of browsing uponwild strawberries. But after passing the curious old town of La Roche, two hours' walk from Thorens, the heat and dust of the dreary high roadbecame insupportable; and no pedestrian who undertakes that march witha heavy knapsack, under a blazing noonday sun, will arrive at Bonnevillewithout infinite thankfulness that he has got through it. The road is ofthe same character as that between Bonneville and Geneva, and that willsufficiently express its unpleasantness in baking times of drought. 

The Glacière of the Brezon lies at no great distance fromBonneville--perhaps not more than four or five miles to the SE. --but itselevation is more than 4, 000 feet, and the approach is steep. TheGlacière of the Valley of Reposoir, a valley which falls into the mainroad between Bonneville and Chamouni at the village of Scionzier, isconsiderably higher, and a good deal of climbing is necessary invisiting it. When I arrived at Bonneville, the whole mass of mountainsin which these caves lie was enveloped in thick dark clouds, and thefaint roar of thunder reached our ears now and then, so that it seemeduseless to attempt to penetrate into the high valleys. Moreover, I wasdue for an attempt upon Mont Blanc in the beginning of the next week, and an incipient bilious fever, with a painful lameness of one leg, warned me that my powers were coming to an end, and that another daysuch as the last had been would put a total stop upon the proposedascent; and so I determined to take the fever and the leg to Geneva, andsubmit them to medical skill. This determination was strengthened by theexhortations of a Belgian, who called himself a _grand amateurdesmontagnes_, on the strength of an ascent of the Môle and the Voiron, andin this character administered Alpine advice of that delightfuldescription which one meets with in the coffee-rooms at Chamouni. ThisBelgian was the only other guest of the Hôtel des Balances; and hisamiability was proof even against the inroads of some nameless speciesof _vin mousseux_, recommended to me by the waiter, which supplied_mal-à-propos_ wine-sauce to the various dishes from which the Belgianwas making his dinner, and did not leave his face and waistcoat freefrom stain. He had but one remark to make, however wild might be theassertions advanced from the English side of the table, '_Vous avezraison, monsieur, vous avez parfait-e-ment raison_!' It is not quitesatisfactory to hold the same sentiments, in every small particular, with a man who clips his hair down to a quarter of an inch, and eatsharicots with his fingers; but it was impossible to find any subject onwhich he could be roused to dissentience. This phenomenon was explainedafterwards, when he informed me that he was a flannel-merchanttravelling with samples, and pointed out what was only too true, namely, that the English monsieur's coat was no longer fit to be called a coat. 

Professor Pictet read a paper on these glacières before the _SociétéHelvétique des Sciences Naturelles_ at Berne, in 1822, which is to befound in the _Bibl. Universelle de Genève. _[77] M. Pictet left Geneva inthe middle of July to visit the caves, but found himself so much knockedup by the first day's work, that he sent on his grandson to the Glacièreof the Brezon, and gave up the attempt himself. The young man found itto be of small dimensions, 30 feet by 25, with a height of 10 or 12feet. The ice on the floor was believed by the guide to be formed insummer only, and was placed too irregularly to admit of measurement. Calcareous blocks almost choked the entrance, and an orifice in theshape of a funnel admitted the snow freely from above, and was partlyfilled with snow in July. Cold currents of air proceeded from the rocksin the neighbourhood of the glacière, giving in one instance atemperature of 38°·75, the temperature in the shade being 51°. Withinthe cave, the temperature was 41°. 

M. Morin visited this glacière in August 1828. He describes it as asheltered hole, in which the snow collects and is preserved. 

M. Thury examined it in August 1859, and gives the same account. He, too, found the current of air which the younger Pictet discovered, butin the cave itself the air was perfectly still. 

It was clearly, then, no great loss to miss the Glacière of the Brezon;but that on the Mont Vergy, in the Valley of Reposoir, appears to bemuch more interesting. Professor Pictet found himself sufficientlystrong after a day's rest to pass on to Scionzier, and up the Valley ofReposoir, accompanied by the well-known guide Timothée, whose botanicalknowledge of the district is said to be perfect. He had conducted MM. Necker and Colladon to the glacière in 1807, and believed that no_savant_ had since seen it. The rocks are all calcareous, with largeblocks of erratic granite. The glacière lies about 40 minutes from theChâlet of Montarquis, whence its local name of _La grand' Cave deMontarquis_. Before reaching it, a spacious grotto presents itself, oncethe abode of coiners: this grotto is cold, but affords no ice, and nearit M. Morin found a narrow fissure, leading into a circular vaultedchamber 15 feet in diameter, in which stood a solitary stalagmite of ice15 feet high. 

The entrance to the glacière itself is elliptical in shape, 43 feetbroad at the base, and the cave increases in size as it extends fartherinto the rock, the floor descending gently till a horizontal esplanadeof ice is reached. This esplanade was 66 feet by 30 at the time ofPictet's visit, deeper in the middle than at the sides, and mounting therock at the farther side of the cave; there was a small stalagmite atone side, but that would seem to have been the only ornamentationdisplayed. The temperature was 34°·7, a foot above the ice, and 58° inthe external air. Timothée had been in the glacière in the previousApril, and had found no ice, --nothing but a pool of water ofconsiderable depth. M. Thury, in August 1859, found two sheets of icein the lowest part of the cave: one, nearly 50 feet long, was partiallycovered with water; the other, presenting an area of about 14 squareyards, showed more water still. There were no stalactites and columnssuch as M. Morin had found in August 1828, nor even the low stalagmitewhich Pictet saw in 1822. The summers of 1828 and 1859 wereexceptionally hot, and this fact has been held to account for thesmaller quantity of ice seen in those years. M. Thury found the cold dueto evaporation to be considerably less than 1° F. , [78] and he and M. Morin both fixed the general temperature of the cave at 36°. 5; theyalso found a current of air entering by a fissure in the lowest part ofthe cave, but it did not disturb the whole of the interior, for in onepart the air was in perfect equilibrium. M. Gampert, [79] in the summerof 1823, found a strong and very cold current of air descending by thisfissure, along with water which ran from it over the ice; he believedthat this was refrigerated by evaporation, in passing through thethickness of the moist rock. 

Two peasants visited this cave three times in the winter season, viz. OnOctober 22, November 26, and on Christmas Day; and one of them, by nameChavan, drew up an account of their experiences, which was read by M. Colladon before the _Société de Physique et d'Histoire Nat. De Genève_in 1824. [80] The peasants found very little ice in columns at the timeof the October visit, and there were signs of commencing thaw. The thawwas much more pronounced in November, when the ice had nearlydisappeared even from the lowest parts of the cave, and they found theair within quite warm. On Christmas Day they had great difficulty inreaching the glacière, and narrowly escaped destruction by an avalanche, which for a time deterred them from prosecuting the adventure: theypersisted, however, and were rewarded by finding only water where insummer all was ice, and a temperate warmth in the cave. They observedthat the roof had fissures like chimneys. 

This account was so circumstantial, that the only thing left was toattempt an explanation of the phenomena reported, and such explanationshave not been wanting. But M. Thury was not quite satisfied, and hedetermined to visit the cave in the winter of 1860-1. Accordingly, accompanied by M. André Gindroz, who had already joined him in hisunsuccessful attempt to reach the Glacière of the Pré de S. Livres, heleft Geneva on the 10th of January, and slept at the Chartreuse in theValley of Reposoir. As the party passed through the village of Pralongdu Reposoir, the peasants told them with one accord that they would findnothing but warmth and water in the cave; but when M. Thury asked hadany of them seen it themselves, they were equally unanimous in sayingno, explaining that it was not worth anyone's while to go in the winter, as there was no ice to be seen then, --a circular line of argument whichdid not commend itself to the strangers. 

At the very entrance of the grotto, they found beautiful stalactites ofclear ice; and here they paused, till such time as they should be coolenough to enter, for the thermometer stood at 70° in the sun, and theirclimb had made them hot. On penetrating to the farther recesses of thecave, where the true glacière lies, they found an abundance ofstalactites, stalagmites, and columns of ice, with flooring and slopesof the same material: not a drop of water anywhere. The stalagmites werevery numerous, but none of them more than three feet high; some of thestalactites, fifteen or so in number, were six or seven feet long, andthere were many others of a smaller size. M. Thury was particularlystruck by the milky appearance of much of the ice, one column inparticular resembling porcelain more than any other substance. This is anot unusual character of the most beautiful part of the decorations ofthe more sheltered ice-caves, as for instance the lowest cave in theUpper Glacière of the Pré de S. Livres; the white appearance is not dueto the presence of air, for the ice is transparent and homogeneous, andthe naked eye is unable to detect bubbles or internal fissures. 

The temperatures at 1. 25 P. M. And 2. 12 P. M. Respectively were asfollows:--In the sun, between 3 and 4 feet above the snow, 72°. 1 and70°·5; in the shade, outside the cave, 36°·7 and 35°·8; at theObservatory of Geneva, in the shade, 27°·3 and 28°·2, having risen from24°·5 since noon. In the cave, 1 foot above the surface of theice-floor, the thermometer stood at 24°. 8; and in a hole in the ice, some few inches below the surface, 24°·1. In the large fissure, which hasbeen already mentioned as the source of the summer currents of air, thetemperature at various points was from 29°·3 to 27°·5. The circumstancesof these currents of air were now of course changed. Instead of a steadycurrent passing from the fissure into the cave, and so out by the mainentrance into the open air, strong enough to incline the flame of acandle 45°, M. Thury found a gentle current passing from the cave intothe fissure, sufficient only to incline the flame 10°, and near theentrance 8°, while in the entrance itself no current was perceptible at4 P. M. 

M. Thury remarks that less current was to be expected in winter than insummer, because the upper ends of the fissures would be probably chokedwith snow, and their lower ends with ice. It is evident that the currentwhich passes up into the fissure in winter, is favourable to theintroduction of the colder air from without; while the opposite currentin summer keeps up a supply of cold air in the cave, and so increasesits powers of resisting the attempts of the heated external air to makea partial entrance. Both these currents, then, favour the glacialconditions of the cave, and to some extent counterbalance thedisadvantages of its situation: viz. , its aspect, towards thesouth-east; the large size of its opening to the air, and the absence ofall shelter near the mouth, such as is so often provided by trees orrocks. The small depth of the cave, scarcely amounting to 18 feet belowthe level of the entrance, is also a great disadvantage. 

The people of Pralong asked, on the return of the party, what had beenfound in the _grand' cave_, and the answer reduced them to silence for afew moments. Their prejudices, however, were invincible, and theypersisted in their belief that a true glacière ought to have no ice init in the winter. M. Thury did not enquire from what source they drewtheir ideas of a true glacière. 

There is a book, in three volumes, on the 'Glacières of the Alps, ' by M. Bourrit, dedicated to Buffon, in which is a description of the Valley ofReposoir; but no mention whatever is made of the _grand' cave_. Indeed, M. Bourrit merely meant by _glacière_, a glacial district, somethingmore extensive than a _glacier_, and he had evidently no knowledge ofthe existence of caves containing ice. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 77: Première Série, t. Xx. Pp. 261, &c. ]

[Footnote 78: Less than 1/2° C. , he says. ]

[Footnote 79: _Bibl. Univ. De Genève_, Première Série, t. Xxv. Pp. 224, &c. ]

[Footnote: 80: _Bibl. Univ_. L. C. ]

 * * * * *

CHAPTER XIII. 

LA BORNA DE LA GLACE, IN THE DUCHY OF AOSTA. 

The Chanoine Carrel, of Aosta, whose name is so well and so favourablyknown to Alpine men, sent a brief account of an ice-cave in hisneighbourhood to the _Bibliothèque Universelle_ of Geneva[81] in theyear 1841, and, as far as I know, there is no other account of it. Myplan had been to pass from Chamouni by the Col du Géant to Courmayeur, and thence to Aosta for a visit to the canon and his glacière; but, unfortunately, the symptoms which had put an end to the expedition tothe Brezon and the Valley of Reposoir came on with renewed vigour, as aconsequence of Mont Blanc, and the projected fortnight with Peter Pernncollapsed into a hasty flight to Geneva. It was fortunate that medicalassistance was not necessary in Chamouni itself; for one of the membersof our large party there was mulcted in the sum of £16, with a hint thatsomething beyond that would be acceptable, for an extremely moderateamount of attendance by the local French doctor. 

The glacière was thus of necessity given up. It is known among thepeople as _La Borna de la Glace_, and lies about 5, 300 feet above thesea, on the northern slope of the hills which command the hamlet ofChabaudey, commune of La Salle, in the duchy of Aosta, to the north-eastof Larsey-de-là, in a place covered with firs and larches, and calledPlan-agex. The entrance has an east exposure, and is very small, being atriangle with a base of 2 feet and an altitude of 2-1/2 feet. Afterdescending a yard or two, this becomes larger, and divides into two mainbranches, with three other fissures penetrating into the heart of themountain, too narrow to admit of a passage. The roof is very irregular, and the stones on the floor are interspersed with ice, which appearsalso in the form of icicles upon the walls; and, in the eastern branchof the cave, there is a cylindrical pillar more than 3 feet long, witha diameter of rather more than a foot. The temperature at 4 P. M. OnJuly 15, 1841, was as follows:--The external air, 59°; the cave, at theentrance, 37·2º; near the large cylinder, 35°·7; and in different partsof the western branch, from 33°·6 to 32°·9. 

M. Carrel was evidently not aware of the existence of similar caveselsewhere. He recommends, in his communication to the _BibliothèqueUniverselle_, that some scientific man should investigate the phenomena, and explain the great cold, and the fact of the formation of ice, whichcommon report ascribed to the time of the Dog-days. He doubts whetherrapid evaporation can be the only cause, and suggests that possiblythere may be something in the interior of the mountain to account forthis departure from the laws generally recognised in geology. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 81: Nouvelle Série, t. Xxxiv. P. 196. ]

 * * * * *

CHAPTER XIV. 

THE GLACIÈRE OF FONDEURLE, IN DAUPHINÉ. 

There cannot be any better place for recruiting strength than the lovelyprimitive valley of _Les Plans_, two hours up the course of the Avençonfrom hot and dusty Bex. Here I rejoined my sisters, intending to spend amonth with them before returning to England; and the neighbouringglaciers afforded good opportunities for quietly investigating thestructure of the ice which composes them, with a view to discovering, ifpossible, some trace of the prismatic formation so universal in theglacières. On one occasion, after carefully cutting steps and examiningthe faces of cleavage for an hour and a half, I detected a small patchof ice, under the overhanging rim of a crevasse, marked distinctly withthe familiar network of lines on the surface; but I was unable todiscover anything betokening a prismatic condition of the interior. This was the only case in which I saw the slightest approach to thephenomena presented in ice-caves. 

There remained one glacière on M. Thury's list, which I had so far notthought of visiting. It was described as lying three leagues to thenorth of Die in Dauphiné, department of the Drôme, at an altitude ofmore than 5, 000 feet above the sea. M. Héricart de Thury discoveredthis cavern in 1805, and published an account of it in the _Annalesdes Mines_[82] to which M. Thury's list gave a reference. I have sincefound that this account has been translated into various scientificperiodicals, among others the Philosophical Journal of Edinburgh. [83]It occurred to me that, by leaving Les Plans a few days earlier than Ihad intended, I could take advantage of the new line connectingChambéry and Grenoble and Valence, and so visit this glacière withoutmaking the journey too long; and accordingly I bade farewell to MadameChérix's comfortable room, leaving my sisters in their quarters in aneighbouring châlet, and started for Geneva. 

The line was advertised to open on the 15th of August; but on the 16ththe officials declared that it was not within a month and a half ofcompletion, so that I was compelled to go round by Lyons. I was easilyreconciled to this by the opportunity thus afforded of a visit to theancient city of Vienne, which well repays inspection. Its history is aperfect quarry of renowned names, Roman, Burgundian, and ecclesiastical. Tiberius Gracchus left his mark upon the city, by bridling theRhône--_impatiens pontis_--with the earliest bridge in Gaul: and heretradition has it that the great Pompey loved magnificently one of hismany loves; while the site of the Prætorium in which Pontius Pilate issaid to have given judgment can still be pointed out. The true MountPilate lies between Vienne and Lyons, being one of the loftiestnorthern summits of the Cevennes, on the borders of the Lyonnaise. [84]The Romans recognised the fitness of the neighbourhood of Vienne for thecultivation of the grape, and the first vine in Gaul was planted on theMont d'Or in the second century of the Christian era. In Burgundiantimes the city held a very prominent place, and became infamous from thefrequent shedding of royal blood; so that early historians describe itas '_tousiours fatale à ceux qui vueillent la corone desBourgougnons, '[85]_ and as '_fatale et de malencõtre aux tyrãs etmauvais princes. '[86]_ Ecclesiastically, its interest dates of coursefrom a very early period, from the times of the martyrs of Gaul and thefirst Rogations. The Festival of _Les Merveilles_ long commemorated therestoration of the bodily forms of the Lyonnese martyrs, as theirscattered dust floated past the home of Blandina and Ponticus; and thededication of the cathedral to S. Maurice keeps alive the tradition thatPaschasius, bishop of Vienne, was warned by an angel to watch on thebanks of the Rhône, and so rescued the head and trunk of thesoldier-martyr, which had been cast into the river at Agaunum (S. Maurice in Valais), and had floated down--probably on sounderhydrostatical principles than the 'Floating Martyr'--through the Lake ofGeneva, and so to Vienne. There are still many very interesting Romanremains in the city, as the Temple of Augusta and Livia, the Arcade ofthe Forum, and the monument seen from the railway to the south of thetown. The temple is being carefully restored, and the large collectionof Roman curiosities which it contained is to be removed to the churchof S. Peter, now in course of restoration, which will in itself be wortha visit to Vienne when the restoration is completed. [87] All thebuildings connected with the Great Council in 1311 have disappeared; andthe only relic of the council seems to be the Chalice, _or_, surmountedby the Sacred Host, _argent_, in the city arms, in remembrance of theinstitution of the Fête of the _S. Corps_. If the Emperor would buthave the town and its inhabitants deodorised, few places would be betterworth visiting than Vienne. 

The poste leaves Valence--the home of the White Hermitage--for Die at2. 30 P. M. , and professes to reach its destination in six hours; but sadexperience showed that it could be unfaithful to the extent of an hourand a half. So long as the daylight lasted, there was no dearth ofobjects of interest; but when darkness came on, the monotonous roll ofthe heavy diligence became aggravating in the extreme. The village ofBeaumont, once the residence of an important branch of the greatBeaumont family, [88] retains still its square tower and old gateway; andthe remains of a château near Montmeyran, the end of the first stage, mark the scene of the victory of Marius over the Ambrons and Teutons, local antiquaries believing that the name of Montmeyran is from _MonsJovis Mariani_. [89] The road lies through the bright cool green of wideplantations of the silkworm mulberry, [90] with its trim stem and roundedhead; and, in the more open parts of the valley, walnut trees of sizeand shape fit for an ornamental park in England relieve the monotony. The nearer hills are covered to the top with vines, and the higher andmore distant ranges have a naked and thoroughly burned appearance, which suggests the idea of volcanoes to a traveller ignorant of volcanicfacts. The villages which lie at the foot of these rocky hills are builtof stones taken from the beds of the streams, and are so completely ofone colour with the background of rock, that in many instances it isdifficult to determine whether a distant mass of grey is a village ornot. Ruined castles and towers abound; and these, and still more thewalls which surround many of the villages, point unmistakeably to timesof great disturbance. The valley of the Drôme, up which the road after atime turns, was an important locality in the religious wars; and thetown and fort of Crest especially, as its name might suggest, was afamous stronghold, and resisted all the efforts of the Reformed party. In yet earlier times, Simon de Montfort had frequently tried to take it, without success; and four years after S. Bartholomew, Lesdiguières metwith a like repulse. [91] The same story of sieges and battles might betold of almost every village and defile of the valley. Thus, Saillans, the third stage, was taken by the Protestant leader Mirabel, and theCatholic Gordes, in 1574, and its fortifications were razed by the Ducde Mayenne in 1581. Pontaix, again, a remarkable place, with a vaultedstreet and fortified houses overhanging the river, which here fills upthe whole valley and leaves room only for the road and the narrowvillage-town, was the scene of an obstinate and murderous fight betweenthe Marquis de Gordes on one side, and Lesdiguières and Dupuy-Montbrunon the other, when the latter was captured, and shortly after beheadedat Grenoble. 

The town of Die, _Dea Vocontiorum_, lies in a broad part of the valley. It claims to be not _Dea Vocontiorum_ only, but also _AugustaVocontiorum_, thereby apparently defrauding the village of Aouste, nearCrest, of the earliest form of its name. Die is possessed of old walls, and has four gates with towers. The great goddess from whose worship itderives its name was Cybele, notwithstanding the vehement assertions ofthe official in the Poste-bureau in favour of Ceres; and three differentTauroboles have been discovered here, one of which is in excellentrepair, and shows a Roman inscription surmounted by three bulls' heads. The ceremony of the Taurobolium was new to me, and appears to have beenconducted as follows:--A small cave was hollowed out, with a thin roofformed by the outer surface of the earth; and immediately above this abull was sacrificed, so that the blood ran through the earth and droppedon to a priest who was placed in full robes in the cave. The priest andthe blood-stained garments were thenceforth specially sacred, thegarments retaining their sanctity for twenty years. The inscription onthe Tauroboles which have been found in and near Die record the namesof the priest, the dendrophore, the person who provided the victim, andthe emperor for whose safety the sacrifice was offered. 

The people of Die have been quarrelsome from the earliest times. Acentury before the estates of the Dauphins of the Viennois were known asDauphiné, [92] the chronic contests between the Bishops and the Counts ofDie had come to such a crisis, that the Dauphin Guiges André intervened, and produced a certain amount of peace; but, twenty years after, thepeople killed Bishop Humbert before the gate which thence received itsname of _Porte Rouge_. When the Counts of Valentinois had succeeded tothe fiefs of the Counts of Die, Gregory X. Became so weary of theconstant wars, that he suppressed the bishopric, and united it toValence in 1275; but the canons, who were not suppressed, raised amercenary army and carried on the struggle. Eventually, the canons andthe people made common cause, and joined the Pope during the SeventyYears; but when he left Avignon they came to terms with Charles VI. OfFrance, and so the Diois was united to Dauphiné in 1404. Louis XIV. Restored the separate bishopric, but ruined the town by the revocationof the Edict of Nantes. 

The large number of mosaics and inscriptions found in Die proveconclusively that in Roman times it was a favourite place of residence;and, so far as situation goes, it is not difficult to understand howthis should have been the case. But in the condition in which the townfound itself in the pitiless heat of August 1864, the only question foran English visitor was whether he could live through the time it wasabsolutely necessary to spend there. The poste arrived, as has beensaid, an hour and a half after its time; and the sole occupant of thecoupé, who had lived on fruit and gooseberry syrup, and three pennyworth of sweet cake at Crest, since a seven-o'clock breakfast, had wiledaway the last hour by inventing choice bills of fare for the meditatedsupper. When the lumbering vehicle stopped in the main street of Die, which is here something under seven yards wide, an elderly woman steppedout from the dim crowd, with an uncovered tallow candle in her hand, andasked if there was anyone for the hotel. The unwonted 'yes' seemed tocreate some surprise; but she led the way promptly to her hotel, diplomatically meeting the rapid volley of questions respecting supperwith an unpromising silence, and the first sight of the house itselfdispelled for ever all hope. An entrance was effected by the kitchen;and not only was there no fire, but there was no light of anydescription; and the one dip we brought on to the scene betrayed suchsqualor on all sides, that the suggestion of a _salle-à-manger_ inconnection with such a kitchen became at once an impudent mockery. Whenthis farther room was reached, it proved to be even worse than thekitchen. It was shut up for the night--had been shut up apparently for aweek--and was in the possession of the cats of the town, and the fliesof Egypt. Two monstrous hounds entered with us; and the cats fledhastily by a window which was slightly open at the top, spitting andhowling with fear when they missed the first spring, and came within thecognisance of their mortal foes. 

The first thing to be done was to wash off some of the accumulated dust;but when I asked for a bedroom for that purpose, I was conducted to acopper in the kitchen, the water in which had been a permanency for sometime past, and was told to wash there. As for supper, there was somecold mutton; but the landlady unfortunately opened the door of thecupboard as she said so, and displayed a state of things which decidedthe point against the mutton. There was nothing else in the house, andthere was no fire for cooking anything; but when they discovered that Ireally would not wait till the next morning, they proposed to light afire and warm some soup, which I declined to see in its present state. In the way of wine, I had been recommended to make a great point of the_clairette de Die_, an excellent species of _vin mousseux_; but thechief of the women rather recommended the ordinary wine of the country, as the monsieur might not like to give a strong price. 'Was it, then, sostrong?' 'Yes, the price was undoubtedly strong. ' 'How much, then?' 'Afranc a bottle. ' With an eye to the future bill, the monsieur pretendedto ponder awhile, as if in doubt whether his resources could stand sucha strain, and then, with a reckless air, decided upon the extravagance. The clairette proved to be quite worthy of the praise which had beenbestowed upon it, being a very pleasant and harmless sparkling whitewine. [93]

The neighbours kept dropping into the kitchen, to see how the landladygot on with the stranger of uncouth speech; and four of the female partof her company brought in at various times to the _salle-à-manger_ somepiece of table-furniture, in order to indulge in a closer view than theopen door of the room afforded. One of them told me she had seen anEnglishman once before, a few months back; but he only had one eye, andshe seemed to think I was out of order in possessing two. At length thesoup came, and the first attempt upon it proved it to be utterlyimpossible. The landlady was called in, and this fact was announced toher. 'What to do, then?--it was a good soup, a soup which the people ofDie loved, --it was a soup the household eat morning and night. ' All thesame, it was not a soup the present Englishman could eat, and some othersort of food must be provided, for she declined to furnish soup withoutgarlic and fat. She suggested an omelette; but a natural generalisationfrom all I had so far seen drew an untempting picture of the probablestate of the frying-pan, and I declined to face the idea until I wasconvinced there was nothing else to be had. But, alas! notwithstandingthe righteous indignation with which the landlady met my request thatthe omelette might not be all fat, the manipulation of the eggseventuated in a dish even more impracticable than the soup, flooded withunmentionable grease, and so at last the cold mutton became a necessity. To show how hunger may work upon the feelings, I may say that, in spiteof the marks of the feet of mice in the cold gravy which remained on thedish, I forced myself to cut off a wedge, and, after removing athick layer of meat on the exposed sides, essayed to eat the heart ofthe wedge. The sheep and its progenitors had been fed on garlic from alltime, and the mutton had been boiled in a decoction of that noxiousherb; and this dish was in its turn rejected like the others. There wasnothing for it but salad, and bread, and wine; but when the saladappeared, after a long time had been spent in the kitchen in saturatingthe withered greens with oil and vitriolic vinegar, there, perched onthe top like one of those animals which sometimes spoil one's enjoymentof a strawberry-bed, was a huge onion, with numerous satellites peepingout from under the leaves. About this time, a short diversion was causedby the reappearance of one of the large hounds, whose mind was not atease as to the completeness of the previous elimination of the cats fromthe _salle-à-manger;_ and the diabolical noise and scuffle which ensuedupon his investigation of a dark corner, showed that his doubts hadbeen well grounded. Then I discovered that there was no butter to behad, and no milk; and when coffee was mentioned, a pan was brought outfor making that beverage, which a bullet-maker with any regard forappearances would have declined to use for melting his lead in. Finally, under the pressure of dire hunger, I returned to the mutton, andcontrived to swallow a small piece, the taste of which did not leave mefor four or five days. 

The interior of the house, where the bedrooms were, gave forth an odourwhich must be familiar to all who have burrowed in out-of-the-way placesin France, approaching more nearly, perhaps, to the smell of damp cocksand hens than anything else; and the bedroom door was guarded by a hugemis-shapen dog, which evidently intended to pass the night there, if itcould not get into the room itself. The street on to which the windowlooked was still populous with the inhabitants of Die; and a man withwhom I had already had a conversation respecting the glacière, whoappeared to perform some of the functions of landlord of the hotel, wasaudibly engaged in hiring a man to accompany me on the following day. The man whom he was attempting to persuade was evidently of anindependent turn of mind, and said that as it would be an affair offifteen or sixteen hours at least, he would not go through so muchunless his proposed comrade were a true _bonhomme_; a difficulty whichthe landlord set at rest by asseverations so ready and socircumstantial, that I determined to take everything he might tell me, on any subject, with many grains of allowance. 

It was only natural to expect a night of horrors; but in this I was mostagreeably disappointed, and the few hours passed quietly enough till itwas time to get up. By morning light, the _salle-à-manger_ did sobristle with squalor that the kitchen was made the breakfast-room;though as that meal only lasted two minutes, and meant nothing beyond anattempt to eat some of the bread I had been unable to eat the nightbefore, one place was much the same as another. It is generally believedthat coffee is to be obtained in perfection in France; but that beliefis not founded on experience of the provinces, and had long ceased to bea part of my creed: nevertheless, with the idea that there is alwayssome redeeming-point in the darkest situation, I had hopes of the coffeeof Die, in spite of the appearance of the pan; and if these hopes hadbeen realised, the place might still have been tolerable. But they werenot realised. When the landlady was asked for the promised coffee, shebrought out a small earthenware pitcher containing a black liquid, andproceeded to bury its lower extremity in the hot embers of the woodfire, by which means the liquid was speedily warmed up, and alsothickened with unnecessary ashes. When served--in the same dustypitcher--it had a green and mouldy taste, combined with a sourbitterness which made it utterly impossible as an article of food, andso the breakfast was confined to the rejected fragments of the loaf ofthe preceding night. 

The guide, or comrade as he preferred to call himself, appeared in goodtime, and we started about half-past six, under a sun alreadyoppressively hot, and through heavy flaky dust, which made us feel verythankful when our route branched off from the high road. Liotir wasstrong in mulberry trees and vines, for he was a keeper of silkworms, and a wine-merchant. Silkworms had not been profitable for a year ortwo, and he was almost in low spirits when he talked of them. [94] Anepidemic had visited the district, and the worms ate voraciously andrefused to spin--a disease which he believed to be beyond the power ofmedicine. [95] As is so often the case with the Frenchman, as comparedwith the Englishman of corresponding social status, he had hisinformation cut and dried, and poured it out without hesitation. Silkworms' eggs cost 15, 20, or 25 francs an ounce, according toquality; and an ounce of good seed should produce from two to threehundred francs' worth of cocoons. A man who 'makes' an ounce of seedrequires six tables, 8 feet by 4, for his cages; and as some men makethirty-five ounces, chambers of great size are necessary for theaccommodation of their worms; but breeders to so large an extent as thisare the princes of the trade. As we passed a farmhouse surrounded bymulberry trees and vineyards, my companion informed me that the farmerwas his partner in worms and wine both, and that the wine promised to bethe better speculation this year, for the fruit was in immenseabundance. I saw afterwards that, at the time of vintage, grapes soldfor pressing at from 6 to 10 francs the hundred kilos, while 12 and 13francs was the price in 1863, and that in some districts of the Drômethe owners of the presses had not barrels enough for even the firstpressing. 

The great want of wood on the hills in whose neighbourhood we now foundourselves, attracted attention in the time of Louis XIV. , and thatsovereign passed severe laws for the protection of the forests thatstill remained. As usual, the mere severity of the laws made them failof their object. Banishment and the galleys were the punishment forunauthorised cutting of forest trees, and death if fire were used. Thereis a paper in the _Journal de Physique_ of 1789, [96] on thedisappearance of the forests of Dauphiné, pointing out that when thewoods are removed from the sides of mountains, the soil soon follows, and the district becomes utterly valueless. The writer traced themischief to the emancipation of serfs, and the consequent formation of_communes_, where each man could do that which was right in his owneyes. 

At any rate, whatever the reason, nothing can be conceived more barethan the dun-coloured rounded hills between the town of Die and the Colde Vassieux, towards which we were making our way. The whole face of thecountry had the same parched look, and the soil seemed to be composedentirely of small stones, without any signs of moisture even in thewatercourses. The Col de Vassieux is not much more than 4, 000 feet high, and forms a saddle between the Pic de S. Genix (5, 450 feet) and the Butde l'Aiglette (5, 200 feet). A new foot-road has been made to the Col, with many windings; and great care has been taken to plant the sides ofthe hill with oak and hazel; so that already there is some appearance ofcoppice, and in the course of time there will be shade by the way--aluxury for which we longed in vain. The lower ground was covered withlittle scrubs of box, and with lavender, dwarfed and dry; but near thesummit of the Col the lavender became vigorous and luxuriant, andcarpeted the hillside with a rich abundance of blue, tempting us morethan once to lie down and roll on the fragrant bed; though some of theolder roots were not sufficiently yielding to make that performance assatisfactory as it might have been. This lavender is highly prized bythe silkworm-keepers of Die, its bushy heads being almost exclusivelyused for the worms to spin their cocoons in. 

When we reached the top of the Col, Liotir confessed that he did notknow which way to turn, and we agreed to follow the path till we shouldfind some one to direct us. There was a farmhouse at no great distance, and thither we bent our steps; but the sole inhabitant could give noassistance, and, in default of information, Liotir generously proposedto treat me to a bottle of wine, over which we might discuss our furtherproceedings. The state of fever, however, to which the garlic and thedirt of Die had brought me, made it seem impossible to eat or drinkanything; so I suggested instead that I should treat him, and thatseemed to be rather what he had meant by his proposal. Nothing much cameof our discussion, and we marched on hot and faint for an hour more, when a casual man told us that our straight line to the _Foire deFondeurle_ lay across the plain on our left hand, and up a mostobjectionable-looking hill beyond, thickly covered with brushwood andshowing no signs of a path. 

As we crossed the plain, there was still the same total absence ofwater, and we reached the bottom of the hill in a state of mind and bodywhich rebelled against the exertion of struggling with the sand andshingle and brushwood. Liotir thought it was useless to attempt it withno hope of water, and I held much the same view, only it was impossiblereally to think of giving it up. When at last we had surmounted all thedifficulties which beset us, and stood on the highest point which had sofar been in sight, we found ourselves on the edge of a vast plain ofparched grass, with nothing to guide us in one direction rather thananother. There was no human being in sight, no sign of water, nor anyparticle of shade; nothing but grass, brown and monotonous, with whitecliffs miles away at the extremity of the plain. This was evidently the_Foire de Fondeurle_, and in it somewhere lay the glacière, if only wecould make out in which direction to begin to traverse the plain. Inthe earlier part of this century, a very famous fair was held on thiswild and out-of-the-way table-land, to which many thousands of horsesand mules and cattle of various kinds were brought from all quarters;but the fair has fallen off so much, that the man who had turned us upthe last hill said there were only fourteen head of cattle in 1863, andvery few of those were sold. M. Héricart de Thury describes this plainas lying in the calcareous sub-Alpine range of the south-east of France. The woods here terminate at a height of 5, 147 feet above the sea, andthe _Foire de Fondeurle_ lies immediately above this point. 

At last we made a bold dash across the plain, and after a time came uponsome sheep, standing in a thick row, with their heads thrust under a lowbank which afforded a little shade; and at no great distance from themsat the shepherd. He was a cripple, and his clothes were something worsethan rags. He offered us a portion of the water he had in adetestable-looking skin; but he assured us it was quite warm, and hadnot been good to begin with, so we did not try it, though we werethirsty enough to have hailed a muddy pool with delight. Our newacquaintance knew nothing of the glacière, but he belonged himself tothe Chalêt of Fondeurle, and as that was the only house on the wholeplain, he told us to make for it. The surface of the plain seemed tohave fallen through in many places, forming larger and smaller pits withsteep sides of limestone. These were often of the size of a large field, and, as the deeper of them required circumvention, the shepherd told usthat we must follow the line of little cairns which we should find hereand there on our way, the only guide across the plain. He could not besure himself in what direction the châlet lay; but if we kept to acertain tortuous line, we should come to it in time. 

The way proved to be so very long, that we doubted whether such aconsummation of our wishes would ever arrive: but at length, in a smalldip at the farthest extremity of the plain, we saw the châlet, and, whatwas much more to us, saw a little run of water, carried from the risingground by wooden pipes. It will be well for any future visitor to thechâlet to go very warily, and to intrench himself in a strong positionwhen he sees half-a-dozen huge dogs like black and white bears come outto attack him. Liotir had a stout stick, and I had a formidable ice-axe;and, moreover, we fortunately secured a wall in our rear: but with allthis the dogs were nearly too much for us, and Liotir was pressing meearnestly to chop at the ringleader's head, when a man came and calledoff 'Dragon, ' and the others then dispersed. The new-comer wished toknow our business, but, without satisfying his curiosity, we rushed tothe water-trough, and drank and used in washing an amount of water whichhe evidently grudged us. Then we were able to tell him that our businesswas something to eat for Liotir, and a guide to the glacière; though Itrembled when I suggested the latter, for, after all our labours, I hada sort of fear that the cave would prove a myth. On this point the mancleared away all doubts at once, --we could certainly have a guide, asthe _patron_ would be sure to let one of them go with us. As to food, there was more doubt, for the master was not yet at home, and his wifewould not be able to give us an answer without consulting him. The wifeconfirmed this statement: they saw very few strangers, and did notprofess to supply food to people crossing the plain. I assured her thatwe intended to pay well for anything she could let us have, but shemerely rejoined that they did not keep an auberge; however, her husbandwould be home some time in the course of the afternoon--it was now abouthalf-past twelve--and she could ask his opinion on the subject. ButLiotir objected that he was meanwhile dying of hunger, and the monsieurof thirst which only milk or cream could assuage; he suggested that someone should be sent to look for the husband, and obtain his permissionfor us to be fed. To this she assented, very dubiously, and with aconstrained air, as if there were some mysterious reason why thepresence of strangers was peculiarly unacceptable on that particularafternoon. At any rate, she said when pressed, she thought there couldbe no harm in our entering the châlet and sitting down on a bench, wherewe should be sheltered from the sun. 

Here accordingly we sat, more or less patiently, till the master himselfappeared. He had no welcome for us; but he was willing that we shouldeat some of his black bread, and try his wine. Liotir begged for cheese, and the wife was told she might supply cheese of two kinds, and alsocream, for the monsieur evidently was _malade_ and could not swallowwine. The cream and the black bread were delicious; but still thehorrors of Die hung about me, and I could only dispose of such a smallamount, that Liotir waxed funny, and told me it would never do for me todie there, as there was not earth enough to scrape a grave in on thewhole plain. Then, being a practical man, he declared he should like tocontract for my keep, and thought he could afford to do it at very smallcost to me, and still leave a fair margin for himself. He thought itright to make up for my want of appetite; and so, in addition to his ownshare, he took in an exemplary manner the share of wine which I shouldhave taken, had I been a man like himself. The master of the châlet saton the family bed, smoking silently and sullenly; and as soon as Liotirhad come to an end of his second bottle, he proposed to accompany ushimself to the cave, as he doubted whether any of his men knew the way, and he was sure they were all busy. When I came to pay his wife for whatwe had consumed, I administered thanks as well as money; to which shesternly rejoined, 'Who pays need not give thanks;' and to that surlyview she held, in spite of my attempts to soften her down. There was, after all, much force in what she said, under the circumstances. Theyhad given us no welcome, nothing but mere food, and all they expected inreturn was a due amount of money; thanks were a mockery in their eyes. 

The cavern was reached in a few minutes, when once we got away from thechâlet. Two large pits, formed apparently by the subsidence of thesurface, lay in a line about east and west, and there proved to be anunderground communication between them. From this tunnel, as it were, along low archway led to a broad slope of chaotic blocks of stone, downwhich we scrambled by the aid of such light as our candles afforded. Theroof of this inner cave was horizontal for some distance, and thensuddenly descended in a grand wall; and in consequence of a series ofsuch inverted steps, the cave never assumed any great height. The wholelength of the slope was 190 feet, and its greatest breadth about 140feet; but the breadth varied very much. Half-way down the slope the icecommenced, fitfully at first, and afterwards in a tolerably continuoussheet. The most careless explorer could not have failed to notice thepolygonal figures stamped upon its surface. They were larger and bolderthan any I had seen before; and the prismatic nuts into which the icebroke, when cut with the axe, were of course in proportion larger thanin the previous caves. The signs of thaw, too, were unmistakeable. Though the upper surface of the earth had seemed to be utterly devoid ofmoisture of any kind, large drops fell freely from the roof of thecave, [97] and the ice itself was wet. The _patron_ said there was no icewhatever in the winter months, and that from June to September was thetime at which alone it could be found. He declined to explain how it wasthat we found it so evidently in a state of general thaw in the veryheight of its season. To give us some idea of the climate of the plainin winter, he informed us that the snow lay for long up to the top ofthe door of his châlet. 

There were in all four columns of ice in the cave, only two of whichwere of any considerable size. One of these was peculiarly striking fromthe very large grain which its structure displayed; it measured 19 feetacross the base, being flat towards the extremity of the cave, and roundtowards the entrance. Three thermometers in various parts of theglacière gave all the same temperature, namely, a fraction under 33° F. :a rough French thermometer gave 1/2° C. The extreme wall of the cavernwas completely covered by a layer of stalagmitic material, and some ofthe forms the substance assumed were sufficiently striking. In contactwith the wall, though standing clear of it in parts where the wall fellinwards, stood a thick round column of the same material, shaped likethe ordinary ice-columns of the glacières, with a cavity near the base, and in all ways following the usual laws of such columns. Consideringthat I had observed a layer of limestone-paste collecting on one of theice-columns of the Glacière of La Genollière, I could not help imaginingthat this stalagmitic column had been originally moulded on a norm ofthat description. It had a girth of 12 feet in the part where we wereable to pass the tape round it. Its surface was smooth; but when wedrove a hole through this, with much damage to the _pic_ of my axe, wefound that the interior was in a crystalline form. 

There was, on the whole, very little to be seen in the glacière. Had itbeen my first experience of an ice-cave, it would doubtless have seemedvery remarkable, as it did to Liotir, who, by the way, had steadilydisbelieved the possibility of natural ice in summer except in theglaciers; but as I had now seen so many, several of them much morewonderful than this, I did not care to stay longer than was absolutelynecessary for measurements and investigation. Besides, the food ofDauphiné rather takes the energy and love of adventure out of anunaccustomed visitor. 

Without long delay, then, we bade farewell to the _patron_, notreturning to the inhospitable châlet, and started on our way for Die, each carrying a large block of ice slung in a network of string. Liotir's purpose was to convince some mysterious female friend that hereally had seen ice in summer, within five or six hours of Die; andmine, to apply the ice to the butter which I had specially ordered thelandlady to have ready for me, that so I might be able to get throughthe night, and leave Die by the diligence the first thing next morning. It was remarkable how well the ice bore the great heat. For long thebulk of the masses we carried seemed scarcely to diminish; and if it hadnot been for a course of heavy falls as we descended through thebrushwood, we should have succeeded in getting a large proportion of itsafely to Die. The precision of the prismatic structure also showeditself in a very marked manner; and when we came to a crisis of thirst, which happened at shorter and shorter intervals as the afternoon woreon, we separated the prisms with our fingers from the edges of the icewithout any difficulty, and made ourselves more hot and thirsty byeating them. 

When we arrived at the farmhouse at the Col de Vassieux, we reaped fullbenefit from our ice. The wine, which had been hot and heavy andunpalatable in the morning, when we had tried it unmixed, becamedelightfully refreshing when disguised with an abundance of water andsugar and ice; and Liotir found that contracting for my keep at a lowrate would not, after all, secure him the comfortable income he hadbefore calculated. After this refreshment, he became communicative, andtold me he had served seven years in the French army, three of whichwere spent in working on railways. He had fought the Italian campaign, and was full of details of the battle of Solferino, on which occasionhis _bataillon_ was led on by the Emperor in person. According to hisaccount, four _bataillons_ were drawn up for the assault of a tower, andwhen the first advanced it was swept away to a man. The second met witha like fate, and Liotir was in the third. His officers had all beenkilled, and a corporal was in command. The Emperor rode up and called tothem to advance as far as he advanced. This was about a hundred yards;and then, after halting them for a moment, the Emperor cried, '_Allez, mes enfants! nous ne sommes pas tous perdus!'_ sending the fourth_bataillon_ close upon their heels. In answer to my question, Liotirsaid, slowly and solemnly, that he did not think the Emperor was underfire; a few dropping shots reached them while he was yet addressingthem, but he believed the Emperor Napoleon was not in the fire atSolferino. I took the opportunity of asking whether he was green on thatoccasion, as Mr. Kinglake believes that he is in times of personaldanger; but my companion utterly scouted the idea, and declared that hesaw no man through all that day so cool and capable as the Emperor. Palehe undoubtedly was, but that was his habit. Like all other Frenchsoldiers with whom I have had much conversation, Liotir complained ofthe army arrangements in the matter of food; on all other points he wasmost amiable, but when he spoke of the extortions of the _cantinière_ hecompletely lost his temper. At a _café_, the soldiers could get theircup for 15 centimes, or 20 with liqueur; whereas the _cantinière_charged a franc, and gave them very bad coffee. Wine, too, which wouldcost them 60 centimes the kilo in the town, was valued at 2 francs bytheir grasping enemy. He had an idea that English soldiers are allowedto take their whole pay in money, and spend it as they will; whereas theFrench foot-soldier, according to his account, gets 25 centimes a day inmoney, and has everything found except coffee. A young trooper atBesançon was very eloquent on this subject. He represented himself as aman of small appetite and a gay spirit; he could well live on verylittle solid food, and yet he had as much deducted from his pay on thataccount as anyone in the army--as much, for instance, he groaned, as acertain stout old warrior who was then reposing on a corn-bin. If hecould have drawn all his pay in money, and lived on almost nothing forfood, he would have had abundance of sous for cards and tobacco; andwhat a career would that be!

The blocks of ice were by this time becoming rather small; and as we hadnow once more reached the region of lavender, we cut a large quantityand wrapped the ice in it, and thus protected it from further thaw. Forsome time before arriving at the farm where my companion's partnerlived, he indulged in praises of the wine which their vineyard produced, and assurances of the safety with which it would perform a journey toEngland. He urged its excellent _bouquet_, and gave me a card of priceswhich certainly seemed marvellously reasonable. Finally, he proposed tojoin me at a bottle of white _muscat_, from the farmer's _cave_, inorder that I might have an opportunity of seeing how true was hisaccount of the wine. We seated ourselves accordingly in the farmyard, and drank a bottle of delightful wine at 65 centimes the bottle, clearand sparkling, and with a strong muscat flavour. Liotir combined with itintoxication of a different kind, and showed unmistakeable signs of hisdetermination to take another member of the farmer's household intopartnership, --the mysterious friend, in fact, for whose astonishment theice was intended. The white muscat, they told me, would not keep overthe year; but they had a wine at the same price which they highlyrecommended, and warranted to keep for a considerable number of years. Liotir was very anxious that we should have a bottle of this, for he wasconfident that I should give them an order if I once tasted it; but wehad been in at the death of so many bottles that day, that I declined totry the _muscat rosat_. I have since had a hundred _litres_ sent over byLiotir, and find it very satisfactory. It has a rich, clear, port-winecolour, sparkling, and with the true _frontignac_ flavour. 

The effect of the wine on Liotir was peculiar. In the earlier part ofthe walk, he had never seen Algeria; but after half a bottle of muscat, he had spent six months in that country, and he enlivened the remainderof the way with many details of his experiences there. We reached Dieabout half-past seven, and the arrival of real ice was hailed as amarvel. Although I had been sent off so unhesitatingly by the landlordin the morning, it seemed that they none of them knew what a glacièremeant. They had determined that we should never reach the _Foire deFondeurle_, and that if we did, we should find nothing there to repayour toil. As I sat at an open window afterwards, Liotir's voice was tobe heard holding forth in a neighbouring café upon the wonders of theday; and among the crowd which is a normal condition of the eveningstreets of Die, the words _Fondeurle_, _Vassieux_, _Anglais_, _glace_, &c. , showed what the general subject of conversation was. 

The landlady had obeyed orders, and was provided with butter and bread. The tea was served in an open earthenware pitcher, with the spout atright angles with the handle. There was no cup; but the woman remarkedthat if monsieur was particular about that, he could turn out the sugarand use the basin, which he did. The milk had a basin to itself; but ithad offered so large and tempting a surface to the flies of the town, that it remained untouched. The knife and spoon were imbued withineradicable garlic, and my own trusty clasp-knife was the only weapon Icould use for all table purposes. If it had not been for the ice and thelavender, I think I should never have got away from Die. The former madeit possible to eat some bread-and-butter; and of the latter I made asort of respirator for nose and mouth, which modified the odour of cocksand hens prevailing in the house. 

Next morning the diligence was to start early, and, in preparation forthe six hours' drive, I ordered two eggs to be boiled for breakfast. Asthe first proved to have been boiled in tepid water, I requested thelandlady to boil the second afresh, which she did in a manner that maypartly account for the observed fact that the very eggs of some townstaste of garlic. There was household soup simmering on the fire, reekingwith onion and garlic, and many other abominations; and, as if it wasquite the right and usual thing to do, she slipped the unfortunate egginto this, and left it there to be cooked. After all, garlic must becheap as an article of food, for the whole bill amounted only to 7-1/2francs. 

This was the last glacière on my list. It was quite as well that suchwas the case; for the trials of Dauphiné had been too great, and Ishould scarcely have been inclined to face further adventures of a likekind. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 82: T. Xxx. P. 157. ]

[Footnote 83: Vol. Ii. P. 80. ]

[Footnote 84: Jean de Choul, _De variâ Quercûs Historia_, 1555. ]

[Footnote 85: Gollut, Mém. Des Bourg. De la Franche Comté, p. 227. ]

[Footnote 86: Paradin de Cuyseaulx, Annales de Bourgougne, 1566, p. 14. ]

[Footnote 87: Several churches in Vienne are used as foundries andworkshops. S. Peter's church was an iron-foundry four or five years ago, and is in future to be a museum--a considerable improvement upon itsformer use. The grand old church of S. John in Dijon has been rescuedfrom the hands which made it a depôt of flour, and is being restored toits original purposes: but such instances are very rare. ]

[Footnote 88: This family took its rise in Dauphiné, before the districthad that name: the chief place of the family was the château ofBeaumont, near Grenoble. ]

[Footnote 89: The final victory was near Aquæ Sextiæ (Aix). ]

[Footnote 90: The cultivation of the silkworm mulberry will probably dieout before very long. The silk crop has lately failed in Dauphiné, and acommission for enquiring into the relative merits of different worms hasdetermined that the Senegal worm produces 633 millegrammes of silk, while the worm, fed on the mulberry produces only 290. The firstmulberry trees in France were planted in that part of Provence which isenclosed by Dauphiné. 

The Bishop of Nismes has lately issued a pastoral letter, commandingprayers to be offered up for the cessation of the malady affecting thesilkworms in his own and the surrounding dioceses. ]

[Footnote 91: The feudal buildings were razed by order of Richelieu, butthe tower remains a landmark for the valley. Three hundred _détenus_were confined here after the _coup d'état_ of December 2, 1851. ]

[Footnote 92: The origin of the name Dauphin seems to be lost inobscurity, though of comparatively recent date. The Counts d'Albon tookthe title first in 1140, and their estates were not called the TerraDalphini, or Dalphinatus, till 1291. The first Dauphins bore a castle, not a dolphin. ]

[Footnote 93: The old historian Gollut speaks of the _clairets_ and_clerets_ as red wines. ]

[Footnote 94: The 'Times' of Oct. 4, 1864, stated that almost no rawsilk was offered at the last markets at Valence and Romans, and but forforeign supplies the mills must have been closed. The small amount thatwas offered sold at from 68 to 72 francs the kilogramme, while foreigncocoons from Calamata fetched only 22 francs at Marseilles. ]

[Footnote 95: Pausanias says that silkworms are apt to die ofindigestion, the cocoons lying heavy on the stomach. ]

[Footnote 96: T. Xxxv. Pp. 244, &c. ]

[Footnote 97: M. De Thury calculated that the thickness of the roof atthe lower part of the cave was about 60 feet of rock. He also noticedthe peculiar structure of the ice, which afforded great surprise to hisparty. It was discovered by means of the coloured rays which were throwninto the different parts of the cave, when some one had casually placeda torch in a cavity in one of the columns. ]

 * * * * *

CHAPTER XV. 

OTHER ICE CAVES. 

_The Cave of Szelicze, or Szilitze, in Hungary_. [98]

Matthew Bell, the historian of Hungary, sent an account of this cavernto England, in the middle of the last century, which was printed in theoriginal Latin in the 'Philosophical Transactions' of 1739-40 (pp. 41, &c. ). 

This account states that the cave is in the county of Thorn, [99] amongthe lowest spurs of the Carpathians. The entrance, which faces thenorth, and is exposed to the cold winds from the snowy part of theCarpathian range, is 18 fathoms high and 9 broad; and the cave spreadsout laterally, and descends to a point 50 fathoms below the entrance, where it is 26 fathoms in breadth, and of irregular height. Beyond thisno one had at that time penetrated, on account of the unsafe footing, although many distant echoes were returned by the farther recesses ofthe cave; indeed, to get even so far as this, much step-cutting wasnecessary. 

When the external frost of winter comes on, the account proceeds, theeffect in the cave is the same as if fires had been lighted there: theice melts, and swarms of flies and bats and hares take refuge in theinterior from the severity of the winter. As soon as spring arrives, thewarmth of winter disappears from the interior, water exudes from theroof and is converted into ice, while the more abundant supplies whichpour down on to the sandy floor are speedily frozen there. In theDog-days, the frost is so intense that a small icicle becomes in one daya huge mass of ice; but a cool day promptly brings a thaw, and the caveis looked upon as a barometer, not merely feeling, but also presaging, the changes of weather. The people of the neighbourhood, when employedin field-work, arrange their labour so that the mid-day meal may betaken near the cave, when they either ice the water they have broughtwith them, or drink the melted ice, which they consider very good forthe stomach. It had been calculated that 600 weekly carts would not besufficient to keep the cavern free from ice. The ground above the caveis peculiarly rich in grass. 

In explanation of these phenomena, Bell threw out the followingsuggestions, which need no comment. The earth being of itself cold anddamp, the external heat of the atmosphere, by partially penetrating intothe ground, drives in this native cold to the inner parts of the earth, and makes the cold there more dense. On the other hand, when theexternal air is cold, it draws forth towards the surface the heat theremay be in the inner part of the earth, and thus makes caverns warm. Insupport and illustration of this view, he states that in the hotterparts of Hungary, when the people wish to cool their wine, they dig ahole 2 feet deep, and place in it the flagon of wine, and, after fillingup the hole again, light a blazing fire upon the surface, which coolsthe wine as if the flagon had been laid in ice. He also suggests thatpossibly the cold winds from the Carpathians bring with themimperceptible particles of snow, which reach the water of the cave, andconvert it into ice. Further, the rocks of the Carpathians abound insalts, nitre, alum, &c. , which may, perhaps, mingle with such snowyparticles, and produce the ordinary effect of the snow and salt in theartificial production of ice. 

Townson[100] visited this cave half a century later, and concluded thatBell was in error with regard to the supposed winter thaw and summerfrost, although he himself received information at Kaschau whichcorroborated the earlier account. He describes the approach to thevillage of Szilitze as leading by a by-road through a pleasant countryof woods and hills, with much pasture-land, the cave lying a mile beyondthe village, and displaying an entrance 100 feet broad, and 20 or 30feet high, turned towards the north. The descent of the floor of thecave is rapid, and was covered with thin ice, at the time of his visit, for the last third of the way: from the roof at the farther end, wherethe cave is not so high as at the entrance, a congeries of icicles wasseen to hang; and in a corner on the right, completely sheltered fromthe rays of the sun, there was a large mass of the same material. It wasa fine forenoon in July, and all was in a state of thaw, the iciclesdropping water, and the floor of ice covered with a thin layer of water;while the thermometer in all parts of the cave stood at zero ofRéaumur's scale. The rock is compact unstratified limestone, in which somany of the famous caverns of the world are found. 

_The Cave of Yeermalik, in Koondooz_[101]

In the year 1840, Captain Burslem, of the 13th Light Infantry, made anexpedition from Cabul to the North-west, accompanied by Lieutenant Sturtof the Bengal Engineers, who was afterwards killed in the terrible passwhere Lady Sale, whose daughter he had married, was shot through thearm. 

After crossing the high and wild pass of Karakotul (10, 500 feet), thesetravellers reached the romantic glen of the Doaub, which lies at thefoot of the pass, and is surrounded on all sides by lofty mountains. Here they were hospitably entertained by Shah Pursund Khan, the chief ofthe small territory, and their curiosity was roused by the accountgiven by an old moollah of a cavern seven miles off, which the Shahstrongly advised them not to attempt to visit, for the Sheitan (thedevil), whose ordinary place of abode it was, never allowed a strangerto return from its recesses. The moollah, however, scouted this idea, onthe ground that it was much too cold for such an inhabitant; and theShah eventually agreed to accompany them to the cave with a band of hisfollowers. 

As they rode through long and rich grass, following the course of agentle stream, and tormented by swarms of forest flies, orblood-suckers, the Shah informed them that he had once endeavoured toexplore the cave, and had already penetrated to a considerabledistance, when he came upon the fresh prints of a naked foot, with anextraordinary impression by their side, which he suspected to be thefoot of Sheitan himself, and so he beat a precipitate retreat. Themoollah told them that there was a large number of skeletons in thecave, the remains of 700 men who took refuge there during the invasionof Genghis Khan, with their wives and families, and defendedthemselves so stoutly, that, after trying in vain the means by whichthe M'Leods were destroyed in barbarous times, and the opponents ofFrench progress in Algeria in times less remote, the invader builtthem in with huge natural blocks of stone, and left them to die ofhunger. 

The entrance is half-way up a hill, and is 50 feet high, with about thesame breadth. Not far from the entrance they found a passage between twojagged rocks, possibly the remains of Genghis Khan's fatal wall, sonarrow that they had some difficulty in squeezing through; and then, before long, came to a drop of 16 feet, down which they were lowered byropes made from the cotton turbans of the Shah and his attendants. Herethey left two men to haul them up on their return, and bade farewell tothe light of day. The narrow path led by the edge of a black abyss, sometimes over a flooring of smooth ice for a few feet, and widenedgradually till they reached a damp and dripping hall, of dimensions sovast that the light of their torches did not enable them to form aconception of its size. In this hall they found hundreds of skeletons ina perfectly undisturbed state, one, for instance, still holding theskeletons of two infants in its bony arms, while some of the bodies hadbeen preserved, and lay shrivelled like those at the Great St. Bernard. They were very much startled here by the discovery of the prints of anaked human foot, and by its side the distinct mark of the pointed heelof an Affghan boot, [102] precisely what had so thoroughly frightened theShah twelve years before. The prints retained all the sharpness ofoutline which marks a recent impression, and led towards the fartherrecesses of the cave; but the Englishmen were called away from theirinvestigation by the announcement that if they did not make haste, therewould not be oil enough for lighting them to the ice-caves. 

Proceeding through several low arches and smaller caves, they reached atlength a vast hall, in the centre of which was[103] an enormous mass ofclear ice, smooth and polished as a mirror, and in the form of agigantic beehive, with its dome-shaped top just touching the longicicles which depended from the jagged surface of the rock. A smallaperture led to the interior of this wonderful congelation, the walls ofwhich were nearly 2 feet thick; the floor, sides, and roof were smoothand slippery, and their figures were reflected from floor to ceilingand from side to side in endless repetition. The inside of this chillyabode was divided into several compartments of every fantastic shape: insome the glittering icicles hung like curtains from the roof; in others, the vault was smooth as glass. Beautifully brilliant were the prismaticcolours reflected from the varied surface of the ice, when the torchesflashed suddenly upon them as they passed from cave to cave. Around, above, beneath, everything was of solid ice, and being unable to standon account of its slippery nature, they slid, or rather glided, mysteriously along the glassy surface of this hall of spells. In one ofthe largest compartments the icicles had reached the floor, and gave theidea of pillars supporting the roof. 

The cavern in which this marvellous mass of ice stood, branched off intonumerous galleries, one of which led the party to a sloping platform ofrapidly increasing steepness, where they were startled by thereappearance of the naked foot-prints, passing down the slope. The toeswere spread out in a manner which showed that they belonged to some onewho had been in the habit of going barefoot, and Captain Burslem took atorch and determined to trace the steps: a large stone, however, gaveway under his weight; and this, sliding down at first, and then rollingand bounding on for ever, raised such a tumult of noise and echoes thatthe natives with one accord cried 'Sheitan! Sheitan!' and fledprecipitately, extinguishing all the lights in their fear; so that butfor Sturt's torch the whole party must have been lost in the darkness. Shah Pursund Khan at once called a retreat, vowing that it was of no useto attempt to follow the footsteps, as it was well known that the caveextended to Cabul! The guides had now lost their small allowance ofpluck, and wandered about despairingly for a long time before they couldfind their way back to the ice-cave, and thence to the foot of the rockwhere the two men and the turban-ladders had been left. As soon as theycame in sight of this, their comrades above cried out to them that theymust make all haste, for Sheitan himself had appeared an hour before, running along the ledge where they now were, and finally vanishing intothe gloom beyond; an announcement which of course produced a stampede inthe terrified party of natives. Five or six rushed to the spot where theturbans hung, and only an opportune fall of stones from above preventedtheir destroying the apparatus in their blind hurry to escape. The chiefclaimed the privilege of being drawn up first, and he and all hisfollowers declared that nothing should ever tempt them to visit againthe Cave of Yeermalik. [104]

_The Surtshellir, in Iceland_. 

The first account of this lava-cavern is given by Olafsen, [105] whovisited it in 1750 and 1753. Ebenezer Henderson[106] explored it in1815, and Captain Forbes gives some account of it in his recent book onIceland. [107] It is mentioned in some of the Sagas, [108] and appears tohave been a refuge for robbers in the tenth century, and SturlaSigvatson, with a large band of followers, spent some time here. TheLandnama Saga derives the name Surtshellir from a huge giant calledSurtur, who made his abode in the cave; but Olafsen believed that thename merely meant _black hole_, from _surtur_ or _svartur_, and was dueto the darkness of the cave and the colour of the lava: in accordancewith this view, it is called _Hellerin Sortur_, or _black hole_, in someof the earlier writings. The common people are convinced that it isinhabited by ghosts; and Olafsen and his party were assured that theywould be turned back by horrible noises, or else killed outright by thespirits of the cave: at any rate, their informants declared they wouldno more reach the inner parts of the cavern than they had reached thetraditional green valley of Aradal, isolated in the midst of glaciers, with its wild population of descendants of the giants, which they hadendeavoured to find some time before. [109]

The cave is in the form of a tunnel a mile or more in length, withinnumerable ramifications, in the lava which has flowed from the BaldYökul. It lies on the edge of the uninhabited waste called theArnavatns-heidi, in a district described by Captain Forbes as distortedand devilish, a cast-iron sea of lava. The approach is through an openchasm, 20 to 40 feet in depth, and 50 feet broad, leading to theentrance of the cave, where the height is between 30 and 40 feet, andthe breadth rather more than 50. Henderson found a large quantity ofcongealed snow at this entrance, and along pool of water resting on afloor of ice, which turned his party back and forced them to seekanother entrance, where again they found snow piled up to aconsiderable height. Olafsen also mentions collections of snow under thevarious openings in the lava which forms the roof of the cave. Thelatter explorer discovered interesting signs of the early inhabitants ofthe Surtshellir, as, for instance, the common bedstead, built of stones, 2-1/2 feet high, 36 feet long, and 14 feet broad, with a pathway downthe middle, forming the only passage to the inner parts of the cave. Thespaces enclosed by these stones were strewn with black sand, on whichrough wool was probably laid by way of mattress. This could scarcelyhave been a bedstead in the time of the giants, for a total breadth of14 feet, deducting for the pathway down the middle, will not give morethan 6 feet for the layer of men on either side, unless indeed they layparallel to the passage, and required a length of 36 feet. He also foundan old wall, built with blocks of lava across one part of the cave, asif for defence, and a large circular heap of the bones of sheep andoxen, presumably the remains of many years of feasting. Captain Forbesscoffs at these bones, and suggests errant wild ponies as the depositorsthereof. 

Olafsen had found in his earlier visit that the way was stopped, farin the recesses of the cave, by a lake of water, which filled thetunnel to a depth of 3 feet or more, lying on ice; but in 1753 therewas not more than a foot of water, through which they waded withoutmuch difficulty. The air soon became exceedingly cold and thick, andfor some hundreds of paces they saw no light of day, till at lengththey reached a welcome opening in the roof. Beyond this, the air grewcolder and more thick, and the walls were found to be sheeted with icefrom roof to floor, or covered with broad and connected icicles. Theground also was a mass of ice, but an inch or two of fine brown earthlay upon it, which enabled them to keep their footing. This earthappeared to have been brought down by the water which filtered throughthe roof. 'The most wonderful thing, ' Olafsen remarks, 'that wenoticed here, was, that the stalactites of ice were set with regularfigures of five and seven sides, joined together, and resembling thoseseen on the second stomach of ruminating animals. The condensed coldof the air must have imparted these figures to the ice; they were notexternal (merely?), but in the ice itself, which otherwise was clearand transparent. '

Henderson and his party appear to have had much more wading to do thanOlafsen, walking in one instance through a long tract of water up to theknees. In the deeper recesses of the cave, apparently in the part wherethe earlier explorers had found the reticulated ice, they found thewhole floor of the passage covered with thick ice, with so steep a dipthat they sat down and slid forward by their own weight--a mostundignified proceeding for a grave gentleman on a mission from the BibleSociety. On holding their torches close to the floor, they saw down to adepth of 7 or 8 feet, the ice being as clear as crystal. 'The roof andsides of the cave were decorated with most superb icicles, crystallisedin every possible form, many of which rivalled in minuteness the finestzeolites; while from the icy floor rose pillars of the same substance, assuming all the curious and phantastic shapes imaginable, mocking theproudest specimens of art, and counterfeiting many well-known objects ofanimated nature. Many of them were upwards of 4 feet high, generallysharpened at the extremity, and about 2 feet in thickness. A morebrilliant scene perhaps never presented itself to the human eye, nor wasit easy for us to divest ourselves of the idea that we actually beheldone of the fairy scenes depicted in Eastern fable. The light of thetorches rendered it peculiarly enchanting. '

Captain Forbes found much ice on the floor, but he did not enjoy thecold and wet, and seems to have ascended by the last opening in theroof, mentioned by Olafsen, before reaching the cavern where the morebeautiful parts of the ice-decoration were found by his predecessors. The two engravings of the interior of the cave given in his book arecopied from the magnificent lithographs of Paul Gaimard, [110] but muchof the effect has been lost in the process of copying. 

Mr. Baring Gould mentions this cavern in his book on Iceland, andbelieves that its interest has been much overrated. He seems to havevisited the cave, but makes no allusion to the existence of ice. [111]

Mr. E. T. Holland visited the Surtshellir in the course of his tour inIceland, in 1861, and an account of his visit is given in the firstvolume of 'Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers. '[112] After following inOlafsen's steps for some time, the party reached a cave whose floor wascomposed of very clear ice, apparently of great thickness, for theycould not see the lava beneath it. The walking on this smooth ice-floorMr. Holland describes as being delightful, the whole slopingconsiderably downwards. 'In five minutes, ' he continues, 'we reached themost beautiful fairy grotto imaginable. From the crystal floor of icerose up group after group of transparent icy pillars, while from theglittering roof most brilliant icy pendants hung down to meet them. Columns and arches of ice were ranged along the crystalline walls ... Inever saw a more brilliant scene; and indeed it would be difficult toimagine anything more fairy-like. The pillars were many of them of greatsize, tapering to a point as they rose. The largest were at least 8 feethigh, and 6 feet in circumference at their base. The stalactites were onan equally grand scale. Through this lovely ice-grotto we walked fornearly ten minutes. '

[Illustration: ICE-CAVE IN THE SURTSHELLIR. ]

The temperature of the caves, Mr. Holland states in a note, was from 8°to 10° C. (46·4° to 50° F. ), that of the air outside being 53·6° F. 

_The Gypsum Cave of Illetzkaya-Zastchita, in the Steppes of theKirghis, South of Orenburg_. 

The district in which this cavern occurs is a small green oasis on theundulating steppe, lying on a vast bed of rock-salt, which extends overan area of two versts in length, and a mile in breadth, with a thicknessof more than 100 feet. When the thin cover of red sand and marl isremoved, the white salt is exposed, and is found to be so free from allstain, or admixture of other material, excepting sometimes minutefilaments of gypsum, that it is pounded at once for use, without anycleansing or recrystallising process. 

In the immediate neighbourhood of Illetzkaya-Zastchita there are two orthree gypseous hillocks, and a cavern in one of these is used by theinhabitants as a cellar, having been artificially enlarged for thatpurpose. Sir Roderick Murchison and his colleagues visited this cavernon a hot day in August, with the thermometer at 90° in the shade, in thecourse of their travels under the patronage of the late Emperor ofRussia. [113] They found the hillock to be an irregular cone 150 feet inheight; the entrance was by a frail door, on a level with the villagestreet, and fully exposed to the rays of the sun; and yet, when the doorwas opened, so piercing a current of cold air poured forth, that theywere glad to beat a retreat for a while; and on eventually exploringfarther, they found the quass and provisions, stored in the cave, half-frozen within three or four paces of the door. The chasm soonopened out into a natural vault from 12 to 15 feet high, 10 or 12 paceslong, and 7 or 8 in width, which seemed to have numerous smallramifications into the impending mound of gypsum and marl. The roof ofthis inner cavern was hung with undripping solid icicles, and the floorwas a conglomerate of ice and frozen earth. They were assured that thecold is always greatest within when the external air is hottest anddriest, and that the ice gradually disappears as winter approaches, andvanishes when the snow comes. The peasants were unanimous in thesestatements, and asserted that they could sleep in the cave withoutsheepskins in the depth of winter. 

Sir Roderick Murchison and his friends were at first inclined to explainthese phenomena by supposing that the chief fissure communicated withsome surface of rock-salt, 'the saliferous vapours of which might be sorapidly evaporated or changed in escaping to an intensely hot and dryatmosphere as to produce ice and snow. ' But Sir John Herschel, to whomthey applied for assistance, rejected the evaporation theory, andsuggested that the external summer wave of heat might possibly onlyreach the cave at Christmas, being delayed six months in its passagethrough the rock; the cold of winter, in the same manner, arriving atmidsummer. To this the explorers objected, that the mound contained manycaves, but' only in this particular fissure was any ice found. Dr. Robinson, astronomer at Armagh, endeavoured to explain the matter byreferring to De Saussure's explanation of the phenomena of _coldcaves_ in Italy and elsewhere; but this, too, was consideredunsatisfactory. At length, Professor Wheatstone referred them to thememoir by Professor Pictet, in the _Bibliothèque Universelle_ of Geneva, where that _savant_ improves upon De Saussure's theory, and applies itin its new form to the case of caves containing permanent ice, in tractswhose mean cold is above the freezing point. This they seem to haveaccepted, adding that the climatological circumstances of Orenburg--awet spring, caused by the melting of the abundant snows, followed by asummer of intense and dry Asiatic heat--must be particularly favourablefor the working out of the theory, and must also act powerfully inproducing the refrigerating effects of evaporation. [114]

The traveller Pallas visited Illetzkaya in July 1769, and describesthis gypseous hillock. [115] In his time the entrance by the side ofthe hill was unknown, as also was the existence of ice in the cavern. He saw at the top of the Kraoul-naï-Gora, or Watch-mountain, as it wascalled, a fissure which had once formed a large cavern, into which theKirghis were in the habit of throwing furs and other materials asreligious offerings. Although the cave had since fallen in, they stillkept up a part of the ceremony, marching solemnly round the base ofthe hill once a year, and bathing in the neighbouring water. Inearlier times, a man had descended through the fissure by means ofcords, and found the cold within insupportable, having very probablyreached the present ice-cave. 

Pallas describes many caves in various parts of Russia, but neverseems to hint at the existence of ice in them, though he speciallymentions their extreme cold. Some of these occurred in gypsum, andsome in limestone; and the gypseous caves showed universally a verylow temperature, though still far above the freezing-point. [116] Thusin the dark cavern of Barnoukova, [117] on the Piana, in a rock ofgypsum, while the thermometer in the shade stood at 75°. 2, thetemperatures at various points in the cave were, --at the entrance59°. 36, 25 feet from the entrance 46°. 4, and in the coldest part42°. 8. This cold he describes as insupportable. The temperature of thewater which had accumulated in the coldest parts of the cave was48°. 8, considerably higher than the surrounding atmosphere; from whichPallas concluded that the cold of gypsum-caves is due to the acidvapours which are generally observed in grottoes of this description. In May 1770, he found snow on the sloping entrance to the cavern ofLoeklé, in the neighbourhood of the Oufa; but the air of the interiorwas not colder than was to be expected in a deep cave. 

Sir R. Murchison wrote to Russia for further information with respect tothis cave in January 1865, and again in the beginning of April, addressing his second enquiry to the Secretary of the Imperial Academy. In reply, the Secretary says that he is not aware that any thermometricobservations have been made in the cavern. He encloses a short statementby M. Helmersen, one of the members of the Academy, to the followingeffect:--About 50 versts SE. Of Miask, in the chain of the Ural, is acopper mine, called Kirobinskoy, which was abandoned more than fiftyyears ago. On the 7th July, 1826, M. Helmersen found a thick wainscotingof ice on the sides and roof and floor of the horizontal gallery, within10 feet of the entrance. He was assured that this ice never melts, andthat its thickness is greater in summer than in winter. M. Helmersenadds, that to the best of his belief no one has investigated the cavernof Illetzkaya Zastchita since Sir R. Murchison's visit. 

_The Ice-Cavern of the Peak of Teneriffe_. [118]

This cave is at a height of 11, 040 feet above the sea, and is thereforenot far below the snow-line of the latitudes of the Canary Isles. Theentrance is by a hole 3 or 4 feet square, in the roof of the cave, whichmay be about 20 feet from the floor. The peasants who convey snow andice from the cave to the lower regions, enter by means of knotted ropes;but Professor Smyth had caused his ship's carpenter to prepare a stoutladder, by which photographic instruments and a lady were taken down. 

On alighting on a heap of stones at the bottom, the party foundthemselves surrounded by a sloping wall of snow, 3 feet high, and 7 or 8feet broad, the basin in which they stood being formed in the snow bythe vertical rays of the sun, and by the dropping of water from theedges of the hole[119]. Beyond this ring-fence, large surfaces of waterstretched away into the farther recesses of the cave, resting on a layerof ice, which appeared to be generally about 2 feet thick. At one of thedeeper ends of the cave, water dropped continually from the crevices ofthe roof; a fact which Professor Smyth attributed to the slow advance ofthe summer wave of heat through the superincumbent rock, which was onlynow reaching the inner recesses of the loose lava, and liquefying theresults of the past winter. There would seem to be immense infiltrationof meteoric water on the Peak; for, notwithstanding the great depth ofrain which falls annually in a liquid or congealed form, the sides ofthe mountain are not scored with the lines of water-torrents. 

Though occurring in lava, this cavern is quite different fromlava-tunnels, such as the Surtshellir, which are recognised formations, produced by the cooling of the terminal surface-crust of the stream oflava, and the subsequent bursting forth of the molten stream within. This, on the contrary, proved to be a smooth dome-shaped cave, runningoff into three contracting lobes or tunnels which might be respectively70, 50, and 40 feet long, and were all filled to a certain depth withwater: in the smoothness of the interior surfaces, Professor Smythbelieved that he detected the action of highly elastic gases on aplastic material. 

The astronomer takes exception to the term 'underground glacier'[120]which had been applied to this cavern. He represents that the mountainis abundantly covered each winter with snow, in the neighbourhood of theice-cave, which is nearly within the snow-line, and the stores of snowthus accumulated in the cave have no great difficulty in resisting theeffects of summer heat, since all radiation is cut off by the roof ofrocks. The importance of this protection may be understood from the factthat in the middle of July the thermometer at this altitude gave 130° inthe sun, but fell to 47° when relieved from the heat due to radiation. At the time of this observation, there were still patches of snow lyingon the mountain-side, exposed to the full power of direct radiation;and, therefore, there is not anything very surprising in the permanenceof snow under such favourable circumstances as are developed in thecave. Mr. Airy, a few summers ago, found the rooms of the Casa Inglese, on Mount Etna, half filled with snow, which had drifted in by an opendoor, and had been preserved from solar radiation by the thickroof. [121]

Humboldt remarks, that the mean temperature of the region in which theCueva del Hielo (ice-cave) occurs, is not below 3° C. (37. 4° F. ), but somuch snow and ice are stored up in the winter that the utmost efforts ofthe summer heat cannot melt it all. He adds, that the existence ofpermanent snow in holes or caves must depend more upon the amount ofwinter snow, and the freedom from hot winds, than on the absoluteelevation of the locality. 

The natives of Teneriffe are men of faith. They have large belief in theexistence and intercommunication of numerous vast caverns in the Peak, one of which, on the north coast, is said to communicate with theice-cavern, notwithstanding 8 miles of horizontal distance, and 11, 000feet of vertical depth. The truth of this particular article of theircreed has been recently tested by several worthy and reverend hidalgos, who drove a dog into the entrance of the cavern on the sea-coast, in thebelief that he would eventually come to light again in the ice-cave: hewas accordingly found lying there some days after, greatly fatigued andemaciated, having in the interval accomplished the 11, 000 feet ofsubterranean climbing. How he could enter, from below, a water-loggedcave, does not appear to have been explained. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 98: The _Caves of Szelicze_ are mentioned in Murray's_Handbook of Southern Germany_ (1858, p. 555), where the followingaccount is given of them:--'During the winter a great quantity of iceaccumulates in these caves, which is not entirely melted before thecommencement of the ensuing winter. In the summer months they areconsequently filled with vast masses of ice broken up into a thousandfantastic forms, and presenting by their lucidity a singular contrast tothe sombre vaults and massive stalactites of the cavern. '

The _Drachenhöhle_ (Murray, 1. C. P. 553), a series of caverns not farfrom Neusohl in Hungary, afford another instance of an ice-cave, one ofthe largest of them being said to be coated with a sheet of translucidice, through which the stalactitic fretwork of the vault is seen togreat advantage. ]

[Footnote 99: Not far from Kaschau. ]

[Footnote 100: _Travels in Hungary_, 1797, pp. 317, &c. ]

[Footnote 101: _A Peep into Toorkistan_; London, 1846; chapters x. Andxi. ]

[Footnote 102: They were now in a country far removed from the Affghans, and hostile to that people. ]

[Footnote 103: The remainder of this paragraph is in Captain Burslem'sown words. ]

[Footnote 104: I am indebted for the knowledge of the existence of thesecaves to W. A. Sandford, Esq. , F. G. S. , who informed me that an account ofthem was to be found in a book of travels by an English officer. I amnot aware that they have been visited on any other occasion than this. ]

[Footnote 105: _Reise durch Island_, Copenhagen, 1744 (being a Germantranslation from the original Danish), i. 128 sqq. ]

[Footnote 106: _Henderson's Iceland_, ii. 189 sqq. ]

[Footnote 107: Pp. 145 sqq. ]

[Footnote 108: The Sturlunga, Landnama, and Holmveria Sagas. ]

[Footnote 109: Two priests determined to solve the mystery of thisunapproachable valley, the Aradal, or Thoris-thal, with its rich meadowsand gigantic inhabitants, and made an expedition for this purpose in1664. They reached a point where the glaciers fell off into a valley sodeep that they could not see whether there were meadows at the bottom ornot, and the slope was so rapid that it was impossible to descend. ]

[Footnote 110: _Voyage en Islande; Atlas Historique_; t. Ii. , pl. 130-133. ]

[Footnote 111: _Iceland: its Scenes and Sagas_: pp. 97, 98. ]

[Footnote 112: Page 113. ]

[Footnote 113: _Russia and the Ural Mountains_, i. 186, sqq. ]

[Footnote 114: See the Papers read before the Geological Society ofLondon, on March 9, 1842, by Sir John Herschel and Sir E. Murchison, thesubstance of which has been given above. 

See also the _Edinburgh Philosophical Journal_ for 1843 (xxxv. 191), foran attempt by Dr. Hope to explain the phenomena of this cave by areference to the slow penetration of the winter and summer waves of coldand heat. Dr. Hope believes that, although the external changes do nottravel to any great depth, they reach far enough to communicate withsome of the fissures leading to the cave. ]

[Footnote 115: _Voyages_ (French translation); Paris, 1788; i. 364. ]

[Footnote 116: In the gypsum to the NE. Of Kungur, on the banks of theIren, there is a cave containing ice. Four of its chambers have ice, inone of which a stalagmite of ice rises almost to the roof. The farthestchamber, 625 fathoms from the entrance, contains a lake of water whichstretches away out of sight under the low roof. (_Taschenbuch für diegesammte Mineralogie_; Leonhard, 1826; B. 2, S. 425. Published as_Zeitschrift für Mineralogie_. )]

[Footnote 117: Pallas, _Voyages_, i. 84. ]

[Footnote 118: _Teneriffe_, by Professor Smyth, ch. Viii. , and Humboldt, _Voyage aux Régions Équinoctiales_; Paris, 1814; i. 124. ]

[Footnote 119: They afterwards discovered smoke issuing from the centreof this patch of stones; so that volcanic heat may possibly have hadsomething to do with the disappearance of the snow. ]

[Footnote 120: '_Ce petit glacier souterrain_, ' Humboldt, l. C. ]

[Footnote 121: See p. 272 for an account of the underground glacier inthe neighbourhood of the Casa Inglese. ]

 * * * * *

CHAPTER XVI. 

BRIEF NOTICES OF OTHER ICE-CAVES. [122]

On the Brandstein in Styria, in the district of Gems, there is anice-hole closely resembling some of the glacières of the Jura. It isdescribed by Sartori, [123] as lying in a much-fissured region, reachedafter four hours of steep ascent from the neighbouring village, througha forest of fir. Some of the fissures contain water and some snow, while others are apparently unfathomable. From one of the largest ofthese, a strong and cold current blows in summer, and in this fissure isthe ice-hole. Sartori found _crimpons_ necessary for descending thefrozen snow which led from the entrance to the floor of the cave, wherehe discovered pillars and capitals and pyramids of ice of every possibleshape and variety, as if the cave had contained the ruins of a Gothicchurch, or a fairy palace. At the farther end, after passing largecascades of ice, his party reached a dark grey hole, which lighted upinto blue and green under the influence of the torches; they could notdiscover the termination of this hole, and the stones which they rolleddown into it seemed to go on for ever. The greatest height of the caveis about 36 feet, and its length 192 feet, with a maximum breadth of 126feet. Towards the end of autumn, the temperature of the ice-hole risesso much, that the glacial decorations disappear, and various wildanimals are driven by the cold of winter to take shelter in thecomparative warmth of the cave. The elevation of the district in whichthis ice-hole occurs is about 1, 800 German feet above the sea. 

In Upper Styria, where the Frauenmauer overlooks the basin in which themining town of Eisenerz is situated, an ice-cave has been explored, anda description of it has been given by certain members of the AustrianAlpine Club. [124] The Brandstein is spoken of as one of the peaks in theimmediate neighbourhood; and as the cave previously described is statedby Sartori to be on the Brandstein, that district would seem to be richin glacières. The cavern is most easily explored from Eisenerz, and onthat side the entrance is 4, 539 Vienna feet above the sea. Its otheroutlet, in the Tragöss valley, is 300 feet higher. The total length ofthe cave is 2, 040 Vienna feet. After passing the entrance, which is anarchway from 12 to 18 feet high, the main course of the cave is soonleft, and a branch is followed which leads to the _Eis-kammer_. Thisice-chamber consists of a grotto from 30 to 40 fathoms long, decked withice-crystals, pillars of ice, and cascades of the same material, thefloor being composed of ice as smooth as glass. In the summer, pleasure-parties assemble in the cave and amuse themselves with the gameof _Eisschiessen_, so popular in Upper Styria as a winter diversion. Thehotter the summer, the more ice is found in the Eiskammer, and thegeneral belief is that it all disappears in winter. 

The cave proper, which assumes stupendous dimensions in its long course, shows no ice. It seems to be formed in the Muschelkalk of the Triasformation, and so far no limestone stalactites have been discovered. Ithas not, however, as yet been fully explored. The editor of theproceedings of the Austrian Alpine Club gives a reference to Scheiner, '_Ausflug nach der Höhle der Frauenmauer, ' (Steiermarkische Zeitschrift, neue Folge_, i. 2, 1834, p. 3. )

At Latzenberg, near Weissenstein in Carniola, there is another ice-cave, described by Rosenmüller. [125] It is entered by a long dark passage inwhich are pillars of ice arranged like the pipes of an organ, varyingfrom the thickness of a man's body to the size of a straw. All these aresaid to melt in winter. Farther on are two other passages, one of whichpasses upwards over _Stufe_, and is coated in summer with ice; the otherhas not been explored. 

Near Glaneck in the Untersberg, not far from Salzburg, is a cave calledthe Kolowrathöhle, of which a description is given by Gümbel in hisgreat geological work on the Bavarian Alps. [126] It is a spaciouscavern, opening in a steep wall of rock above the _Rositenschlucht_between the Platten and _Dachstein-kalk. _[127] An ice-current rushesfrom within, and ice is found on the threshold, becoming more prevalentin the farther recesses of the cave. The lower parts are tolerablyroomy, and masses of ice of various shapes are found piled one uponanother, lighting up with magical effect when torches are brought tobear upon them. Gümbel believes that the cold currents which stream intothe cave from the numerous fissures in its walls are the cause of theice; and though this is the only known ice-cave far and near, heimagines that the icy-currents which are frequently met with in thatdistrict, and in the _Hochgebirge_, would be found to proceed in realityfrom like caves, if the fissures from which they blow could bepenetrated. 

Behrens[128] describes two ice-caves near Questenberg, in the county ofStollberg, on the Harz mountains. They both occur in limestone, and areknown as the Great and Little Ice-holes. The one is close to the villageof Questenberg, and consists of a chasm several fathoms deep, so coldthat in summer the water trickling down its edges is frozen into longicicles. The opening is large and faces due south, and yet the hotterthe day the more ice is found; whereas in winter a warm steam comes out, as if from a stove. The other cave is farther into the mountain; it isspacious and light, and very cold in summer. 

In Gehler's _Physik. Wörterbuch_ (Art Höhle), a small hole is mentionednear Dôle, which is said to be remarkable for the large andcuriously-shaped icicles found there; but no sufficient account of itseems to have been given. 

An ice-hole is also spoken of in the same article, which occurs on theeast side of the town of Vesoul. [129] The hole is described as beingsmall, with a little rivulet of water: this water, and also that whichtrickles down the walls of the cave, is converted into ice, and so muchis formed on a cold day that it requires eight warm days to melt it. Gollut, in his description of the _fré-puits_ of Vesoul, [130] observesthat the remarkable pit known by that name was so cold, that in his timeit had never been fully explored. Gehler's expression, however, 'a smallhole, ' cannot possibly apply to the _fré-puits_; so that these wouldseem to be two different examples of cold caves near Vesoul. 

There is an interesting account in Poggendorff's Annalen[131] of a visitmade by Professor A. Pleischl to a mountain in the circle of Leitmeritz, where ice is found in summer under very curious circumstances. Themountain is called Pleschiwetz, and lies above Kameik, in Bohemia, notfar from the town of Leitmeritz. On the 24th of June in each year, largenumbers of pilgrims assemble at the romantic chapel of S. John theBaptist in the Wilderness; and it is a part of their occupation tosearch for ice under the basaltic rocks, and carry it home wrapped inmoss, as a proof that they have really made the pilgrimage. ProfessorPleischl visited this district at the end of May 1834. The weather washot for the season, as had been the case in April also, and there hadbeen very little snow in the winter. A path leads from the chapel of S. John through the woods which deck the Pleschiwetz, and then over a smallplain to the foot of the basaltic rocks. Here the mountain slopes awayvery steeply to the south, and the slope is thickly strewn with basaltic_débris_. From east to west this slope measures about 40 fathoms, andits length is about 70 fathoms. It is surrounded on both sides and atthe foot by trees and shrubs. The sun burned so directly on to the_débris_, that the basaltic blocks were in some cases too hot to betouched by the naked hand. 

Professor Pleischl spent three hours of the early afternoon on thisspot. The upper surface of the basaltic blocks had a temperature of atleast 122° F. The presence of an icy current was detected by insertingthe hand into the lower crevices; and on removing the loose stones to adepth of 1-1/2 or 2 feet, ice was found in considerable quantities. Onthe 27th of August, he proceeded to make a further investigation of thisphenomenon; but he found the temperature of the blocks only 106° F. , andin the crevices, at a depth of 2 or 3 feet, the lowest temperaturereached was 38°·75 F. The external temperature in the shade was at thesame time 83° F. 

A third visit, in January 1835, gave no results; but on January 21, 1838, the Professor succeeded in determining some very remarkablefacts. A depression in the sloping plain is called, _par excellence_, the ice-hole; and this is surrounded by firs and birches, which growwithin three or four fathoms of the edge of the hole, so that therays of the sun do not reach the hole in winter. Fresh snow lay onthese trees; and there was nowhere any sign of melted snow, or of theformation of icicles. The basaltic _débris_, in which ice had beenfound in the summer, covers here a space of 5 fathoms long by 3 or 4broad, immediately at the foot of a steep basaltic precipice. Ateleven in the morning the temperature was 14° F. In the shade; andsnow lay all round the ice-hole, to a thickness of 1-1/2 or 2 feet. The snow which covered the _débris_ was pierced by holes, which couldnot have been caused by the sun, for its rays did not penetrate thetrees; and, indeed, no sun had been visible for some days. These holeswere generally turned towards the north, and were like chimneys. Oninvestigation, it was found that icicles hung down into them, showing, of course, past or present thaw, and within the cavities no ice wasfound. The thermometer gave here from 27°·5 F. To 25°·15 F. ; but inthe crevices, into which the thermometer could not be pushed, the handdiscovered a warm air. The moss drawn from these crevices was found tobe steeped in unfrozen water, and it froze promptly when brought intothe outer air. 

The party afterwards climbed up the precipitous basalt, and reached, at3 P. M. , a level covered with large blocks of the same material, wherethe thermometer was slightly under 12° F. In the shade. The blocks werefor the most part stripped of snow, and in some cases thin shields ofice were observed standing out two or three inches from them, forminghollow chambers, in which an agreeable warmth was found. These shieldswere invariably on the south side of the stones, the north side beingfree from ice and snow alike. In some places vapours were seen to rise. The thermometer gave 41° F. At a depth of six inches among the stones, though the external temperature, as has been said, was 12° F. For eightdays previously, the thermometer had been always far below the freezingpoint, and on the 17th (four days before) had been 13° below zero (F. ). On the 19th and 20th heavy snow had fallen. All these facts seem to showthat the warmth which had caused the chimneys in the snow over theice-holes, and the heated vapours on the higher parts of the mountains, proceeded from within, and not from without. 

The people of the district assured Professor Pleischl that the hotterthe summer, the more ice is formed; and that it disappears when thenights become long and the days short. Dr. Weiss, for six years head ofthe Gymnasium of Leitmeritz, stated that when one of the holes wasemptied of ice in the summer, it filled again in a few days. Theexplanation given by the Professor of this phenomenon is, that theblocks of basalt, that being an excellent conductor of heat, pass somuch warmth through to their under surfaces--which form the roof ofsmall chambers filled with a spongy mass of decaying leaves--that therapid evaporation thereby caused produces the cold air and the ice. Heomits to explain why there should be anything exceptional in the winterphenomenon of the crevices among the stones. 

There are two other places in Bohemia where ice is found in summer. Oneis on the Steinberg, in the county of Konaged;[132] it is a small basin, surrounded by trees, where, in the middle of summer, lumps of ice arefound under basaltic _débris_. This ice is only formed, according toSommer, in the hottest part of the year. The other is on theZinkenstein, one of the highest points of the Vierzehnberg, in thecircle of Leitmeritz. It is described by Sommer[133] as a cleft, fivefathoms deep, in the basaltic rock, where ice is found in the hottestseasons. Professor Pleischl put this assertion to the test by visitingthe spot in the end of August, when he found no signs of ice. 

Another writer in Poggendorff[134] describes a somewhat similarappearance on the Saalberg. Here ice is found on the surface from Juneto the middle of August; and that, too, with a west exposure and inmoderate shade. In July, the ice was so abundant that it could be seenfrom some distance: it was half a foot thick, and yielded neither to sunnor rain. In the middle of August there was no ice on the surface; butwhen the loose _débris_ was removed, the most beautiful ice appeared, and at a little depth all was frozen as hard as if it had been the depthof winter. [135] The people who work in the neighbourhood declare thatthe place remains open, and free from ice or snow, in the greatest cold, and that no ice begins to form till the month of June. When the writerof the account in Poggendorff visited the ice-hole, the peasants were inthe habit of carrying large masses of ice down to their houses, througha temperature of 81° F. 

Reich[136] gives a detailed and valuable account of the prevalence ofsubterranean ice on the Sauberg, a hill which forms one side of a ravinenear Ehrenfriedersdorf. The surface is about 2, 000 feet above the sea, and its mean temperature, as determined by many careful observations, about 45° F. There are several tin-mines in this district, and theextended observations made by the authorities establish the curious factthat the mean temperature is considerably lower beneath than at thesurface. For instance, in the S. Christoph pit, it is found that themean temperature, at 15 fathoms below the surface, is only slightlyabove 42° F. ; while at the Morgenröther cross-cut the same meantemperature is found at a depth of 46 fathoms. The annual change oftemperature is very small in these mines, and the maximum and minimumare reached very late; so that, if a point could be found with a meantemperature of 32° F. , ice would increase there up to June or even July, and then diminish until December or January; in which case thephenomenon so often said to be observed in connection with subterraneanice--the melting in winter and forming in summer--would really bepresented. 

The ice on the Sauberg is frequently found to commence at a depth of 3or 4 fathoms, and in the years 1811 and 1813 it extended to 24 fathomsbelow the surface: this depth, however, was exceptionally great, and asa rule the limit is reached at about 14 fathoms. [137] The ice is usuallynot very firm, and can be broken by stout blows with a stick; butbetween the years 1790 and 1800, when it was found at a depth of from 3to 9 fathoms, it was so hard that blasting became necessary, and at thattime the miners were with difficulty protected from the effects of thesevere cold. The greatest quantity of ice is found in the interstices ofthe rubbish-beds of old workings, and here it assumes a crystallineform, the rocks being covered with a 'fibrous' structure, arrangedperpendicularly to their surface. 

Reich reports the universal presence of cold currents of air in theseshafts and mines, and, in consequence, takes the opportunity ofcontradicting a statement in Horner's _Physik. Wörterbuch, _[138] thatthe absence of all current of air is essential to the formation ofsubterranean ice. He quotes the case of the cheese-caves of Roquefort asa further confirmation of his own observations with regard to theconnection between ice in caves and cold currents of air; but of themany accounts which I have met with of the curious caves referred to, both in books and from the lips of those who have visited them, not onehas made any mention of ice. [139] He states, too, that when the strengthof the current is diminished, its temperature is increased; a fact whichall observations of the cold currents in caves, especially those madewith so much care by M. Saussure, abundantly establish. 

In the way of explanation, Reich mentions the possibility of rocks ofpeculiar formation possessing actually a low degree of temperature;[140]but he rejects this suggestion, preferring to believe that in some casesthe cold resulting from evaporation is the cause of ice, and in othersthe greater specific gravity of cold as compared with warmer air. 

In the _Bulletin des Sciences Naturelles_, [141] it is stated that alarge quantity of ice is found in one of the recesses of the grotto ofAntiparos--a fact which I have not seen mentioned elsewhere. Afterpenetrating a long way through difficult fissures, a square chamber isat length reached, measuring 300 feet in length and breadth, with aheight of about 80 feet. The walls and roof and floor are beautifullydecorated with ice, and reflect all the colours of the rainbow. Thereare groups of pyramidal and round columns, and in some parts of the cavescreens or curtains of ice 10 or 12 feet broad hang down to the floor. 

In a later volume of the same periodical, [142] there is a description ofa hill in Virginia where ice is found in summer. This hill lies near theroad between Winchester and Romney, on the North River, latitude 39º N. One side of the hill is entirely composed of loose stones from ten totwenty pounds in weight, and under these the ice is found, althoughtheir upper surface is exposed to the full sun from 9 or 10 A. M. Tillsunset. In all seasons there is an abundance of ice. A writer in the'London and Paris Observer'[143] visited the spot on the 4th of July, after a time of stifling heat, and in ten minutes he found more ice thanthe whole party could have carried away. He did not explore any fartherthan the foot of the hill; but the neighbours, who used the iceregularly in summer, assured him that it was to be found high up also. A constant and strong current issued from the crevices, stronger andinfinitely colder than the current in the famous 'blowing cave' ofVirginia. A man had built a store-room for meat within the influence ofone of these currents, and hard dry icicles were seen hanging from thewooden supports inside: the flies, too, which had been attracted by themeat, were found frozen on to the stones. This is not the only districtwhere ice is found within temperate latitudes in North America. InProfessor Silliman's 'American Journal of Science, '[144] in a sketch ofthe geology of the township of Salisbury, Con. (latitude 43° N. ), 'natural ice-houses' are mentioned. These consist of chasms ofconsiderable extent in the mica-state, where ice and snow remain duringthe greater part of the year. The principal of these chasms lies in theeast part of the town, and is several hundred feet long, sixty feetdeep, and about forty wide. The slate is of a very compact kind; and thewalls are perpendicular, and correspond with much exactness. At thebottom is a cold spring, and a cave of considerable extent, in which itis probable that the ice lies--for the writer does not specify theposition in which it is found. The chasm is a favourite retreat insummer, and is called the Wolf-hollow, from its having formerly been afamous haunt for wolves. 

Similar receptacles for summer-ice are found in several places in NorthAmerica. In the forty-ninth volume of the _Sitzungsberichte der Kaiserl. Akademie in Wien_ (1te. Abth. ), a list of references to variousice-holes is appended to a paper by Dr. Boué on the geology of Servia. Many of the passages referred to have nothing to do with ice-caves, as, for instance, the sections of De Saussure's book describing hisobservations of 'cold caves', or the account of the mass of ice andsnow from which the river Jumna springs, for which Dr. Boué refers tothe 'Philosophical Magazine' for November 1823, meaning, in fact, the'London Magazine'. The 'Description des Glacières' of M. Bourrit is alsogiven as a part of the literature on ice-caves; whereas (see the accountof the Glacière of Montarquis, in the Valley of Reposoir) by 'glacière'M. Bourrit meant only a locality where ice is to be found, or a glacierdistrict. Dr. Boué, however, gives some references to the 'AmericanJournal of Science' which it is possible to make out by a careful searchin the neighbourhood of the volume and page he mentions. In vol. Iv. (1822, --Dr. Boué says 1821) there is an account by the editor[145] of anatural ice-house in the township of Meriden, Con. , between Hartford andNewhaven, at an elevation of not more than 200 feet above the level ofthe sea. The ice is found in a narrow defile, which is hemmed in byperpendicular sides of trap-rock, and displays a perfect chaos of fallenblocks of stone. The defile is so narrow, that the sun's rays only reachit for an hour in the course of the day; and even the trees and rocks, and beds of leaves, protect the ice from any very material damage. Dr. Silliman visited this defile on the 23rd July, 1821, [146] with Dr. IsaacHough, the keeper of a neighbouring inn, and found that the ice was onlypartially visible, in consequence of the large collection of leaveswhich lay on it: they sent a boy down with a hatchet, and he brought upsome large firm masses, one of which, weighing several pounds, theycarried twenty miles to Newhaven, where it did not entirely disappeartill the morning of the third day. Seven miles from Newhaven, in thetownship of Branford, there is a similar collection of ice. In both ofthese cases, the ice is mixed with a considerable quantity of leaves anddirt. 

In the same volume (p. 331, --Dr. Boué says p. 33), two accounts aregiven of a natural ice-house near the summit of a hill in theneighbourhood of Williamstown (Mass. ). In the next volume there is afurther account of it by Professor Dewey, stating that since the treesin the neighbourhood had been cut, the snow and ice had disappearedeach year about the first of August. 

In vol. Xlvi. (p. 331) an ice mountain in Wallingford, Rutland County(Vt. ), is described, which is ordinarily known in the neighbourhood asthe ice-bed. An area of thirty or fifty acres of ground is covered withmassive _débris_ of grey quartz from the mountains which overhang it;and here--especially in a deep ravine into which many of the fallingblocks of stone have penetrated--ice is found in large quantities. Itappears to be formed during the melting of the snow in February, March, and April, and vanishes in the course of the summer, in hot years asearly as the last days of June. 

These descriptions call to mind the Glacière of Arc-sous-Cicon, in whichmany of the features of the American ice-caves are reproduced. AnAmerican photograph is current in this country, in the form of astereoscopic slide, representing an ice-cave in the White Mountains, NewHampshire; but it is only a winter cave, and in no way resembles any ofthe glacières I have seen. It is merely a collection of long and slendericicles, with beds of ice formed upon stones and trunks of trees on theground; nothing more, in fact, than is to be seen in any tolerablysevere winter in the neighbourhood of a cascade in a sheltered Scotchburn. 

The 'American Journal of Science' (xxxvi. 184) gives a curious instanceof a freezing-well near the village of Owego, three-quarters of a milefrom the Susquehanna river. The depth of the well is 77 feet, and forfour or five months in the year the surface of the water is frozen sohard as to render the well useless. Large masses of ice have been foundin it late in July. A thermometer, which stood at 68° in the sun, fellto 30° in fifteen minutes at the bottom of the well; and the men whomade the well were forced to put on thick clothing in June, and even socould not work for more than two hours at a time. No other well in thatneighbourhood presents the same phenomenon. A lighted candle was letdown, and the flame became agitated and thrown in one direction at adepth of 30 feet, but was quite still at the bottom; where, however, itsoon died out. The water is hard or limestone water. 

Rocks of volcanic formation would seem to afford favourableopportunities for the formation of ice. Scrope mentions this fact in anaccount of the curious district called Eiffel or Eifel, in RhenishPrussia, which was published originally in the 'Edinburgh Journal ofScience, '[147] and has since been translated in Keferstein'sDeutschland. [148] The village of Roth, near Andernach, is built on acurrent of basalt, derived from the cone above it, which has at sometime sent down a stream of lava to the north and west. A small cavernnear the village, forming the mouth of a deep fissure in thelava-stream, half-way up the cone, displays a phenomenon which thewriter says he has often observed in volcanic formations. The floor ofthe cavern was covered with a crust of ice at the time of his visit, about noon on a very hot day in August. The peasants report that thereis always ice in summer, and never in winter, when the sheep retreat tothe cave on account of its warmth. Steininger[149] found a thickness of3 feet of ice on September 19, 1818, but it was evidently in a meltingstate, and the thermometer stood at 36·5 F. In the cavern. He describesit as possessing a narrow entrance facing north, entirely sheltered fromthe sun by lava-rocks, and by the trees of a wood which covers the coneof scoria. 

Scrope believes that this is the mouth of one of the arched galleries sofrequently met with under lava in Iceland, Bourbon, and elsewhere; andon this he founds his explanation of the phenomenon. If the otherextremity is connected with the external air at a much lower level, acurrent of air must be constantly driven up this gallery, and in itspassage will be dried by the absorbent nature of the rock--which isperhaps partly owing to the sulphuric or muriatic acid itcontains[150]--and the evaporation caused by this current produces acoating of ice on the floor of the grotto, where there is a superficialrill of water. The more rarified the lower external air, the more rapidwill be the current of cool air; and, therefore, the greater theevaporation. The winter phenomenon is to be explained by the fact thatthe current of air will be about the mean annual temperature of thedistrict, taking its temperature, in fact, from the rocks through whichit passes; and, therefore, by contrast the grotto will appear warm. 

The same writer mentions a similar example of summer ice inAuvergne. [151] There is a natural grotto in the basalt near Pont Gibaud, some miles to the north-west of Clermont, in which a small spring isfound partly frozen during the greatest heats of summer, while the wateris said to be warm in winter; probably, Scrope observes, only seeming tobe warm by contrast with the external temperature. The water isapparently frozen by means of the powerful evaporation produced by acurrent of very dry air proceeding from some long fissures or archedgalleries which communicate with the cave. In this case also the writersuggests that the air owes its dryness to the absorbent qualities of thelava through which it passes: he repeats, too, the remark that thephenomenon is of common occurrence in caverns in volcanicdistricts. [152]

There is a remarkable instance of ice occurring under lava, near the_Casa Inglese_ on Mount Etna, which it may be as well to mention, thoughthe causes of its existence have probably nothing in common with thephenomena of ice-caves, or summer ice. An account of it is to be foundin Sir Charles Lyell's 'Elements of Geology. '[153] It appears that thesummer and autumn of 1828 were so hot, that the artificial ice-houses ofCatania and the adjoining parts of Sicily failed. Signer M. Gemmellarohad long believed that a small mass of perennial ice at the foot of thehighest cone of Etna was only a part of a large and continuous glaciercovered by a lava current, and from this he expected to derive anabundant supply of ice. He procured a large body of workmen, andquarried into the ice; but though he thus proved the superposition oflava for several hundred yards, the ice was so hard, and the expense ofquarrying consequently so great, that the works were abandoned. This wason the south-east of the cone, not far from the _Casa Inglese_. SirCharles Lyell suggests that, probably, at the commencement of someeruption, a large mass of snow has been thickly covered with volcanicsand, showered upon it before the arrival of the lava itself. This sandis a non-conductor of heat, and would therefore tend to preserve thesnow from complete fusion when the hot lava-stream passed over it, andthus the existence of the underground glacier may be explained. Thepeasants of the district are so well acquainted with the non-conductingproperties of volcanic sand, that they secure an annual store of snow, for providing water in summer, by strewing a layer of sand a few inchesthick upon a field of snow, thus effectually shutting out the heat ofthe sun. It is curious that when De Saussure visited Chamouni for thefirst time, his attention was arrested by the sight of women sowing whatseemed to be grain of some kind in the snow; but, on enquiring, he foundthat it was only black earth, which the inhabitants spread on the snowin spring, in order to make it disappear sooner. He was told that snowthus treated would melt a fortnight or three weeks before the ordinarytime for its disappearance in the valley; but it will be seen that thisdoes not contradict the theory of the Sicilian peasants. [154]

Sir Charles Lyell adds that, after what he saw on Mount Etna, he shouldnot be surprised to find layers of glacier and lava alternating in someparts of Iceland. 

Something similar was observed by Von Kotzebue, near the sound whichbears his name. [155] His party was encamped on a large plain coveredwith moss and grass, when they discovered a fissure which revealed thefact that the moss and grass were but a thin coating on a layer of ice ahundred feet thick. This was not mere frozen ground, but aboriginal ice;for, in the ice which formed the walls of the fissure, they found thebones and teeth of mammoths embedded. 

The frozen soil of Jakutsk, in Siberia, has for many years attractedconsiderable attention. The ordinary law of increase of temperature indescending below the surface of the earth would appear, however, to beonly modified here; for it is found in sinking a well which hasafforded opportunities for observing the state of the soil, that thetemperature gradually increases with the depth. [156]

Two ice-caverns were examined by Georgi, in the course of his travels inRussia. [157] One occurs near the mines of Lurgikan, on the east side ofa hill about 450 feet high, not far from the confluence of the Lurgikanstream with the Schilka (a tributary of the Amur), in the province ofNertschinsk. In the course of driving an adit in one of the lead-mines, in the year 1770, the workmen were struck by the hollow sound givenforth by the rock, and, on investigation, they found an immense grottoor fissure, of which the entrance was so much blocked up by ice thatthey had much difficulty in sliding down by means of ropes. The fissureextended under the hill, in a direction from north to south, and was 130fathoms long, from 1 to 8 broad, and from 3 to 12 high. Where itapproached nearest the surface, the thickness of the roof was about 10fathoms. The rock is described by Georgi as _quarzig, bräunlich, und voneinem starken Kalkschuss_. He found the greater part of the wallscovered with ice, and many pillars and pyramids of ice on the floor. Thecold was moderate, and was said to be much the same in summer andwinter. Patrin has given a fuller description of the same cavern in the_Journalde Physique_. [158] The lead-mine is in limestone rock, containing a third part of clay. The entrance to the glacière was stilldifficult at the time of his visit, and it was necessary to use a rope, and also to cut steps, for the descent was made along a ridge of icewith almost perpendicular sides. The spectacle presented by thedecoration of the roof was remarkably beautiful, long festoons and tuftsof ice hanging down, light and brilliant as silver gauze: this ice wassupposed to be formed from the abundant vapours of the beginning ofwinter, and resembled glass blown to the utmost tenuity. It wascrystallised, too, in a wonderful manner. Patrin found long bundles ofhexahedral tubes, the walls of which were formed of transverse needles:the diameter of these tubes was from two to six lines only, but at thelower extremities they opened out into hollow six-sided pyramids, morethan an inch in diameter, so that the festoons, sometimes as large roundas a man, presented terminal tufts of some feet in diameter, whichglittered like diamonds under the influence of the torches. Towards thefarther end of the fissure, stalactites of solid ice were found, displaying all the forms and more than all the beauty of limestonestalactites. The other instance mentioned by Georgi occurred in themines of Serentvi, where two of the levels yielded perennial ice, andwere thence (Georgi says) called _Ledenoi_. A spring of water flowedfrom the rock at a depth of thirty fathoms below the surface, and waspromptly frozen into a coating of ice a foot thick. Patrin[159] visitedSerentvi, but he did not observe any ice in the mines. He believed therock to be very ancient lava. 

Reich[160] mentions a cavern on Mount Sorano which contains ice, quotingKircher;[161] but he seems to have misinterpreted his author'sLatin. [162] He also refers to the existence of ice in the mines ofHerrengrund in Hungary, and Dannemora in Sweden. Kircher, who has thecredit of having been the first to call attention to the increase oftemperature in the earth, made full enquiries into the temperature ofthe mines at Herrengrund, but he was not informed of the existence ofice. [163]; Townson visited these mines in the course of his travels inHungary, and neither does he make any mention of ice in connection withthem. He describes them as lying south of Teplitz, in a limestonedistrict, with sandstone in the more immediate neighbourhood. The minesthemselves (copper mines) are in a kind of mica-schist, which the peoplecall granite. The superintendent of mines informed Reich that one of theshafts is called the ice-mine, from the fact that when the workmenattempted to drive a gallery from south to north, they came upon icefilling up the interstices of the _Haldenstein_, within five fathoms ofthe commencement of the gallery. The temperature was so low, and theexpense caused by the frozen mass so great, that the working wasstopped. 

The iron mines of Dannemora, eleven leagues from Upsal, contain a largequantity of ice, according to a manuscript account by Mr. Over-assessor-of-the-board-of-mines Winkler:[164] Jars, however, in his_Voyages Métallurgiques_, [165] gives a full description of them withoutmentioning the existence of ice. He states that ice is found in themines of Nordmarck, three leagues from Philipstadt in Wermeland, aprovince of Sweden: these mines are merely numerous shafts sunk in theearth, reaching to the bottom of the vein of ore, so that they are fullyexposed to the light, and yet the walls of the shafts become coveredwith ice at the end of winter, which remains there till the middle ofSeptember. Jars believed that, if it were not for the heat caused byblasting, and by the presence of the workmen, the ice would beperennial. Humboldt[166] speaks of the ice in these mines and on theSauberg. Reich states that ice is found in the mill-stone quarry ofNieder-Mendig, quoting Karsten's _Archiv für Bergbau_. [167] The ice isfound in the hottest days of summer, although the interior of the quarryis connected with the outer air by many side shafts. The porous natureof the stone is assigned as the cause of the phenomenon. Daubeny (OnVolcanoes) describes the remarkable basaltic deposits atNiedermennig--as he spells it--but says nothing of the existence of ice. 

Daubuisson[168] speaks of a _Schneegrube_, on a summit of the_Riesengebirge_, in Silesia, 4, 000 feet above the sea; but such holesare common enough at that elevation, and I have seen two or threeremarkable instances on the Jura, within the compass of one day's walk. Voigt[169] describes an _Eisgrube_ in the Rhöngebirge, on the_Ringmauer_, the highest point of the _Tagstein_, where abundant ice isfound in summer under irregular masses of columnar basalt. Reich hadreceived from a forest-inspector an account of an ice-hole in thisneighbourhood, called _Umpfen_, which is apparently not the same as thatmentioned by Voigt. 

In the Saxon Erzgebirge there are three points remarkable for their lowtemperature, [170] in addition to the mines on the Sauberg mentionedabove. These are the _Heinrichssohle_, in the Stockwerk at Altenberg, where the mean of two years' observations gives the temperature 0°·54 F. Lower at a depth of 400 feet than at the surface; the adit of_Henneberg_, on the Ingelbach, near Johanngeorgenstadt, where thetemperature was again 0°·54 F. Lower than in shafts some hundred feethigher; and the _Weiss Adler_ adit, on the left declivity of the valleyof the Schwarzwasser, above the Antonshütte. It would appear that thereare local causes which affect the temperature in the Erzgebirge, forReich found that in several places the mean temperature of the soil washigher than that of the air: for instance--

 Soil. Air. Height above the sea. 

 Altenberg ... 42·732° Fahr. 41·27° 2, 450 feet Markus Röhling ... 43·542° " 41·832° 1, 870" Johanngeorgenstadt. 43·115° " 41·09° 2, 460"

The temperature at Markus Röhling is peculiarly anomalous, consideringthe elevation of the surface above the sea. 

There is said to be an ice-cave in Nassau, but I have been unable toobtain any account of it, unless it be the same as the _ice-field_mentioned on page 303. 

There is a cave in the south-east of Hungary[171] which presents thesame features as several of the glacières I have visited. It is calledthe Ice-hole of Scherisciora, and is described as lying in theJura-kalk, at a distance of 2-1/2 hours north-east from theforest-house of Distidiul. The approach is by ladders, down a pit 30fathoms wide and 24 deep; and when the bottom of this pit is reached, an entrance is found to the cave in the north wall, in theneighbourhood of which is congealed snow which shortly becomes ice. The floor of the first chamber is composed of glacier-ice, separatedfrom the side walls by a cleft from 1 to 3 feet wide, where it shows adepth of from 4 to 6 feet; it is as smooth as glass, and about 6fathoms from the entrance a cone of ice stands upon it, 8 or 9 feethigh. Both the floor and the cone are at once seen to be transformedremains of ancient masses of snow, and are of a dirty yellow colour. 

At the back of this chamber, a narrow passage opens towards the interiorof the mountain, and winds steeply down with a height of 4 feet, and alength of a few fathoms, till a magnificent dome is reached, on thebeauties of which Herr Peters becomes eloquent. The floor is so smooththat crimpons are necessary, and stalagmites and stalactites of ice arefound in rich profusion, the latter being generally formed on smalllimestone stalactites, while the former have no such nucleus. 

There is another opening near the original entrance to the cave, a sortof fissure covered with elegant forms of ice, leading to a steep shaft. The imperial forester of Topfanalva was bold enough to let himself downthe slope of ice which formed the edge of the shaft, on a rope ladder 60feet long, notwithstanding the difficulty of grasping the iron stepswhich of course lay pressed on to the ice; but when he had descendedabout 30 feet, the shaft became perpendicular, and stones thrown inshowed a very considerable depth. There appeared to be no sound of waterin the abyss below. 

Both entrances, that to the shaft as well as that to the second chamber, were ornamented with delicate ice crystals, which occurred both on thelimestone stalactites and on the walls, and presented almost theappearance of plants of cauliflower. The ice-floor of the first chamberis described as consisting of a 'coarse-grained' material. 

In the south-east of Servia, on the western slope of Mount Rtagn, is apit 20 feet in diameter, and 40 or 50 feet deep, the bottom of which isreached by a succession of trunks of trees with the branches lopped off, a sort of ladder called _stouba_ by the natives. [172] The peasantsassert that the snow and ice disappear from this pit in September, anddo not reappear before June. The Swiss peasants have never yet got sofar as to say that the _snow_ in their pits disappears in winter andreturns in summer. Boué[173] found the temperature of the bottom of thepit to be 28°. 4 F. , while that of the air outside was 76° F. The samewriter[174] mentions a source in a mill-stone quarry in Bosnia which isfrozen till the end of June. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 122: Several of these caves are referred to by Reich, _Beobachtungen über die Temperatur des Gesteins in verschiedenen Tiefenin den Gruben des Sächsischen Erzgebirges;_ Freiberg, 1834. ]

[Footnote 123: _Naturwunder des Oesterr. Kaiserthums_, iii. 40. ]

[Footnote 124: _Mittheil. Des Oesterr. Alpen-Vereins_, ii. 441. I amindebted to G. C. Churchill, Esq. , one of the authors of the well-knownbook on the Dolomite Mountains, for my knowledge of the existence ofthis cave, and of the Kolowrathöhle. ]

[Footnote 125: _Beschreibung merkwürdiger Höhlen_, ii. 283. ]

[Footnote 126: _Geognostísche Reschreibung des bayerischenAlpengebirges_; Gotha, 1861. ]

[Footnote 127: These constitute the upper bone bed and Dachsteinlimestone beds of the uppermost part of the Trias formation. ]

[Footnote 128: _Hereynia Curiosa_, cap. V. The same account is given inBehren's _Natural History of the Harz Forest_, of which an Englishtranslation was published in 1730. ]

[Footnote 129: See also Muncke, _Handbuch der Naturlehre_, iii. 277;Heidelberg, 1830. ]

[Footnote 130: See page 58. The more modern spelling is _frais-puits_. ]

[Footnote 131: liv. 292. ]

[Footnote 132: Described by Schaller, _Leitmeritzer Kreis_, p. 271, andby Sommer, in the same publication, p. 331. I have not been able toprocure this book. ]

[Footnote 133: _Böhmens Topogr. _, i. 339. This reference is given byProfessor Pleischl. ]

[Footnote 134: _Annalen_, lxxxi. 579. ]

[Footnote 135: I was told, in 1864, by a chamois-hunter of Les Plans, avalley two hours above Bex, that some years before he was cutting awood-road through the forest early in September, when, at a depth of 6inches below the surface, he found the ground frozen hard. We visitedthe place together, but could find no ice. The whole ground was composedof a mass of loose round stones, with a covering of earth and moss, andthe air in the interstices was peculiarly cold and dry. ]

[Footnote 136: _Beobachtungen_, &c. (see note on p. 258), 181. ]

[Footnote 137: Reich found the temperature of the ice to be 31·982° F. , that of the air in the immediate vicinity 34·025°, and the rock, at alittle distance, 32·765°. ]

[Footnote 138: iii. 150. ]

[Footnote 139: See many careful descriptions of these caves in the_Annales de Chimie_; also, an account by Professor Ansted, in his_Science, Scenery, and Art_, p. 29. M. Chaptal (_Ann. De Chimie_, iv. 34) found the lowest temperature of the currents of cold air to be 36º·5F. ; but M. Girou de Buzareingues _(Ann. De Chimie et de Phys_. , xlv. 362)found that with a strong north wind, the temperature of the external airbeing 55º·4 F. , the coldest current gave 35º·6 F. ; with less externalwind, still blowing from the north, the external air lost half a degreecentigrade of heat, while the current in the cave rose to 38º·75 F. Thecellars in which the famous cheese of Roquefort is ripened are notsubterranean, but are buildings joined on to the rock at the mouths ofthe fissures whence the currents proceed. They are so valuable, thatone, which cost 12, 000 francs in construction, sold for 215, 000 francs. The cheese of this district has had a great reputation from very earlytimes. Pliny (_Hist. Nat_. Xi. 97) mentions, with commendation, thecheeses of Lesura (_M. Lozère_ or _Losère_) and Gabalum (_Gevaudan, Javoux_). The idolaters of Gevaudan offered cheeses to demons bythrowing them into a lake on the Mons Helanus _(Laz des Helles?_) and itwas not till the year 550 that S. Hilary, Bishop of Mende, succeeded inputting a stop to this practice. ]

[Footnote 140: It would seem from his own account of the Sauberg, andfrom the description given above of the presence of ice among the rocky_débris_, as well as from the account on this page of ice in Virginia, that a formation of loose stones is favourable to the existence of a lowdegree of temperature. See also the note on p. 263, with respect to theloose stones near Les Plans. Forchhammer found, on the Faroë Islands, that springs which rise from loose stones are invariably colder thanthose which proceed from more solid rock at the same elevation, asindeed might have been expected. ]

[Footnote 141: xvii. 337. The account is taken from a Dutch journal. ]

[Footnote 142: xix. P. 124. ]

[Footnote 143: October 11, 1829. ]

[Footnote 144: viii. 254. ]

[Footnote 145: Pp. 174-6. ]

[Footnote 146: Thermometer about 85° F. ]

[Footnote 147: v. 154. ]

[Footnote 148: iv. 300. ]

[Footnote 149: _Die erlöschenen Vulkane in der Eifel_, S. 59. ]

[Footnote 150: Dr. Gmelin, of Tubingen, detected the presence of ammoniaboth in clinkstone lava and in columnar basalt (_American Journal ofScience_, iv. 371). ]

[Footnote 151: _Geology and Extinct Volcanoes of Central France_, p. 60(second edition). ]

[Footnote 152: Mr. William Longman has informed me that some years agohe had ice given him in summer, when he was on a visit to the inspectorof mines at Pont Gibaud, and he was told that it was formed in aneighbouring cavern during the hot season. ]

[Footnote 153: Original edition of 1830, i. 369. ]

[Footnote 154: See Professor Tyndall's _Glaciers of the Alps_, for anaccount of glacier-tables, sand-cones, &c. Anyone who has walked on aglacier will have noticed the little pits which any small blacksubstance, whether a stone or a dead insect, sinks for itself in theice. ]

[Footnote 155: Gilbert, _Annalen_, lxix. 143. ]

[Footnote 156: According to the latest accounts I have been able toobtain, a temperature of 29·75° F. Had already been reached some yearsago; the temperature, a few feet from the surface, being 14° belowfreezing. The soil here only thaws to a depth of 3 feet in the hottestsummer. Sir R. Murchison wrote to Russia, in February last, for furtherinformation regarding this well. 

Since I wrote this, Sir Roderick Murchison has applied to the Secretaryof the Imperial Academy of St. Petersburg for further informationrespecting the investigations at Jakutsk. The Secretary gives areference to Middendorff's _Sibirische Reise_, Bd. Iv. Th. I. , 3teLieferung, _Klima_, 1861. I have only been able to find the edition of1848-51; but in that edition, under the heading _MeteorologischeBeobachtungen_, elaborate tables of the meteorological condition ofJakutsk are given (i. 28-49). Also, under the heading _GeothermischeBeobachtungen_, very careful information respecting the frozen earthwill be found (i. 157, &c. , and 178, &c. ). The point at which atemperature of 32° will be attained, is reckoned variously at from 600to 1, 000 feet below the surface. ]

[Footnote 157: Reise im Russischen Reich_, i. 359; St. Petersburg, 1772. ]

[Footnote 158: xxxviii. 231 (an. 1791), in an article called _Noticeminéral, de la Daourie]

[Footnote 159: L. C. , p. 236. ]

[Footnote 160: _Beobachtungen_, &c. , 194. ]

[Footnote 161: _Mundus Subterraneus_, i. 220 (i. 239, in the edition of1678). ]

[Footnote 162: 'Vidi ego in Monte Sorano cryptam veluti glacieincrustatam, ingentibus in fornice hinc inde stiriis dependentibus, equibus vicini mentis accolæ pocula æstivo tempore conficiunt, aquævinoque quæ iis infunduntur refrigerandis aptissima, extremo rigore insummas bibentium delicias commutato. ']

[Footnote 163: Both here and at Schemnitz, Kircher made particularenquiries on a subject of which scientific men have altogether lostsight. At Schemnitz he asked the superintendent, _an comparcantDæmunculi vel pygmæi in fodinis?--respondit affirmative, et narrat pluraexempla_; and at Herrengrund, _utrum appareant Dæmunculi seupygmæi?--respondit tales visos fuisse, et auditos pluries_. (Edition of1678, ii. 203, 205. )]

[Footnote 164: Reich, 199. ]

[Footnote 165: i. 108 (Lyon, 1794). ]

[Footnote 166: _Ueber die unterirdischen Gasarten_, 101. ]

[Footnote 167: xvii. 386. ]

[Footnote 168: _Mém. Sur les Basaltes de la Saxe_, p. 147. ]

[Footnote 169: _Mineralog. Reisen_, ii. 123. ]

[Footnote 170: Reich, 200, 201; Bischof, _Physical Researches on theInternal Heat of the Globe_, 46, 47. ]

[Footnote 171: Peters, _Geologische und mineralogische Studien aus demsudöstlichen Ungarn_, in the _Sitzungsberichte der kais. Ak. In Wien_, B. Xliii. , 1te Abth. , S. 435. See also pages 394 and 418 of the samevolume (year 1861). ]

[Footnote 172: Such ladders are in ordinary use in the Jura. ]

[Footnote 173: _Turquie d'Europe, _ i. 132 (he quotes himself as i. 180, in the _Sitzungsb, der k. Ak. In Wien_, xlix. L. 324). ]

[Footnote 174: L. C. , p, 521. ]

 * * * * *

CHAPTER XVII. 

HISTORY OF THEORIES RESPECTING THE CAUSES OF SUBTERRANEAN ICE. 

The only glacière which is in any sense historical, is that nearBesançon; and a brief account of the different theories which have beenadvanced in explanation of the phenomena presented by it, will includealmost all that has been written on ice-caves. 

The first mention I have found of this cave is contained in an oldhistory of the Franche Comté of Burgundy, published at Dôle in 1592, towhich reference has been already made. Gollut, the author, speaks morethan once of a _glacière_ in his topographical descriptions, and in ashort account of it he states that it lay near the village of _Leugné_, which I find marked in the Delphinal Atlas very near the site of theChartreuse of Grâce-Dieu; so that there can be no doubt that hisglacière was the same with that which now exists. His theory was, thatthe dense covering of trees and shrubs protected the soil and thesurface-water from the rays of the sun, and so the cold which was storedup in the cave was enabled to withstand the attacks of the heat ofsummer. [175] In the case of many of the glacières, there can be nodoubt that this idea of winter cold being so preserved, by naturalmeans, as to resist the encroachments of the hotter seasons, is the trueexplanation of the phenomenon of underground ice. 

The next account of this glacière is found in the History of the RoyalAcademy of Sciences (French), under the year 1686, [176] but no theory isthere suggested. The writer of the account states that in his time thefloor of the cave was covered with ice, and that ice hung from the roofin festoons. In winter the cave was full of thick vapours, and a streamof water ran through it. The ice had for long been less abundant than informer times, in consequence of the felling of some trees which hadstood near the entrance. 

The Academy received in the same year another letter on this subject, confirming the previous account, and adding some particulars. From thisit would seem that people flocked from all sides to the glacière withwaggons and mules, and conveyed the ice through the various parts ofBurgundy, and to the camp of the Saone; not thereby diminishing theamount of ice, for one hot day produced as much as they could carry awayin eight days. The ice seemed to be formed from a stream which ranthrough the cave and was frozen in the summer only. The writer of thissecond account saw vapours in the glacière (the editor of the _Histoirede l'Académie_ does not say at what season the visit to the cave tookplace), and was informed that this was an infallible sign of approachingrain; so much so, that the peasants were in the habit of determining thecoming weather by the state of the grotto. 

In 1712, M. Billerez, Professor of Anatomy and Botany in the Universityof Besançon, communicated to the Academy[177] an account of a visit madeby him to this cave in September 1711. He found 3 feet of ice on thefloor of the cave, in a state of incipient thaw, and three pyramids, from 15 to 20 feet high and 5 or 6 feet in diameter, which had beenalready considerably reduced in size by thaw. A vapour was beginning topass out from the cave, at the highest part of the arch of entrance; aphenomenon which, he was told, continued through the winter, andannounced or accompanied the departure of the ice: nevertheless, thecold was so great that he could not remain in the glacière more thanhalf an hour with any sort of comfort. The thermometer stood at 60°outside the cave, and fell to 10°[178] when placed inside; butthermometrical observations of that date were so vague as to be uselessfor present purposes. The ice appeared to be harder than the ordinaryice of rivers, less full of air-bubbles, and more difficult to melt. 

M. Billerez enunciated a new theory to account for the phenomenapresented by the cave. He observed that the earth in the immediateneighbourhood, and especially above the roof of the grotto, was full ofa nitrous or ammoniac salt, and he accordingly suggested that this saltwas disturbed by the heat of summer and mingled itself with the waterwhich penetrated by means of fissures to the grotto, and so the cave wasaffected in the same way as the smaller vessel in the ordinarypreparation of artificial ice. He had heard that some rivers in Chinafreeze in summer from the same cause. [179]

In 1726, a further communication was made to the Academy by M. DesBoz, [181] Royal Engineer, describing four visits which he had made tothe grotto near Besançon at four different seasons of the year, viz. , inMay and November 1725, and in March and August 1726. In all cases hefound the air in the cave colder than the external air, [182] and itsvariations in temperature corresponded with the external variations, thecold being greater in winter than in summer. 

M. Des Boz ascribed the existence of ice in the cave to natural causes. The opening being towards the north-east, and corresponding with a gorgein the hills opposite, running in the same direction, none but coldwinds could reach the mouth of the grotto. Moreover, the soil above wasso thickly covered with trees and brushwood, that the rays of the suncould not reach the earth, much less the rock below. Credible personsasserted that since some of the trees had been felled, there had notbeen so much ice in the cave. 

In order to test the presence of salt, M. Des Boz melted some of theice, and evaporated the resulting water, but found no taste of salt inthe matter which remained. [183] He denied the existence of the spring ofwater which previous accounts had mentioned, and believed that the waterwhich formed the ice came solely from melted snow, and from thefissures of the rock. 

In 1727, the Duc de Lévi caused the whole of the ice to be removed fromthe cave, for the use of the army of the Saone, which he commanded. In1743 the ice had formed again, and the grotto was subjected to a verycareful investigation by M. De Cossigny, chief engineer of Besançon, inthe months of August and October. [183] The thermometer he used had beenpresented to him by the Academy, and was very probably constructed by M. De Réaumur himself, for de Cossigny's account was sent through M. DeRéaumur to the Academy, but still the observations made with it cannotbe considered very trustworthy. On the 8th of August, at 7. 30 A. M. , thetemperature in the cave was 1/2° above the zero point of thisthermometer, and at 11. 30 A. M. It had risen to 1° above zero. On the17th of October, at 7 A. M. , the thermometer stood at 1/2°, and at 4 P. M. It gave the same register. 

M. De Cossigny found that the entrance to the cave was rather more than150 feet above the Abbey of Grâce-Dieu, and about half a league distantby the ordinary path. A great part of his account is occupied bycontradictions of previous accounts, especially in the matter ofdimensions, [184] The people of Besançon had urged him to stay only ashort time in the cave, because of the sulphureous and nitrousexhalations, but he detected no symptoms of anything of that kind. Themost curious thing which he saw was the soft earth which lay, and stilllies, at the bottom of the long slope of ice by which the descent ismade; and he subjected this to various chemical tests and processes, butcould not find that it contained anything different from ordinaryearth. [185]

When M. De Cossigny visited the cave, there were thirteen or fourteencolumns of ice, from 6 to 8 feet high, and he was in consequenceinclined to doubt the accuracy of the statement of M. Billerez, that inhis time (1711) there were three columns only, from 15 to 20 feet high. But my own observation of the shape of the columns suggested that thelargest of all was probably an amalgamation of several others; so thatit is not unreasonable to suppose that after the Duc de Lévi removed thelarge columns seen by M. Billerez, a number of smaller columns wereformed on the old site, and that these had not become large enough toamalgamate in 1743. 

Not satisfied with these visits of August and October, M. De Cossignyvisited the cave in April 1745. He found the temperature at 5 A. M. To beexactly at the freezing point, and at noon it had risen 1°. From this heconcluded that the stories of the greater cold in the cave during thesummer, as compared with the winter, were false. 

In 1769, M. Prévost, of Geneva, visited the cave, as a young man; and in1789, he wrote an account of his visit in the _Journal de Genève_(March), which was afterwards inserted as an additional chapter in hisbook on Heat. [186] He believed that one or two hundred _toises_ was theutmost that could be allowed for the height of the hill in which theglacière lies, --a sufficiently vague approximation. He rejected the ideaof salt as the cause of ice, and came to the conclusion that the cavewas in fact nothing more than a good natural ice-house, being protectedby dense trees, and a thick roof of rock, while its opening towards thenorth sheltered it from all warm winds. He accounted for the originalpresence of ice as follows:--In the winter, stalactites form at theedges of various fissures in the roof, and snow is drifted on to thefloor of the cave by the north winds down the entrance-slope. When thewarmer weather comes, the stalactites fall by their own weight, and, lying in the drifted and congealed snow, form nuclei round which thesnow is still further congealed, and the water which results from thepartial thaw of portions of the snow is also converted into ice. Thus, alarger collection of ice forms in winter than the heat of summer candestroy; and if none of it were removed, it might, in the course ofyears, almost fill the cave. At the time of his visit (August), M. Prévost found only one column, from 6 to 8 feet high. 

In 1783 (August 6), M. Girod-Chantrans visited the Glacière of Chaux(so called from a village near the glacière, on the opposite side fromthe Abbey of Grâce-Dieu), and his account of the visit appeared in the_Journal des Mines_[187] of Prairial, an iv. , by which time the writerhad become the Citizen Girod-Chantrans. He found a mass ofstalactites of ice hanging from the roof, as if seeking to jointhemselves with corresponding stalagmites on the floor of the cave;the latter, five in number, being not more than 3 or 4 feet high, andstanding on a thick sheet of ice. There was a sensible intervalbetween this basement of ice and the rock and stones on which itreposed: it was, moreover, full of holes containing water, and thelower parts of the cave were unapproachable by reason of the largequantity of water which lay there. The thermometer stood at 35°·9 F. Two feet above the floor, and at 78° F. In the shade outside. M. Girod-Chantrans determined, from all he saw and heard, that the summerfreezing and winter thaw were fables, and he believed that the cavewas only an instance of Nature's providing the same sort of receptaclefor ice as men provide in artificial ice-houses. He was fortunateenough to obtain by chance the notes of a neighbouring physician, whohad made careful observations and experiments in the glacière atvarious seasons of the year, and a _précis_ of these notes forms themost valuable part of his account. 

Dr. Oudot, the physician in question, found ten columns in January 1778, the largest of which was 5-1/2 feet high. The flooring of ice wasnowhere more than 15 inches thick, and the parts of the rock which werenot covered with ice were perfectly dry. The thermometer--M. Girod-Chantrans used Réaumur, so I suppose that he gives Dr. Oudot'sobservations in degrees of Réaumur, though some of the results of thatsupposition appear to be anomalous--gave 22° F. Within the cave, and 21°F. Outside. 

In April of the same year, the large column had increased in height tothe extent of 13 inches; and the floor of ice on which it stood was1-1/2 inch thicker, and extended over a larger area than before; thethermometer stood at 36°. 5 F. And 52° F. Respectively in the samepositions as in the former case. In July, the large column had lost 6inches of its height, and the thermometer gave 38°. 75 F. And 74°. 75 F. 

In October, the large column was only 3 feet high, and many of theothers had disappeared, while their pedestal had become much thinnerthan it had been in the preceding months. There was also a considerableamount of mud in the cave, brought down apparently by the heavy rains ofautumn. The thermometer gave 37°. 6 F. And 63°. 5 F. 

On the 8th of January, 1779, there were nine columns of very beautifulice, and one of these, as before, was larger than the rest, being 5 feethigh and 10 feet in circumference. The temperatures were 21° F. And16°. 15 F. In the cave and in the open air respectively. 

Tradition related that, before the removal of the ice in 1727, one ofthe columns reached the roof, (Prévost calculated the limits of theheight of the cave at 90 and 60 feet, ) and this suggested to Dr. Oudotthe idea of placing stakes of wood in the heads of the columns he foundin the cave, in the hope that ice would thus collect in greaterquantities under the fissures of the roof. Accordingly, he made holes inthree of the columns, and established stakes 4, 5, and 10 feet high, returning on the 22nd of February, after an interval of six weeks, toobserve the result of his experiment. He found the two shorter stakescompletely masked with ice, forming columns a foot in diameter; and thelongest stake, though not entirely concealed by the ice which hadcollected upon it, was crowned with a beautiful capital of perfectlytransparent ice. The columns which had no stakes fixed upon them hadalso increased somewhat in size, but not nearly in the same proportionas those which were the subject of Dr. Oudot's experiment. Thethermometer on this day gave 29°. 5 F. And 59° F. As the temperatures. 

It may be remembered that I found one very beautiful column, far higherthan any of those mentioned by Dr. Oudot, and higher than those which M. Billerez saw, formed upon the trunk and branches of a fir-tree. I havenow no doubt that the peculiar shape of another--the largest of thethree columns which were in the cave at the time of my visit--is due tothe fact of its being a collection of several smaller columns, whichhave in course of time flowed into one as they increased separately inbulk, and that its height has been augmented by a device similar to thatadopted by Dr. Oudot. The two magnificent capitals which this columnpossessed, as well as the numerous smaller capitals which sprang fromits sides, will thus be completely accounted for. 

One more account may be mentioned, before I proceed to the theory whichhas found most favour in Switzerland of late years. M. Cadet publishedsome _Conjectures_ on the formation of the ice in this cavern, in the_Annales de Chimie, _ Nivôse, an XI. [188] He saw the cave in the end ofSeptember 1791, and found very little ice--not a third of what there hadbeen a month before, according to the account of his guide. The_limonadier_ of a public garden in Besançon informed him that the peopleof that town resorted to the glacière for ice when the supplies of theartificial ice-houses failed, and that they chose a hot day for thispurpose, because on such days there was more ice in the cave. Ten_chars_ would have been sufficient to remove all the ice M. Cadet found, and the air inside the cave seemed to be not colder than the externalair; but, nevertheless, M. Cadet believed the old story of the greaterabundance of ice in summer than in winter, and he attempted to accountfor the phenomenon. 

The ground above and near the cave is covered with beech and chestnuttrees, and thus is protected from the rays of the sun. The leaves ofthese trees give forth abundant moisture, which has been pumped upfrom their roots; and as this moisture passes from the liquid to thegaseous state, it absorbs a large quantity of caloric. Thus, throughout the summer, the atmosphere is incessantly refrigerated bythe evaporation produced by the trees round the cave; whereas inwinter no such process goes on, and the cave assumes a moderatetemperature, such as is usually found in ordinary caves. Unfortunatelyfor M. Cadet's theory, the facts are not in accordance with hisimaginary data, nor yet with his conclusions. He adds, on theauthority of one of his friends, that the intendant of the province, M. De Vanolles, wishing to preserve a larger amount of ice in thecave, built up the entrance with a wall 20 feet high, in which a smalldoor was made, and the keys were left in the hands of the authoritiesof the neighbouring village, with orders that no ice should beremoved. The effect of this was, that the ice diminished considerably, and they were obliged to pull down the wall again. M. Cadet saw theremains of the wall, and the story was confirmed by the Brothers ofGrâce-Dieu. It would be very interesting to know at what season thiswall was built, and when it was pulled down. If my ideas on thesubject of ice-caves are correct, it would be absolutely fatal to shutout the heavy cold air of winter from the grotto. 

In 1822, M. A. Pictet, of Geneva, took up the question of naturalglacières, and read a paper before the Helvetic Society of NaturalSciences, [189] describing his visits to the caves of the Brezon and theValley of Reposoir. In order to explain the phenomena presented by thosecaves, M. Pictet adopted De Saussure's theory of the principle of_caves-froides_, rendering it somewhat more precise, and extending itto meet the case of ice-caves. It is well known that, in many parts ofthe world, cold currents are found to blow from the interstices ofrocks; and these are utilised by neighbouring proprietors, who buildsheds over the fissures, and so secure a cool place for keeping meat, &c. Examples of such currents are met with near Rome (in the _MonteTestaceo_), at Lugano, Lucerne (the caves of Hergiswyl), and in variousother districts. It is found that the hotter the day, the stronger isthe current of cold air; in winter the direction of the current ischanged, and it blows into the rock instead of out from it. [190] DeSaussure's theory, as developed by M. Pictet, was no doubt satisfactory, so far as it was used to account for the phenomenon of 'cold-caves, ' butit seems to be insufficient as an explanation of the existence of largemasses of subterranean ice; of which, by the way, De Saussure must havebeen entirely ignorant, for he makes no allusion to such ice, and thetemperatures of the coldest of his caves were considerably above thefreezing point. 

Pictet represents the case of a cave with cold currents of air to bemuch the same as that of a mine with a vertical shaft, ending in ahorizontal gallery of which one extremity is in communication with theopen air, at a point much lower, of course, than the upper extremity ofthe shaft. The cave corresponds to the horizontal gallery, and thevarious fissures in the rock take the place of the vertical shaft, andcommunicate freely with the external air. In summer, the columns of aircontained in these fissures assume nearly the temperature of the rock inwhich they rest, that is to say, the mean temperature of the district, and therefore they are heavier than the corresponding external columnsof air which terminate at the mouth of the cave; for the atmosphere insummer is very much above the mean temperature of the soil, or of theinterior of the earth at moderate depths. The consequence is, that theheavy cool air descends from the fissures, and streams out into thecave, appearing as a cold current; and the hotter the day is--that is, the lighter the columns of external air--the more violent will be thedisturbance of equilibrium, and therefore the more palpable the coldcurrent. Naturally, in this last case, the air which enters by the upperorifices of the fissures is more heated, to begin with, than on coolerdays; but external heat so very slightly affects the deeper parts of thefissures, that the columns of air thus introduced are speedily impressedwith the mean temperature of the district. In winter, the externalcolumns of air are as much heavier than the columns in the fissures asthey are lighter in summer; and so cold currents of air blow from thecave into the fissures, though such currents are not of course colderthan the external air. Thus the mean temperature of the cave is muchlower than that of the rock in which it occurs; for the temperature ofthe currents varies from the mean temperature of the rock to the wintertemperature of the external atmosphere. 

The descending columns of warmer air, in summer, must to some extentraise the temperature of the fissures above that which they wouldotherwise possess, that is, above the mean temperature of the place; butthat may be considered to be counteracted by the corresponding loweringof the temperature of the fissures by the introduction of cold air fromthe cave in winter. By a similar reasoning, it will be seen that forsome time after the spring change of direction in the currents takesplace, the temperature of the cave will be less than would have beenexpected from a calculation founded on the true mean temperature of therock through which the fissures pass. This, together with the fact ofthe porous nature of the rock in which most of the curious caves in theworld occur, which allows a considerable amount of moisture to collecton all surfaces, and thereby induces a depression of temperature byevaporation, may be held to explain the presence of a greater amount ofcold than might otherwise have been fairly reckoned upon in ice-caves. 

The idea of cold produced by evaporation Pictet took up warmly, believing that when promoted by rapid currents of air it would produceice in the summer months; and he thus explained what he understood to bethe phenomena of glacières. But it will have been seen, from the accountof the caves I have visited, that the glacières are more or less in astate of thaw in the summer; and M. Thury's observations in the winterprove conclusively that they are then in a state of utter frost, so thatthe old belief with respect to the season at which the ice is formed maybe supposed to have been exploded. The facts recorded by Mr. Scrope[191]would appear to depend upon the peculiar nature of rocks of volcanicformation; and I am inclined to think there is very little in commonbetween such instances as he mentions and the large caves filled withice which are to be found in the primary or secondary limestone. 

One of De Saussure's experiments, in the course of his investigation ofthe phenomena and causes of cold currents in caves, is worth recalling. He passed a current of air through a glass tube an inch in diameter, filled with moistened stones, and by that means succeeded in reducingthe temperature of the current from 18° C. To 15° C. ; and when therefrigerated current was directed against a wet-bulb thermometer, itfell to 14° C. , thus showing a loss of 7°·2 F. Of heat. No one can seemuch of limestone caverns without discovering that the surfaces overwhich any currents there may be are constrained to pass, present anabundance of moisture to refrigerate the currents; and it is notunreasonable to suppose that the large number of evaporating surfaces, which currents passing through heaps of débris--such as the basalticstones described on page 261--come in contact with, are the main causeof the specially low temperature observed under such circumstances. 

Pictet's theory, however, did not convince all those into whose handshis paper fell, and M. J. Deluc wrote against it in the _Annales deChimie et de Physique_ of the same year, 1822. [192] Deluc had not seenany glacière, but he was enabled to decide against the cold-currenttheory by a perusal of Pictet's own details, and of one of the accountsof the cave near Besançon. He objected, that in many cases the ice isfound to melt in summer, instead of forming then; and also, that in theGlacière of S. Georges, which Pictet had described, there was no currentwhatever. Further, in all the cases of cold currents investigated ormentioned by De Saussure, the presence of summer ice was never evenhinted at, and the lowest temperatures observed by him were considerablyabove the freezing point. I may add, from my own experience, that on theonly occasions on which I found a decided current in a glacière--viz. , in the Glacière of Monthézy, and that of Chappet-sur-Villaz, --there wasmarked thaw in connection with the current. In the latter case, thechannel from which the current came was filled with water; and in theformer, water stood on the surface of the ice. 

The view which Deluc adopted was one which I have myself independentlyformed; and he would probably have written with more force if he hadbeen acquainted with various small details relating to the position andsurroundings of many of the caves. The heavy cold air of winter sinksdown into the glacières, and the lighter warm air of summer cannot onordinary principles of gravitation dislodge it, so that heat is veryslowly spread in the caves; and even when some amount of heat does reachthe ice, the latter melts but slowly, for ice absorbs 60° C. Of heat inmelting; and thus, when ice is once formed, it becomes a materialguarantee for the permanence of cold in the cave. 

For this explanation to hold good, it is necessary that the level atwhich the ice is found should be below the level of the entrance to thecave; otherwise the mere weight of the cold air would cause it to leaveits prison as soon as the spring warmth arrived. In every single casethat has come under my observation, this condition has been emphaticallyfulfilled. It is necessary, also, that the cave should be protected fromdirect radiation, as the gravitation of cold air has nothing to do withresistance to that powerful means of introducing heat. This condition, also, is fulfilled by nature in all the glacières I have visited, excepting that of S. Georges; and there art has replaced the protectionformerly afforded by the thick trees which grew over the hole ofentrance. The effect of the second hole in the roof of this glacière isto destroy all the ice which is within range of the sun. A third andvery necessary condition is, that the wind should not be allowed accessto the cave; for if it were, it would infallibly bring in heated air, inspite of the specific weight of the cold air stored within. It will beunderstood from my descriptions of such glacières as that of the GrandAnu, of Monthézy, and the Lower Glacière of the Pré de S. Livres, howcompletely sheltered from all winds the entrances to those caves are. There can be no doubt, too, that the large surfaces which are availablefor evaporation have much to do with maintaining a somewhat lowertemperature than the mean temperature of the place where the caveoccurs. This had been noticed so long ago as Kircher's time; for amongthe answers which his questions received from the miners of Herrengrund, we find it stated that, so long as mines are dry, the deeper they arethe hotter; but if they have water, they are less warm, however deep. From the mines of Schemnitz he was informed that, so long as the freepassage of air was not hindered, the mines remained temperate; in othercases they were very warm. Another great advantage which some glacièrespossess must be borne in mind, namely, the collection of snow at thebottom of the pit in which the entrance lies. This snow absorbs, in thecourse of melting, all heat which strikes down by radiation or is drivendown by accidental turns of the wind; and the snow-water thus forcedinto the cave will, at any rate, not seriously injure the ice. It isworthy of notice that the two caves which possess the greatest depth ofice, so far as I have been able to fathom it, are precisely those whichhave the greatest deposit of snow; and the ice in a third cave, that ofMonthézy, which has likewise a large amount of snow in the entrance-pit, presents the appearance of very considerable depth. The Schafloch, it istrue, which contains an immense bulk of ice, has no snow; but itselevation is great, as compared with that of some of the caves, andtherefore the mean temperature of the rock in which it occurs is lessunfavourable to the existence of ice. 

I believe that the true explanation of the curious phenomena presentedby these caves in general, is to be found in Deluc's theory, fortifiedby such facts as those which I have now stated. The mean temperature ofthe rock at Besançon, where the elevation above the sea iscomparatively so small, renders the temptation to suggest some chemicalcause very strong. 

The question of ice in summer where thaw prevails in winter, may fairlybe considered to have been eliminated from the discussion of such cavesas I have seen, in spite of the persistent assertions of some of thepeasantry. The observations, however, in caverns in volcanic formations, and in basaltic débris, are so circumstantial that it is impossible toreject them; and in such cases a theory similar to that enunciated byMr. Scrope[193] seems to be the only one in any way satisfactory, thoughI have not heard of such marvellous results being produced elsewhere byevaporation. One observer, for instance, of the cavern near the villageof Both, in the Eiffel, found a thickness of 3 feet of ice; and in thatcase it was melting in summer, instead of forming. In some cases it hasbeen suggested that the length of time required for external heat orcold to penetrate through the earth and rock which lie above the cavesis sufficient to account for the phenomenon of summer frost and winterthaw. Thus, it is said, the thickness of the superincumbent bed may besuch that the heat of summer only gets through to the cave at Christmas, and then produces thaw, while in like manner the greatest cold willreach the cave in mid-summer. But there is a fatal objection to thisidea in the fact that the invariable stratum--i. E. , the stratum beyondwhich the annual changes of external temperature are not felt--isreached about 60 feet below the surface in temperate latitudes, [194]while at the tropics such changes are not felt more than a foot belowthe surface. Humboldt calculated that in the latitude of central Francethe whole annual variation in temperature at a depth of 30 feet wouldnot amount to more than one degree. [195]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 174: As Gollut's phraseology is peculiar, it may be as wellto reproduce his account of the cave:--'Je ne veux pas omettretoutefois (puisque je suis en ces eaux) de mettre en memoire lacommodité que nature hat doné à quelques delicats, puis qu'au fondd'un mõntagne de Leugné, la glace (_glasse_ in the index), se treuveen esté, pour le plaisir de ceux qui aim[~e]t a boire frais. Néanmoinsdans ce t[~e]ps cela se perd, nõ pour autre raison (ainsi que íepense) que pour ce que lon hat dépouillé le dessus de la mõtagne d'uneépoisse et aulte fustaie de bois, qui ne permettoit pas que les raionsdu soleil vinsent échauffer la terre et déseicher les distillations, que se couloi[~e]t iusques au plus bas et plus froid de la montagne:ou (par l'antipéristase) le froid s'epoississoit, et se reserroit, contre les chaleurs, entornantes et environnantes le long de l'esté, toute la circonference extérieure du mont. '--_Histoire_, &c. , p. 87. ]

[Footnote 175: _Hist. De l'Acad. _, t. Ii. , p. 2. ]

[Footnote 176: _Hist. De l'Acad. _, an 1712, p. 20. ]

[Footnote 177: _C'est à dire_--M. Billerez explains--_à 10 degrésau-dessous du très-grand froid. _ What the 60° may be worth, I cannotsay. ]

[Footnote 178: Tournefort (_Voyage du Levant_, iii. 17) believed thatthe ammoniac salt, of which the earth was full in some districts nearErzeroum, had something to do with the persistence of snow on the groundthere. ]

[Footnote 179: _Hist, de l'Acad. , _ an 1726, p. 16. ]

[Footnote 180: But see on this point the experience of M. Thury, in theGlacière of S. Georges (Appendix). ]

[Footnote 181: Sir Roderick Murchison's suggestion of the possibleinfluence of salt in producing the phenomena of his ice-cave in Russia, did not, of course, proceed upon the supposition of salt actuallymingling with water, but only of its increasing the evaporation of theair which came in contact with it. ]

[Footnote 182: _Mém. Présentés à l'Académie par divers Sçavans_, i, 195. ]

[Footnote 183: A long account was published in a history of Burgundy, printed at Dijon, in quarto, in 1737, which I have not been able tofind. It was from the same source as the account in the Hist. Of theAcademy, in 1726. ]

[Footnote 184: I took this earth to be a collection of the particlescarried down the slope of ice by the heavy rains of the month precedingmy visit. M. De Cossigny speaks of the abundant rains of July, his visitbeing in August. ]

[Footnote 185: _Recherches sur la Chaleur_; Geneva and Paris, 1792. ]

[Footnote 186: P. 65. Now called _Annales des Mines_. ]

[Footnote 187: T. Xlv. P. 160. ]

[Footnote 188: _Bibliothèque Universelle de Genève_, Première Série, t. Xx. ]

[Footnote 189: See De Saussure's account of his numerous observations ofsuch caves in the _Voyage dans les Alpes_, sections 1404-1415. ]

[Footnote 190: P. 271. ]

[Footnote 191: P. 271. ]

[Footnote 192: xxi. 113. ]

[Footnote 193: P. 271. ]

[Footnote 194: Daubuisson estimated the depth in question at from 46 to61 feet, while Kupffer put it at 77 feet. ]

[Footnote 195: De Saussure found a variation of 2°·25 F. At a depth of29·5 feet; but this was in a well, where the influence of the atmospherewas allowed to have effect. Naturally, the fissures which there may bein the rock surrounding a cave will increase the annual variation oftemperature, by affording means of easier penetration to the heat andcold. 

Sir K. Murchison's cavern in Russia would seem to be entirely _suigeneris_. ]

 * * * * *

CHAPTER XVIII. 

ON THE PRISMATIC STRUCTURE OF THE ICE IN GLACIÈRES. 

It was natural to suppose that the prismatic structure which I found sovery general in the glacières was the result of some cause or causescoming into operation after the first formation of the ice. On thispoint M. Thury's visit to the Glacière of S. Georges in the spring of1852 affords valuable information, for at that time the coating of iceon the wall, evidently newly formed, did not present the _structurearéolaire_ which he had observed in his summer visit to the cave. Hesuggests that, since ice is less coherent at a temperature of 32°F. --which is approximately the temperature of the ice-caves duringseveral months of the year--than when exposed to a greater degree ofcold, its molecules will then become free to assume a fresh system ofarrangement. [196] On the other hand, Professor Faraday has found thatice formed under a temperature some degrees below the ordinary freezingpoint has a well-marked crystalline structure. [197] M. Thury suggestsalso, as a possibility, what I have found to be the case, by frequentobservations, that the prismatic ice has greater power of resisting heatthan ordinary ice; and on this supposition he accounts for the fact ofhollow stalactites being found in the Cavern of S. Georges. [198] At thecommencement of the hot season, the atmospheric temperature of theglacières rises gradually; and when it has almost reached 32° F. , theprismatic change takes place in the ice, extending to a limited depthbelow the surface. The central parts of the stalactites retain theirordinary structure, and are after a time exposed to a generaltemperature rather above than below the freezing point; and thus theycome to melt, the water escaping either by accidental fissures betweensome of the prisms, or by the extremity of the stalactite, or by somepart of the surface which has chanced to escape the prismaticarrangement, and has itself melted under increased temperature. [199]

M. Héricart de Thury describes the peculiar structure of the ice whichhe found in the Glacière of the Foire de Fondeurle. [200] He found thatthe crystallised portions were very distinctly marked, displaying forthe most part a six-sided arrangement; and in the interior of a hollowstalactite he found numerous needles of ice perfectly crystallised, thecrystals being some triangular and some six-sided. He was unable todetect any perfect pyramid. [201] I have already quoted Olafsen'sobservations on the polygonal lining which he saw on the surface of theice in the Surtshellir. The French Encyclopædia [202] relates that M. Hassenfratz saw ice served up at table at Chambéry which broke intohexagonal prisms; and when he was shown the ice-houses where it wasstored, he found considerable blocks of ice containing hexahedral prismsterminated by corresponding pyramids. 

In vol. Xv. (New Series) of the American Journal of Science, [203] anextract is given from a letter describing the 'Ice Spring' in the RockyMountains, which the mountaineers consider to be one of the curiositiesof the great trail from the States to Oregon and California. It issituated in a low marshy 'swale' to the right of the Sweetwater river, and about forty miles from the South Pass. The ground is filled withsprings; and about 18 inches below the turf lies a smooth and horizontalsheet of ice, which remains the year round, protected by the soil andgrass above it. On July 12th, 1849, it was from 2 to 4 inches thick; butone of the guides stated that he had seen it a foot deep. It wasperfectly clear, and disposed in hexagonal prisms, separating readily atthe natural joints. The ice had a slightly saline taste, [204] the groundabove it being impregnated with salt, and the water near tasting ofsulphur. The upper surface of the stratum of ice was perfectly smooth. 

In Poggendorff's _Annalen_ (1841, Erganzsband, 517-19, --Boué, an oldoffender in that way, says 1842) there is an account of ice beingfound in the Westerwald, near the village of Frickhofen at the foot ofthe _Dornburg_, among basaltic débris about 500 feet above thesea. [205] Commencing at a depth of 2 feet below the surface, the icereaches from 20 to 22 feet farther down, where the loose stones giveplace to dry sand. The ice is in thin layers on the stones, and isdeposited in the form of clear and regular hexagonal crystals. Thelateral extent through which this phenomenon obtains is from 40 to 50feet each way, and is greater in winter than in summer. As in othercases that have been noticed in basaltic débris, the snow which fallsupon the surface here is speedily melted. The _Allgemeine Zeitung_(1840, No. 309), from which the account in Poggendorff is taken, suggested that the melted snow-water which would thus run down amongthe interstices would readily freeze below the surface, while theheavy cold air of winter would be stored up at the lower levels, andthe poor conducting powers of basaltic rock[206] would favour itspermanence through the summer. The temperature of the cold currentwhich was perceptible in the parts of the mass of débris where the iceexisted was 1° R. (34°·25 F. ). Nothing but a few lichens grow on thesurface of the débris. 

These are, I think, all the references I have met with to the prismaticstructure of subterranean ice. But there is an interesting account inPoggendorff 's _Annalen_, [207] by a private teacher in Jena, of thecrystalline appearance of ice under slow thaw near that town. In thewinter of 1840, the Saale was frozen, and the ice remained unbroken tillthe middle of January, when the thermometer rose suddenly, and theriver in consequence overflowed the lower grounds, and carried largemasses of ice on to the fields, where it was left when the watersubsided. On the 20th of January the thermometer fell again, andremained below the freezing point till the 12th of February: some of theice did not disappear till the following month. 

When the ice had lain a short time, cracks appeared on the surfaceexposed to the sun, and spread like a network from the edges towards thecentre of the surface. At first there was no regularity in theconnection of these lines, and the several meshes were of very differentsizes. After a time, the larger meshes split up into smaller, and thesystem of network was found to penetrate below the surface, the cracksdeepening into furrows, which descended perpendicularly from thesurface, and divided the ice into long thin rhomboidal pillars. Thesurface-end of some of these pillars was strongly marked with rightlines parallel to one of the sides of the mesh, and it was found thatthere was a tendency in the ice to split down planes through these linesand parallel to the corresponding side-plane. Parallel to the originalsurface of the mass of ice, the pillars broke off evenly. Theside-planes had a rounded, wrinkled appearance; and their mutualinclinations--as far as could be determined--were from 105° to 115°, andfrom 66° to 75°. When these ice-pillars were examined by means ofpolarised light, they were found to possess a feeble double-refractingpower. 

The writer of the article in Poggendorff suggests a question which hewas not sure how to answer:--Is this appearance in correspondence withthe original formation of the ice, or does it only appear under slowthaw?

It is worthy of remark, that from the 1st to the 11th of February thethermometer was never higher than 22°·8 F. , and during that time fell aslow as 21° below zero, i. E. 43° below the freezing point. 

Professor Tyndall has informed me that in the winters of 1849, 1850, 1851, he found the banks of a river in Germany loaded with massivelayers of drift-ice, in a state of thaw, and was struck by the fact thatevery layer displayed the prismatic structure described above, the axesof the prisms being at right angles to the surfaces of freezing. It maybe, he adds, that this structure is in the first place determined by theact of freezing, but it does not develop itself until the ice thaws. 

M. Hassenfratz observed an appearance in ice on the Danube atVienna[208] corresponding to that described at Jena. He gives noinformation as to the state of the weather or the temperature at thetime, nor any of the circumstances under which the ice came under hisnotice. One of the masses of ice which he describes was crystallised inprisms of various numbers of sides: of these prisms the greater partwere hexahedral and irregular. Another mass was composed of prisms inthe form of truncated pyramids; and in another he found quadrilateraland octahedral prisms, the former splitting parallel to the faces, andalso truncated pyramids with five and six sides. He adds, that he hadfrequently seen in the upper valleys tufts of ice growing, as it were, out of the ground, and striated externally, but had never succeeded indiscovering any internal organisation, until one evening in a time ofthaw, when he found by means of a microscope that the striated tufts ofice had assumed the same structure on a small scale as that which he hadobserved on the Danube. 

A Frenchman who was present in the room in which the Chemical Section ofthe British Association met at Bath, and heard a paper which I readthere on this prismatic structure, suggested that it was probablysomething akin to the rhomboidal form assumed by dried mud; and I havesince been struck by the great resemblance to it, as far as the surfacegoes, which the pits of mud left by the coprolite-workers near Cambridgeoffer, of course on a very large scale. This led me to suppose that theintense dryness which would naturally be the result of the action ofsome weeks or months of great cold upon subterranean ice might be one ofthe causes of its assuming this form, and the observations at Jena wouldrather confirm than contradict this view: competent authorities, however, seem inclined to believe that warmth, and not cold, is theproducing cause. [209]

Professor Tyndall found, in the course of his experiments on the discsand flowers produced in the interior of a mass of ice by sending a warmray through the mass, that the pieces of ice were in some casestraversed by hazy surfaces of discontinuity, which divided theapparently continuous mass into irregular prismatic segments. Theintersections of the bounding surfaces of these segments with thesurface of the slab of ice formed a very irregular network oflines. [210] I am inclined, however, to think that the irregularity inthese cases proved to be so much greater than that observed in theglacières, that this interior prismatic subdivision must be referred tosome different cause. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 196: The continued extrication of latent heat by ice, as it iscooled a few degrees below 32° F. , appears to indicate a molecularchange subsequent to the first freezing. --_Phil. Trans. _, as quoted inthe next note. ]

[Footnote 197: See the paper 'On Liquid Diffusion as applied toAnalysis, ' by the Master of the Mint (_Phil. Trans. _ 1861, p. 222). ]

[Footnote 198: Compare the description of one of the hollow stalagmites Iexplored in the Schafloch, p. 145. ]

[Footnote 199: Professor Tyndall has pointed out that, owing to the wantof perfect homogeneity, some parts of a block of ice exposed to atemperature of 32° F. Will melt, while others remain solid _(Phil. Trans_. 1858, p. 214). He also arrived at the conclusion (p. 219) thatheat could be conducted through the substance of a mass, and meltportions of the interior, without visible prejudice to the solidity ofthe other parts of the mass. ]

[Footnote 200: _Journal des Mines_, xxxiii. 157. See also an Englishtranslation of his account in the second volume of the _EdinburghJournal of Science_. ]

[Footnote 201: It is to be hoped that the accuracy of his scientificdescriptions exceeds that of his topographical information; for hestates that the glacière is two leagues from Valence, whereas it cost mesix hours' drive on a level road, and five and a half hours' walking andclimbing, to reach it from that town. ]

[Footnote 202: Branch _Physique_, article _Glace_]

[Footnote 203: P. 146 (an. 1853). ]

[Footnote 204: Dr. Lister experimented on sea-water in December 1684(_Ph. Trans_, xiv. 836), and found that though it took two nights tofreeze, it was much harder when once frozen than common ice, lasting forthree-quarters of an hour under a heat which melted 100 times its bulkof common ice at once. It was marked with oblong squares, and had a salttaste. Ice formed from water with an admixture of sulphuric acid is saidto assume a crystalline appearance. ]

[Footnote 205: See also a pamphlet entitled _Das unterirdische Eisfeldbei der Dornburg am Südlichen Fusse des Westerwaldes_, by Thomä ofWiesbaden (32 pages, with a map of the district), published in 1841. ]

[Footnote 206: But see page 262. ]

[Footnote 207: lv. (an 1842), 472. ]

[Footnote 208: _Journal de Physique_, xxvi. (an 1785), 34. ]

[Footnote 209: In looking through some early volumes of the_Philosophical Transactions_, I found an 'Extract of a letter written byMr. Muraltus of Zurich (September 1668), concerning the Icy andChrystallin Mountains of Helvetia, called the Gletscher, English'd outof Latin' (_Phil. Trans. _ iv. 982), which at first looked something likean assertion of the prismatic structure of ice on a large scale. TheEnglish version is as follows:--'The snow melted by the heat of thesummer, other snow being faln within a little while after, and hardenedinto ice, which by little and little in a long tract of time depuratingitself turns into a stone, not yielding in hardness and clearness tochrystall. Such stones closely joyned and compacted together compose awhole mountain, and that a very firm one; though in summer-time thecountry-people have observed it to burst asunder with great cracking, thunder-like. ']

[Footnote 210: See the woodcut illustrating Professor Tyndall's remarksin the 148th volume of the _Philosophical Transactions_ (1858, p. 214). ]

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CHAPTER XIX. 

ON THE MEAN TEMPERATURE OF THE REGIONS IN WHICH THE GLACIÈRES OCCUR. 

Many interesting experiments have for long been carried on with a viewto determine the mean temperature at various depths below the surface ofthe earth. The construction of Artesian wells has afforded usefulopportunities for increasing the amount of our knowledge on thissubject; and the well at Pregny, near Geneva, [211] and the Monk Wearmouthcoal-mines, as observed by Professor Phillips while a fresh shaft wasbeing sunk, [212] have supplied most valuable facts. Without enteringinto any detail, which would be an unnecessary trouble, it may be statedgenerally, that, under ordinary circumstances, 1° F. Of temperature isgained for every 50 or 60 feet of vertical descent into the interior ofthe earth. I have only met with one account of an experiment made in ahorizontal direction, and it is curious that the law of the increase oftemperature then observed seemed to be very much the same as thatdetermined by the mean of the vertical observations. Boussingault[213]found several horizontal adits in a precipitous face of porphyriticsyenite among the mountains of Marmato. In one of these adits--a gallerycalled Cruzada, at an elevation of 1, 460 mètres--he found an increaseof 1° C. Of mean temperature for every 33 mètres of horizontalpenetration, or, approximately, 1° F. For 60 feet. [214]

Again, observations have been made, in various latitudes, of thedecrease of temperature consequent upon gradual rising from the generalsurface of the earth; as, for instance, in the ascent of mountains. Speaking without any very great precision, but with sufficient accuracyfor ordinary purposes, 1° F. Is lost with every 300 feet of ascent. [215]It is evident that this decrease will be less rapid where the slope ofascent is gradual, from such considerations as the angle at which thesun's rays strike the slope, and the larger amount of surface which isin contact with a stratum of atmosphere of any given thickness. 

With these data, it is easy to arrive at some idea of the probable meantemperature of the rock containing several of the glacières I havedescribed. The elevation of some of them has not been determined withsufficient accuracy to make the results of any calculation trustworthy;but four cases may be taken where the elevation is known--namely, theGlacières of S. Georges, S. Livres, Monthézy, and the Schafloch. If wetake as a starting point the mean temperature of the town of Geneva, which has been determined at 49°·55 F. , the elevation of that town beingnearly 1, 200 feet, we obtain the following approximate results for themean temperature of the surface at the points in question:--

 S. Georges .... 40°·22 Fahr. S. Livres (Lower) .... 38°·55" Schafloch .... 33°·88" Monthézy .... 41°·55"

The law of decrease of temperature enunciated by M. Thury gives a highermean temperature for the surface of the earth in these places, as in thefollowing table:--

 S. Georges .... 41°·8 Fahr. S. Livres .... 40°·1" Schafloch .... 35°·6" Monthézy .... 42°·5"

If any certain information could be obtained of the elevation of theAbbey of Grâce-Dieu, I am sure that a result more surprising than thatin the case of the Glacière of Monthézy would appear. The elevation ofthe floor of the church in the citadel of Besançon is 367·7 mètres, andthe plateau on the north side of the town of Baume-les-Dames is 531·9mètres. I am inclined to think, from the look of the country, that thelatter possesses much the same elevation as the valley in which theAbbey lies; and in that case we should have comparatively a very highmean temperature for the surface in the neighbourhood where the glacièreoccurs. 

But if these are the mean temperatures of the surface, the naturaltemperatures of the caves themselves should be still higher, on accountof the allowance to be made for increase of temperature with descentinto the interior of the earth. This element will very materially affectour calculations in such a case as the lower part of the ice in theGlacière of the Pré de S. Livres, and the strange suggestive beginningof a new ice-cave 190 feet below the surface, on the Montagne de l'Eau, near Annecy. In any open pit or cave, the ordinary atmosphericinfluences find such easy access, that the temperature cannot beexpected to follow the law observed when perforations of small bore aremade in the earth, as in the case of the preliminary boring beforecommencing to dig a well;[216] but the two glacières mentioned above areso completely protected in their lowest parts, that they may be treatedas if they were isolated from external influence of all ordinary kinds;and it may fairly be said that the mean temperature there ought to beconsiderably higher than at the surface. 

It is not very likely that the results of the above calculations arestrictly in accordance with what a careful series of observations on thespot might show. The distance between Geneva and the Glacières of S. Georges and S. Livres is sufficiently small to make it probable that thereality is not very far different from the calculated temperature; butthe other two caves are comparatively so far off, that the temperatureand elevation of Geneva are not very safe data to build upon. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 211: Bischof, _Physical Researches_, 189. ]

[Footnote 212: _Philosophical Magazine_, v. 446 (1834). ]

[Footnote 213: _Annules de Chimie et de Physique_, liii. 2-10. See alsoBischof, 136. ]

[Footnote 214: The English edition of Bischof affords here a proof ofthe danger of frequent changes from one scale to another. Bischof in thefirst instance rendered Boussingault into degrees Réaumur, and this wasin turn reduced to degrees Fahrenheit; the result being that theauthorised English edition of his book gives 2°·25 F. For 127·5 feet, which does not come within 10 feet of Boussingault's statement. ]

[Footnote 215: M. Thury calculates a decrease of 1° C. For every 174mètres between Geneva and S. Bernard, which is less than the decreasegiven in the text. He arrives at this conclusion by correcting the meantemperature of Geneva from 8°·9 C. , the observed mean of eighteen years, to 9°·9 C. , in consequence of supposed local causes, which undulydepress the temperature of Geneva. With the mean 8°·9 C. A result nearlyin accordance with that of the text is obtained. ]

[Footnote 216: Professor Phillips found, in the course of hisinvestigations in the Monk Wearmouth mines, some hundreds of yards belowthe sea, that when a new face of rock was exposed, its temperature wasconsiderably higher than that of the gallery or shaft in which it lay. In some cases the difference amounted to 9 and 10 degrees. The rock sooncooled down to an agreement with the surrounding temperature. ]

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APPENDIX. 

M. Thury's observations during his winter visit to the Glacière of S. Georges are so curious and valuable, that I give the principal resultsof them here. 

It will be remembered that this glacière consists of a roomy cave, 110feet long and 60 feet high, with two orifices in the higher part of theroof, one of which is kept covered with the trunks of trees to shut outthe direct radiation of the sun. A little thought suggested to M. Thurythat the cold in the cave in mid-winter would most probably be greaterthan the external cold of the day, and less than that of the night; sothat there should be a time in the later evening when a column of colderand heavier air would begin, to descend through the hole in the roof. Totest the correctness of this supposition, he took up his abode in thecavern for the evening of the 10th January, 1858, with a lighted candle. The flame burned steadily for some time; but at 7. 16 P. M. It began toflicker, and soon inclined downwards through an angle of about 45°; andwhen M. Thury placed himself under the principal opening, the flame wasforced into an almost horizontal position. At 8 P. M. The current of airhad all but disappeared. This violent and temporary disturbance ofequilibrium was a matter of much surprise to M. Thury; for he hadnaturally expected a quiet current downwards, continuing through thegreater part of the night. 

At 7. 16 P. M. The external temperature was 23·9° F. , and the temperatureof the atmosphere in the cave at the same time was 30°·88 F. ;[217] sothat there is no wonder the current of air should be strong. It is verydifficult to say, however, why it did not commence much earlier, considering that the external air must have been heavier than that inthe cave long before 7 o'clock. M. Thury refers to the mirage as asomewhat similar instance, that phenomenon being explained by thesupposition that atmospheric layers of different temperatures lie oneabove another in clearly-defined strata. He suggests, also, that as theheavier air tends to pass down into the cave, the less cold air alreadyin the cave tends to pass out; and the narrow entrance confining thestruggle between the opposing tendencies to a very small area, theweaker initial current is able for a time to hold its own against theintruder. On this supposition, it is easy to see that when the rupturedoes occur it will be violent. 

The next day, M. Thury arrived at the glacière at 9. 50 A. M. He haddetermined, in the summer, that the temperature of the cave wasinvariable, at any rate through the 3-1/2 hours of his visit (from 7. 30to 11 A. M. ); but his winter experience was very different. The followingare the results of his observations. 

In the cave:--

January 9, at 7. 16 P. M. [218]... 30°·884 Fahr. " " 7. 20 " ... 29°·75 " " " 7. 27 " ... 27°·5 " " " 7. 50 " ... 26°·834 "

January 10, at 10. 12 A. M. ... 23°·684 " " " 10. 0 " ... 23°·9 " " " 11. 20 " ... 24°·022 " " " 12. 14 P. M. ... 24°·134 " " " 1. 30 " ... 24°·35 " " " 2. 30 " ... 24°·584 " " " 3. 14 " ... 24°·8 " " " 4. 0 " ... 25°·142 "

Supposing the weather to have been much the same on the 9th and 10th ofJanuary, as M. Thury's account seems to say, there is something verystrange in the great difference between the temperatures registered at 4P. M. On the one day, and at 7. 16 P. M. On the other. 

The external temperatures at the mouth of the cave were as follows:--

January 10, at 10. 53 A. M. 25°·934 Fahr. " " 11. 14 " 26°·384 " " " 11. 45 " 28°·04 " " " 12. 32 P. M. 27°·944 " " " 1. 12 " 30°·644 " " " 3. 3 " 26°·834 " " " 3. 56 " 25°·7 " " " 4. 26 " 25°·25 "

The minimum temperature of the external air during the night of January10-11 was 18°·392 F. , and that of the glacière 19°·76 F. [219] During thepreceding night, the minimum in the cave was 22°·442 F. , which may throwsome light upon the difference between the temperatures at 7. 16 P. M. Onthe 9th, and at 4 P. M. On the 10th. 

M. Thury bored a hole, of about 10 inches in depth, in the flooring ofice, and placed a thermometer in it, at 12. 25 P. M. , closing it up withcotton. At 2. 55 P. M. , and at 4. 7. P. M. , the thermometer marked the sametemperature, namely, 26°·24 F. 

M. Thury's views on glacières in general, based upon the details of thethree which he has visited, are much the same as those which I haveexpressed. He has, however, more belief than I in 'cold currents. '

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 217: This was given by a thermometer only placed in the caveat 7 P. M. , and by construction not very sensible. ]

[Footnote 218: The moment when the disturbance of the atmospherecommenced. ]

[Footnote 219: M. Thury gives--4°·62 C. As the minimum in the glacièreduring the night in question; but on the next page he gives--6°·8 C. (=19°·76 F. ). It is evident, from a comparison with other details of hisobservations, that the latter is the correct account. ]

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