FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 77: Premiere Serie, t. xx. pp. 261, &c.]

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

[Footnote 79: Bibl. Univ. de Geneve, Premiere Serie, 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 favourably known to Alpine men, sent a brief account of an ice-cave in his neighbourhood to the Bibliotheque Universelle of Geneva[81] in the year 1841, and, as far as I know, there is no other account of it. My plan had been to pass from Chamouni by the Col du Geant to Courmayeur, and thence to Aosta for a visit to the canon and his glaciere; but, unfortunately, the symptoms which had put an end to the expedition to the Brezon and the Valley of Reposoir came on with renewed vigour, as a consequence of Mont Blanc, and the projected fortnight with Peter Pernn collapsed into a hasty flight to Geneva. It was fortunate that medical assistance was not necessary in Chamouni itself; for one of the members of our large party there was mulcted in the sum of L16, with a hint that something beyond that would be acceptable, for an extremely moderate amount of attendance by the local French doctor.

The glaciere was thus of necessity given up. It is known among the people as La Borna de la Glace, and lies about 5,300 feet above the sea, on the northern slope of the hills which command the hamlet of Chabaudey, commune of La Salle, in the duchy of Aosta, to the north-east of Larsey-de-la, in a place covered with firs and larches, and called Plan-agex. The entrance has an east exposure, and is very small, being a triangle with a base of 2 feet and an altitude of 2-1/2 feet. After descending a yard or two, this becomes larger, and divides into two main branches, with three other fissures penetrating into the heart of the mountain, too narrow to admit of a passage. The roof is very irregular, and the stones on the floor are interspersed with ice, which appears also in the form of icicles upon the walls; and, in the eastern branch of the cave, there is a cylindrical pillar more than 3 feet long, with a diameter of rather more than a foot. The temperature at 4 P.M. on July 15, 1841, was as follows:—The external air, 59 deg.; the cave, at the entrance, 37.2; near the large cylinder, 35 deg..7; and in different parts of the western branch, from 33 deg..6 to 32 deg..9.

M. Carrel was evidently not aware of the existence of similar caves elsewhere. He recommends, in his communication to the Bibliotheque Universelle, that some scientific man should investigate the phenomena, and explain the great cold, and the fact of the formation of ice, which common report ascribed to the time of the Dog-days. He doubts whether rapid evaporation can be the only cause, and suggests that possibly there may be something in the interior of the mountain to account for this departure from the laws generally recognised in geology.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 81: Nouvelle Serie, t. xxxiv. p. 196.]

* * * * *



CHAPTER XIV.

THE GLACIERE OF FONDEURLE, IN DAUPHINE.

There cannot be any better place for recruiting strength than the lovely primitive valley of Les Plans, two hours up the course of the Avencon from hot and dusty Bex. Here I rejoined my sisters, intending to spend a month with them before returning to England; and the neighbouring glaciers afforded good opportunities for quietly investigating the structure of the ice which composes them, with a view to discovering, if possible, some trace of the prismatic formation so universal in the glacieres. On one occasion, after carefully cutting steps and examining the faces of cleavage for an hour and a half, I detected a small patch of ice, under the overhanging rim of a crevasse, marked distinctly with the familiar network of lines on the surface; but I was unable to discover anything betokening a prismatic condition of the interior. This was the only case in which I saw the slightest approach to the phenomena presented in ice-caves.

There remained one glaciere on M. Thury's list, which I had so far not thought of visiting. It was described as lying three leagues to the north of Die in Dauphine, department of the Drome, at an altitude of more than 5,000 feet above the sea. M. Hericart de Thury discovered this cavern in 1805, and published an account of it in the Annales des Mines[82] to which M. Thury's list gave a reference. I have since found that this account has been translated into various scientific periodicals, among others the Philosophical Journal of Edinburgh.[83] It occurred to me that, by leaving Les Plans a few days earlier than I had intended, I could take advantage of the new line connecting Chambery and Grenoble and Valence, and so visit this glaciere without making the journey too long; and accordingly I bade farewell to Madame Cherix's comfortable room, leaving my sisters in their quarters in a neighbouring chalet, and started for Geneva.

The line was advertised to open on the 15th of August; but on the 16th the officials declared that it was not within a month and a half of completion, so that I was compelled to go round by Lyons. I was easily reconciled to this by the opportunity thus afforded of a visit to the ancient city of Vienne, which well repays inspection. Its history is a perfect quarry of renowned names, Roman, Burgundian, and ecclesiastical. Tiberius Gracchus left his mark upon the city, by bridling the Rhone—impatiens pontis—with the earliest bridge in Gaul: and here tradition has it that the great Pompey loved magnificently one of his many loves; while the site of the Praetorium in which Pontius Pilate is said to have given judgment can still be pointed out. The true Mount Pilate lies between Vienne and Lyons, being one of the loftiest northern summits of the Cevennes, on the borders of the Lyonnaise.[84] The Romans recognised the fitness of the neighbourhood of Vienne for the cultivation of the grape, and the first vine in Gaul was planted on the Mont d'Or in the second century of the Christian era. In Burgundian times the city held a very prominent place, and became infamous from the frequent shedding of royal blood; so that early historians describe it as 'tousiours fatale a ceux qui vueillent la corone des Bourgougnons,'[85] and as 'fatale et de malencotre aux tyras et mauvais princes.'[86] Ecclesiastically, its interest dates of course from a very early period, from the times of the martyrs of Gaul and the first Rogations. The Festival of Les Merveilles long commemorated the restoration of the bodily forms of the Lyonnese martyrs, as their scattered dust floated past the home of Blandina and Ponticus; and the dedication of the cathedral to S. Maurice keeps alive the tradition that Paschasius, bishop of Vienne, was warned by an angel to watch on the banks of the Rhone, and so rescued the head and trunk of the soldier-martyr, which had been cast into the river at Agaunum (S. Maurice in Valais), and had floated down—probably on sounder hydrostatical principles than the 'Floating Martyr'—through the Lake of Geneva, and so to Vienne. There are still many very interesting Roman remains in the city, as the Temple of Augusta and Livia, the Arcade of the Forum, and the monument seen from the railway to the south of the town. The temple is being carefully restored, and the large collection of Roman curiosities which it contained is to be removed to the church of S. Peter, now in course of restoration, which will in itself be worth a visit to Vienne when the restoration is completed.[87] All the buildings connected with the Great Council in 1311 have disappeared; and the only relic of the council seems to be the Chalice, or, surmounted by the Sacred Host, argent, in the city arms, in remembrance of the institution of the Fete of the S. Corps. If the Emperor would but have the town and its inhabitants deodorised, few places would be better worth visiting than Vienne.

The poste leaves Valence—the home of the White Hermitage—for Die at 2.30 P.M., and professes to reach its destination in six hours; but sad experience showed that it could be unfaithful to the extent of an hour and a half. So long as the daylight lasted, there was no dearth of objects of interest; but when darkness came on, the monotonous roll of the heavy diligence became aggravating in the extreme. The village of Beaumont, once the residence of an important branch of the great Beaumont family,[88] retains still its square tower and old gateway; and the remains of a chateau 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 Mons Jovis Mariani.[89] The road lies through the bright cool green of wide plantations of the silkworm mulberry,[90] with its trim stem and rounded head; and, in the more open parts of the valley, walnut trees of size and shape fit for an ornamental park in England relieve the monotony. The nearer hills are covered to the top with vines, and the higher and more distant ranges have a naked and thoroughly burned appearance, which suggests the idea of volcanoes to a traveller ignorant of volcanic facts. The villages which lie at the foot of these rocky hills are built of stones taken from the beds of the streams, and are so completely of one colour with the background of rock, that in many instances it is difficult to determine whether a distant mass of grey is a village or not. Ruined castles and towers abound; and these, and still more the walls which surround many of the villages, point unmistakeably to times of great disturbance. The valley of the Drome, up which the road after a time turns, was an important locality in the religious wars; and the town and fort of Crest especially, as its name might suggest, was a famous 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, Lesdiguieres met with a like repulse.[91] The same story of sieges and battles might be told of almost every village and defile of the valley. Thus, Saillans, the third stage, was taken by the Protestant leader Mirabel, and the Catholic Gordes, in 1574, and its fortifications were razed by the Duc de Mayenne in 1581. Pontaix, again, a remarkable place, with a vaulted street and fortified houses overhanging the river, which here fills up the whole valley and leaves room only for the road and the narrow village-town, was the scene of an obstinate and murderous fight between the Marquis de Gordes on one side, and Lesdiguieres and Dupuy-Montbrun on the other, when the latter was captured, and shortly after beheaded at 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 Augusta Vocontiorum, thereby apparently defrauding the village of Aouste, near Crest, 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 it derives its name was Cybele, notwithstanding the vehement assertions of the official in the Poste-bureau in favour of Ceres; and three different Tauroboles have been discovered here, one of which is in excellent repair, and shows a Roman inscription surmounted by three bulls' heads. The ceremony of the Taurobolium was new to me, and appears to have been conducted as follows:—A small cave was hollowed out, with a thin roof formed by the outer surface of the earth; and immediately above this a bull was sacrificed, so that the blood ran through the earth and dropped on to a priest who was placed in full robes in the cave. The priest and the blood-stained garments were thenceforth specially sacred, the garments retaining their sanctity for twenty years. The inscription on the Tauroboles which have been found in and near Die record the names of the priest, the dendrophore, the person who provided the victim, and the emperor for whose safety the sacrifice was offered.

The people of Die have been quarrelsome from the earliest times. A century before the estates of the Dauphins of the Viennois were known as Dauphine,[92] the chronic contests between the Bishops and the Counts of Die had come to such a crisis, that the Dauphin Guiges Andre intervened, and produced a certain amount of peace; but, twenty years after, the people killed Bishop Humbert before the gate which thence received its name of Porte Rouge. When the Counts of Valentinois had succeeded to the fiefs of the Counts of Die, Gregory X. became so weary of the constant wars, that he suppressed the bishopric, and united it to Valence in 1275; but the canons, who were not suppressed, raised a mercenary army and carried on the struggle. Eventually, the canons and the people made common cause, and joined the Pope during the Seventy Years; but when he left Avignon they came to terms with Charles VI. of France, and so the Diois was united to Dauphine in 1404. Louis XIV. restored the separate bishopric, but ruined the town by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes.

The large number of mosaics and inscriptions found in Die prove conclusively that in Roman times it was a favourite place of residence; and, so far as situation goes, it is not difficult to understand how this should have been the case. But in the condition in which the town found itself in the pitiless heat of August 1864, the only question for an English visitor was whether he could live through the time it was absolutely necessary to spend there. The poste arrived, as has been said, an hour and a half after its time; and the sole occupant of the coupe, who had lived on fruit and gooseberry syrup, and three penny worth of sweet cake at Crest, since a seven-o'clock breakfast, had wiled away the last hour by inventing choice bills of fare for the meditated supper. When the lumbering vehicle stopped in the main street of Die, which is here something under seven yards wide, an elderly woman stepped out from the dim crowd, with an uncovered tallow candle in her hand, and asked if there was anyone for the hotel. The unwonted 'yes' seemed to create some surprise; but she led the way promptly to her hotel, diplomatically meeting the rapid volley of questions respecting supper with an unpromising silence, and the first sight of the house itself dispelled for ever all hope. An entrance was effected by the kitchen; and not only was there no fire, but there was no light of any description; and the one dip we brought on to the scene betrayed such squalor on all sides, that the suggestion of a salle-a-manger in connection with such a kitchen became at once an impudent mockery. When this farther room was reached, it proved to be even worse than the kitchen. It was shut up for the night—had been shut up apparently for a week—and was in the possession of the cats of the town, and the flies of Egypt. Two monstrous hounds entered with us; and the cats fled hastily by a window which was slightly open at the top, spitting and howling with fear when they missed the first spring, and came within the cognisance 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 a copper in the kitchen, the water in which had been a permanency for some time past, and was told to wash there. As for supper, there was some cold mutton; but the landlady unfortunately opened the door of the cupboard as she said so, and displayed a state of things which decided the point against the mutton. There was nothing else in the house, and there was no fire for cooking anything; but when they discovered that I really would not wait till the next morning, they proposed to light a fire 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 the chief 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, so strong?' 'Yes, the price was undoubtedly strong.' 'How much, then?' 'A franc a bottle.' With an eye to the future bill, the monsieur pretended to ponder awhile, as if in doubt whether his resources could stand such a strain, and then, with a reckless air, decided upon the extravagance. The clairette proved to be quite worthy of the praise which had been bestowed upon it, being a very pleasant and harmless sparkling white wine.[93]

The neighbours kept dropping into the kitchen, to see how the landlady got on with the stranger of uncouth speech; and four of the female part of her company brought in at various times to the salle-a-manger some piece of table-furniture, in order to indulge in a closer view than the open door of the room afforded. One of them told me she had seen an Englishman once before, a few months back; but he only had one eye, and she seemed to think I was out of order in possessing two. At length the soup came, and the first attempt upon it proved it to be utterly impossible. The landlady was called in, and this fact was announced to her. 'What to do, then?—it was a good soup, a soup which the people of Die loved,—it was a soup the household eat morning and night.' All the same, it was not a soup the present Englishman could eat, and some other sort of food must be provided, for she declined to furnish soup without garlic and fat. She suggested an omelette; but a natural generalisation from all I had so far seen drew an untempting picture of the probable state of the frying-pan, and I declined to face the idea until I was convinced there was nothing else to be had. But, alas! notwithstanding the righteous indignation with which the landlady met my request that the omelette might not be all fat, the manipulation of the eggs eventuated in a dish even more impracticable than the soup, flooded with unmentionable 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 spite of the marks of the feet of mice in the cold gravy which remained on the dish, I forced myself to cut off a wedge, and, after removing a thick layer of meat on the exposed sides, essayed to eat the heart of the wedge. The sheep and its progenitors had been fed on garlic from all time, and the mutton had been boiled in a decoction of that noxious herb; and this dish was in its turn rejected like the others. There was nothing for it but salad, and bread, and wine; but when the salad appeared, after a long time had been spent in the kitchen in saturating the withered greens with oil and vitriolic vinegar, there, perched on the top like one of those animals which sometimes spoil one's enjoyment of a strawberry-bed, was a huge onion, with numerous satellites peeping out from under the leaves. About this time, a short diversion was caused by the reappearance of one of the large hounds, whose mind was not at ease as to the completeness of the previous elimination of the cats from the salle-a-manger; and the diabolical noise and scuffle which ensued upon his investigation of a dark corner, showed that his doubts had been well grounded. Then I discovered that there was no butter to be had, and no milk; and when coffee was mentioned, a pan was brought out for making that beverage, which a bullet-maker with any regard for appearances would have declined to use for melting his lead in. Finally, under the pressure of dire hunger, I returned to the mutton, and contrived to swallow a small piece, the taste of which did not leave me for four or five days.

The interior of the house, where the bedrooms were, gave forth an odour which must be familiar to all who have burrowed in out-of-the-way places in France, approaching more nearly, perhaps, to the smell of damp cocks and hens than anything else; and the bedroom door was guarded by a huge mis-shapen dog, which evidently intended to pass the night there, if it could not get into the room itself. The street on to which the window looked was still populous with the inhabitants of Die; and a man with whom I had already had a conversation respecting the glaciere, who appeared to perform some of the functions of landlord of the hotel, was audibly engaged in hiring a man to accompany me on the following day. The man whom he was attempting to persuade was evidently of an independent turn of mind, and said that as it would be an affair of fifteen or sixteen hours at least, he would not go through so much unless his proposed comrade were a true bonhomme; a difficulty which the landlord set at rest by asseverations so ready and so circumstantial, 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 most agreeably disappointed, and the few hours passed quietly enough till it was time to get up. By morning light, the salle-a-manger did so bristle with squalor that the kitchen was made the breakfast-room; though as that meal only lasted two minutes, and meant nothing beyond an attempt to eat some of the bread I had been unable to eat the night before, one place was much the same as another. It is generally believed that coffee is to be obtained in perfection in France; but that belief is not founded on experience of the provinces, and had long ceased to be a part of my creed: nevertheless, with the idea that there is always some redeeming-point in the darkest situation, I had hopes of the coffee of Die, in spite of the appearance of the pan; and if these hopes had been realised, the place might still have been tolerable. But they were not realised. When the landlady was asked for the promised coffee, she brought out a small earthenware pitcher containing a black liquid, and proceeded to bury its lower extremity in the hot embers of the wood fire, by which means the liquid was speedily warmed up, and also thickened with unnecessary ashes. When served—in the same dusty pitcher—it had a green and mouldy taste, combined with a sour bitterness which made it utterly impossible as an article of food, and so the breakfast was confined to the rejected fragments of the loaf of the preceding night.

The guide, or comrade as he preferred to call himself, appeared in good time, and we started about half-past six, under a sun already oppressively hot, and through heavy flaky dust, which made us feel very thankful when our route branched off from the high road. Liotir was strong in mulberry trees and vines, for he was a keeper of silkworms, and a wine-merchant. Silkworms had not been profitable for a year or two, and he was almost in low spirits when he talked of them.[94] An epidemic had visited the district, and the worms ate voraciously and refused to spin—a disease which he believed to be beyond the power of medicine.[95] As is so often the case with the Frenchman, as compared with the Englishman of corresponding social status, he had his information cut and dried, and poured it out without hesitation. Silkworms' eggs cost 15, 20, or 25 francs an ounce, according to quality; and an ounce of good seed should produce from two to three hundred francs' worth of cocoons. A man who 'makes' an ounce of seed requires six tables, 8 feet by 4, for his cages; and as some men make thirty-five ounces, chambers of great size are necessary for the accommodation of their worms; but breeders to so large an extent as this are the princes of the trade. As we passed a farmhouse surrounded by mulberry trees and vineyards, my companion informed me that the farmer was his partner in worms and wine both, and that the wine promised to be the better speculation this year, for the fruit was in immense abundance. I saw afterwards that, at the time of vintage, grapes sold for pressing at from 6 to 10 francs the hundred kilos, while 12 and 13 francs was the price in 1863, and that in some districts of the Drome the owners of the presses had not barrels enough for even the first pressing.

The great want of wood on the hills in whose neighbourhood we now found ourselves, attracted attention in the time of Louis XIV., and that sovereign passed severe laws for the protection of the forests that still remained. As usual, the mere severity of the laws made them fail of their object. Banishment and the galleys were the punishment for unauthorised cutting of forest trees, and death if fire were used. There is a paper in the Journal de Physique of 1789,[96] on the disappearance of the forests of Dauphine, pointing out that when the woods are removed from the sides of mountains, the soil soon follows, and the district becomes utterly valueless. The writer traced the mischief to the emancipation of serfs, and the consequent formation of communes, where each man could do that which was right in his own eyes.

At any rate, whatever the reason, nothing can be conceived more bare than the dun-coloured rounded hills between the town of Die and the Col de Vassieux, towards which we were making our way. The whole face of the country had the same parched look, and the soil seemed to be composed entirely of small stones, without any signs of moisture even in the watercourses. 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 But de 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 of the hill with oak and hazel; so that already there is some appearance of coppice, and in the course of time there will be shade by the way—a luxury for which we longed in vain. The lower ground was covered with little scrubs of box, and with lavender, dwarfed and dry; but near the summit of the Col the lavender became vigorous and luxuriant, and carpeted the hillside with a rich abundance of blue, tempting us more than once to lie down and roll on the fragrant bed; though some of the older roots were not sufficiently yielding to make that performance as satisfactory as it might have been. This lavender is highly prized by the silkworm-keepers of Die, its bushy heads being almost exclusively used for the worms to spin their cocoons in.

When we reached the top of the Col, Liotir confessed that he did not know which way to turn, and we agreed to follow the path till we should find 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 no assistance, and, in default of information, Liotir generously proposed to treat me to a bottle of wine, over which we might discuss our further proceedings. The state of fever, however, to which the garlic and the dirt of Die had brought me, made it seem impossible to eat or drink anything; so I suggested instead that I should treat him, and that seemed to be rather what he had meant by his proposal. Nothing much came of 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 de Fondeurle lay across the plain on our left hand, and up a most objectionable-looking hill beyond, thickly covered with brushwood and showing no signs of a path.

As we crossed the plain, there was still the same total absence of water, and we reached the bottom of the hill in a state of mind and body which rebelled against the exertion of struggling with the sand and shingle and brushwood. Liotir thought it was useless to attempt it with no hope of water, and I held much the same view, only it was impossible really to think of giving it up. When at last we had surmounted all the difficulties which beset us, and stood on the highest point which had so far been in sight, we found ourselves on the edge of a vast plain of parched grass, with nothing to guide us in one direction rather than another. There was no human being in sight, no sign of water, nor any particle of shade; nothing but grass, brown and monotonous, with white cliffs miles away at the extremity of the plain. This was evidently the Foire de Fondeurle, and in it somewhere lay the glaciere, if only we could make out in which direction to begin to traverse the plain. In the earlier part of this century, a very famous fair was held on this wild and out-of-the-way table-land, to which many thousands of horses and 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 up the last hill said there were only fourteen head of cattle in 1863, and very few of those were sold. M. Hericart de Thury describes this plain as 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, and the Foire de Fondeurle lies immediately above this point.

At last we made a bold dash across the plain, and after a time came upon some sheep, standing in a thick row, with their heads thrust under a low bank which afforded a little shade; and at no great distance from them sat the shepherd. He was a cripple, and his clothes were something worse than rags. He offered us a portion of the water he had in a detestable-looking skin; but he assured us it was quite warm, and had not been good to begin with, so we did not try it, though we were thirsty enough to have hailed a muddy pool with delight. Our new acquaintance knew nothing of the glaciere, but he belonged himself to the Chalet of Fondeurle, and as that was the only house on the whole plain, he told us to make for it. The surface of the plain seemed to have fallen through in many places, forming larger and smaller pits with steep sides of limestone. These were often of the size of a large field, and, as the deeper of them required circumvention, the shepherd told us that we must follow the line of little cairns which we should find here and there on our way, the only guide across the plain. He could not be sure himself in what direction the chalet lay; but if we kept to a certain tortuous line, we should come to it in time.

The way proved to be so very long, that we doubted whether such a consummation of our wishes would ever arrive: but at length, in a small dip at the farthest extremity of the plain, we saw the chalet, and, what was much more to us, saw a little run of water, carried from the rising ground by wooden pipes. It will be well for any future visitor to the chalet to go very warily, and to intrench himself in a strong position when he sees half-a-dozen huge dogs like black and white bears come out to 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 all this the dogs were nearly too much for us, and Liotir was pressing me earnestly to chop at the ringleader's head, when a man came and called off 'Dragon,' and the others then dispersed. The new-comer wished to know our business, but, without satisfying his curiosity, we rushed to the water-trough, and drank and used in washing an amount of water which he evidently grudged us. Then we were able to tell him that our business was something to eat for Liotir, and a guide to the glaciere; though I trembled when I suggested the latter, for, after all our labours, I had a sort of fear that the cave would prove a myth. On this point the man cleared away all doubts at once,—we could certainly have a guide, as the 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 wife would not be able to give us an answer without consulting him. The wife confirmed this statement: they saw very few strangers, and did not profess to supply food to people crossing the plain. I assured her that we intended to pay well for anything she could let us have, but she merely rejoined that they did not keep an auberge; however, her husband would be home some time in the course of the afternoon—it was now about half-past twelve—and she could ask his opinion on the subject. But Liotir objected that he was meanwhile dying of hunger, and the monsieur of thirst which only milk or cream could assuage; he suggested that some one should be sent to look for the husband, and obtain his permission for us to be fed. To this she assented, very dubiously, and with a constrained air, as if there were some mysterious reason why the presence of strangers was peculiarly unacceptable on that particular afternoon. At any rate, she said when pressed, she thought there could be no harm in our entering the chalet and sitting down on a bench, where we should be sheltered from the sun.

Here accordingly we sat, more or less patiently, till the master himself appeared. He had no welcome for us; but he was willing that we should eat 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 also cream, for the monsieur evidently was malade and could not swallow wine. The cream and the black bread were delicious; but still the horrors of Die hung about me, and I could only dispose of such a small amount, that Liotir waxed funny, and told me it would never do for me to die there, as there was not earth enough to scrape a grave in on the whole plain. Then, being a practical man, he declared he should like to contract for my keep, and thought he could afford to do it at very small cost to me, and still leave a fair margin for himself. He thought it right to make up for my want of appetite; and so, in addition to his own share, he took in an exemplary manner the share of wine which I should have taken, had I been a man like himself. The master of the chalet sat on the family bed, smoking silently and sullenly; and as soon as Liotir had come to an end of his second bottle, he proposed to accompany us himself 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 what we had consumed, I administered thanks as well as money; to which she sternly rejoined, 'Who pays need not give thanks;' and to that surly view she held, in spite of my attempts to soften her down. There was, after all, much force in what she said, under the circumstances. They had given us no welcome, nothing but mere food, and all they expected in return 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 the chalet. Two large pits, formed apparently by the subsidence of the surface, lay in a line about east and west, and there proved to be an underground communication between them. From this tunnel, as it were, a long low archway led to a broad slope of chaotic blocks of stone, down which we scrambled by the aid of such light as our candles afforded. The roof of this inner cave was horizontal for some distance, and then suddenly descended in a grand wall; and in consequence of a series of such inverted steps, the cave never assumed any great height. The whole length of the slope was 190 feet, and its greatest breadth about 140 feet; but the breadth varied very much. Half-way down the slope the ice commenced, fitfully at first, and afterwards in a tolerably continuous sheet. The most careless explorer could not have failed to notice the polygonal figures stamped upon its surface. They were larger and bolder than any I had seen before; and the prismatic nuts into which the ice broke, when cut with the axe, were of course in proportion larger than in the previous caves. The signs of thaw, too, were unmistakeable. Though the upper surface of the earth had seemed to be utterly devoid of moisture of any kind, large drops fell freely from the roof of the cave,[97] and the ice itself was wet. The patron said there was no ice whatever in the winter months, and that from June to September was the time at which alone it could be found. He declined to explain how it was that we found it so evidently in a state of general thaw in the very height of its season. To give us some idea of the climate of the plain in winter, he informed us that the snow lay for long up to the top of the door of his chalet.

There were in all four columns of ice in the cave, only two of which were of any considerable size. One of these was peculiarly striking from the very large grain which its structure displayed; it measured 19 feet across the base, being flat towards the extremity of the cave, and round towards the entrance. Three thermometers in various parts of the glaciere gave all the same temperature, namely, a fraction under 33 deg. F.: a rough French thermometer gave 1/2 deg. C. The extreme wall of the cavern was completely covered by a layer of stalagmitic material, and some of the forms the substance assumed were sufficiently striking. In contact with the wall, though standing clear of it in parts where the wall fell inwards, stood a thick round column of the same material, shaped like the ordinary ice-columns of the glacieres, with a cavity near the base, and in all ways following the usual laws of such columns. Considering that I had observed a layer of limestone-paste collecting on one of the ice-columns of the Glaciere of La Genolliere, I could not help imagining that this stalagmitic column had been originally moulded on a norm of that description. It had a girth of 12 feet in the part where we were able to pass the tape round it. Its surface was smooth; but when we drove a hole through this, with much damage to the pic of my axe, we found that the interior was in a crystalline form.

There was, on the whole, very little to be seen in the glaciere. Had it been my first experience of an ice-cave, it would doubtless have seemed very remarkable, as it did to Liotir, who, by the way, had steadily disbelieved the possibility of natural ice in summer except in the glaciers; but as I had now seen so many, several of them much more wonderful than this, I did not care to stay longer than was absolutely necessary for measurements and investigation. Besides, the food of Dauphine rather takes the energy and love of adventure out of an unaccustomed visitor.

Without long delay, then, we bade farewell to the patron, not returning to the inhospitable chalet, 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 he really had seen ice in summer, within five or six hours of Die; and mine, to apply the ice to the butter which I had specially ordered the landlady to have ready for me, that so I might be able to get through the 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 the bulk of the masses we carried seemed scarcely to diminish; and if it had not been for a course of heavy falls as we descended through the brushwood, we should have succeeded in getting a large proportion of it safely to Die. The precision of the prismatic structure also showed itself in a very marked manner; and when we came to a crisis of thirst, which happened at shorter and shorter intervals as the afternoon wore on, we separated the prisms with our fingers from the edges of the ice without any difficulty, and made ourselves more hot and thirsty by eating them.

When we arrived at the farmhouse at the Col de Vassieux, we reaped full benefit from our ice. The wine, which had been hot and heavy and unpalatable in the morning, when we had tried it unmixed, became delightfully refreshing when disguised with an abundance of water and sugar and ice; and Liotir found that contracting for my keep at a low rate would not, after all, secure him the comfortable income he had before calculated. After this refreshment, he became communicative, and told me he had served seven years in the French army, three of which were spent in working on railways. He had fought the Italian campaign, and was full of details of the battle of Solferino, on which occasion his bataillon was led on by the Emperor in person. According to his account, four bataillons were drawn up for the assault of a tower, and when the first advanced it was swept away to a man. The second met with a like fate, and Liotir was in the third. His officers had all been killed, and a corporal was in command. The Emperor rode up and called to them 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, Liotir said, slowly and solemnly, that he did not think the Emperor was under fire; a few dropping shots reached them while he was yet addressing them, but he believed the Emperor Napoleon was not in the fire at Solferino. I took the opportunity of asking whether he was green on that occasion, as Mr. Kinglake believes that he is in times of personal danger; but my companion utterly scouted the idea, and declared that he saw no man through all that day so cool and capable as the Emperor. Pale he undoubtedly was, but that was his habit. Like all other French soldiers with whom I have had much conversation, Liotir complained of the army arrangements in the matter of food; on all other points he was most amiable, but when he spoke of the extortions of the cantiniere he completely lost his temper. At a cafe, the soldiers could get their cup for 15 centimes, or 20 with liqueur; whereas the cantiniere charged a franc, and gave them very bad coffee. Wine, too, which would cost them 60 centimes the kilo in the town, was valued at 2 francs by their grasping enemy. He had an idea that English soldiers are allowed to take their whole pay in money, and spend it as they will; whereas the French foot-soldier, according to his account, gets 25 centimes a day in money, and has everything found except coffee. A young trooper at Besancon was very eloquent on this subject. He represented himself as a man of small appetite and a gay spirit; he could well live on very little solid food, and yet he had as much deducted from his pay on that account as anyone in the army—as much, for instance, he groaned, as a certain stout old warrior who was then reposing on a corn-bin. If he could have drawn all his pay in money, and lived on almost nothing for food, he would have had abundance of sous for cards and tobacco; and what a career would that be!

The blocks of ice were by this time becoming rather small; and as we had now once more reached the region of lavender, we cut a large quantity and wrapped the ice in it, and thus protected it from further thaw. For some time before arriving at the farm where my companion's partner lived, he indulged in praises of the wine which their vineyard produced, and assurances of the safety with which it would perform a journey to England. He urged its excellent bouquet, and gave me a card of prices which certainly seemed marvellously reasonable. Finally, he proposed to join me at a bottle of white muscat, from the farmer's cave, in order that I might have an opportunity of seeing how true was his account of the wine. We seated ourselves accordingly in the farmyard, and drank a bottle of delightful wine at 65 centimes the bottle, clear and sparkling, and with a strong muscat flavour. Liotir combined with it intoxication of a different kind, and showed unmistakeable signs of his determination to take another member of the farmer's household into partnership,—the mysterious friend, in fact, for whose astonishment the ice was intended. The white muscat, they told me, would not keep over the year; but they had a wine at the same price which they highly recommended, and warranted to keep for a considerable number of years. Liotir was very anxious that we should have a bottle of this, for he was confident that I should give them an order if I once tasted it; but we had been in at the death of so many bottles that day, that I declined to try the muscat rosat. I have since had a hundred litres sent over by Liotir, and find it very satisfactory. It has a rich, clear, port-wine colour, sparkling, and with the true frontignac flavour.

The effect of the wine on Liotir was peculiar. In the earlier part of the 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 remainder of the way with many details of his experiences there. We reached Die about half-past seven, and the arrival of real ice was hailed as a marvel. Although I had been sent off so unhesitatingly by the landlord in the morning, it seemed that they none of them knew what a glaciere meant. They had determined that we should never reach the Foire de Fondeurle, and that if we did, we should find nothing there to repay our toil. As I sat at an open window afterwards, Liotir's voice was to be heard holding forth in a neighbouring cafe upon the wonders of the day; and among the crowd which is a normal condition of the evening streets 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 at right angles with the handle. There was no cup; but the woman remarked that if monsieur was particular about that, he could turn out the sugar and use the basin, which he did. The milk had a basin to itself; but it had offered so large and tempting a surface to the flies of the town, that it remained untouched. The knife and spoon were imbued with ineradicable garlic, and my own trusty clasp-knife was the only weapon I could use for all table purposes. If it had not been for the ice and the lavender, I think I should never have got away from Die. The former made it possible to eat some bread-and-butter; and of the latter I made a sort of respirator for nose and mouth, which modified the odour of cocks and hens prevailing in the house.

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

This was the last glaciere on my list. It was quite as well that such was the case; for the trials of Dauphine had been too great, and I should scarcely have been inclined to face further adventures of a like kind.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 82: T. xxx. p. 157.]

[Footnote 83: Vol. ii. p. 80.]

[Footnote 84: Jean de Choul, De varia Quercus Historia, 1555.]

[Footnote 85: Gollut, Mem. des Bourg. de la Franche Comte, p. 227.]

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

[Footnote 87: Several churches in Vienne are used as foundries and workshops. 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 its former use. The grand old church of S. John in Dijon has been rescued from the hands which made it a depot of flour, and is being restored to its original purposes: but such instances are very rare.]

[Footnote 88: This family took its rise in Dauphine, before the district had that name: the chief place of the family was the chateau of Beaumont, near Grenoble.]

[Footnote 89: The final victory was near Aquae Sextiae (Aix).]

[Footnote 90: The cultivation of the silkworm mulberry will probably die out before very long. The silk crop has lately failed in Dauphine, and a commission for enquiring into the relative merits of different worms has determined that the Senegal worm produces 633 millegrammes of silk, while the worm, fed on the mulberry produces only 290. The first mulberry trees in France were planted in that part of Provence which is enclosed by Dauphine.

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

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

[Footnote 92: The origin of the name Dauphin seems to be lost in obscurity, though of comparatively recent date. The Counts d'Albon took the title first in 1140, and their estates were not called the Terra Dalphini, 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 raw silk was offered at the last markets at Valence and Romans, and but for foreign supplies the mills must have been closed. The small amount that was offered sold at from 68 to 72 francs the kilogramme, while foreign cocoons from Calamata fetched only 22 francs at Marseilles.]

[Footnote 95: Pausanias says that silkworms are apt to die of indigestion, 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 at the lower part of the cave was about 60 feet of rock. He also noticed the peculiar structure of the ice, which afforded great surprise to his party. It was discovered by means of the coloured rays which were thrown into the different parts of the cave, when some one had casually placed a 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 cavern to England, in the middle of the last century, which was printed in the original Latin in the 'Philosophical Transactions' of 1739-40 (pp. 41, &c.).

This account states that the cave is in the county of Thorn,[99] among the lowest spurs of the Carpathians. The entrance, which faces the north, and is exposed to the cold winds from the snowy part of the Carpathian range, is 18 fathoms high and 9 broad; and the cave spreads out laterally, and descends to a point 50 fathoms below the entrance, where it is 26 fathoms in breadth, and of irregular height. Beyond this no one had at that time penetrated, on account of the unsafe footing, although many distant echoes were returned by the farther recesses of the cave; indeed, to get even so far as this, much step-cutting was necessary.

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

In explanation of these phenomena, Bell threw out the following suggestions, which need no comment. The earth being of itself cold and damp, the external heat of the atmosphere, by partially penetrating into the 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 the external air is cold, it draws forth towards the surface the heat there may be in the inner part of the earth, and thus makes caverns warm. In support and illustration of this view, he states that in the hotter parts of Hungary, when the people wish to cool their wine, they dig a hole 2 feet deep, and place in it the flagon of wine, and, after filling up the hole again, light a blazing fire upon the surface, which cools the wine as if the flagon had been laid in ice. He also suggests that possibly the cold winds from the Carpathians bring with them imperceptible particles of snow, which reach the water of the cave, and convert it into ice. Further, the rocks of the Carpathians abound in salts, nitre, alum, &c., which may, perhaps, mingle with such snowy particles, and produce the ordinary effect of the snow and salt in the artificial production of ice.

Townson[100] visited this cave half a century later, and concluded that Bell was in error with regard to the supposed winter thaw and summer frost, although he himself received information at Kaschau which corroborated the earlier account. He describes the approach to the village of Szilitze as leading by a by-road through a pleasant country of woods and hills, with much pasture-land, the cave lying a mile beyond the village, and displaying an entrance 100 feet broad, and 20 or 30 feet high, turned towards the north. The descent of the floor of the cave 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, where the cave is not so high as at the entrance, a congeries of icicles was seen to hang; and in a corner on the right, completely sheltered from the rays of the sun, there was a large mass of the same material. It was a fine forenoon in July, and all was in a state of thaw, the icicles dropping 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 of Reaumur's scale. The rock is compact unstratified limestone, in which so many 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 an expedition from Cabul to the North-west, accompanied by Lieutenant Sturt of the Bengal Engineers, who was afterwards killed in the terrible pass where Lady Sale, whose daughter he had married, was shot through the arm.

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

As they rode through long and rich grass, following the course of a gentle stream, and tormented by swarms of forest flies, or blood-suckers, the Shah informed them that he had once endeavoured to explore the cave, and had already penetrated to a considerable distance, when he came upon the fresh prints of a naked foot, with an extraordinary impression by their side, which he suspected to be the foot of Sheitan himself, and so he beat a precipitate retreat. The moollah told them that there was a large number of skeletons in the cave, the remains of 700 men who took refuge there during the invasion of Genghis Khan, with their wives and families, and defended themselves so stoutly, that, after trying in vain the means by which the M'Leods were destroyed in barbarous times, and the opponents of French progress in Algeria in times less remote, the invader built them in with huge natural blocks of stone, and left them to die of hunger.

The entrance is half-way up a hill, and is 50 feet high, with about the same breadth. Not far from the entrance they found a passage between two jagged rocks, possibly the remains of Genghis Khan's fatal wall, so narrow that they had some difficulty in squeezing through; and then, before long, came to a drop of 16 feet, down which they were lowered by ropes made from the cotton turbans of the Shah and his attendants. Here they left two men to haul them up on their return, and bade farewell to the 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 widened gradually till they reached a damp and dripping hall, of dimensions so vast that the light of their torches did not enable them to form a conception of its size. In this hall they found hundreds of skeletons in a perfectly undisturbed state, one, for instance, still holding the skeletons of two infants in its bony arms, while some of the bodies had been preserved, and lay shrivelled like those at the Great St. Bernard. They were very much startled here by the discovery of the prints of a naked human foot, and by its side the distinct mark of the pointed heel of an Affghan boot,[102] precisely what had so thoroughly frightened the Shah twelve years before. The prints retained all the sharpness of outline which marks a recent impression, and led towards the farther recesses of the cave; but the Englishmen were called away from their investigation by the announcement that if they did not make haste, there would not be oil enough for lighting them to the ice-caves.

Proceeding through several low arches and smaller caves, they reached at length a vast hall, in the centre of which was[103] an enormous mass of clear ice, smooth and polished as a mirror, and in the form of a gigantic beehive, with its dome-shaped top just touching the long icicles which depended from the jagged surface of the rock. A small aperture led to the interior of this wonderful congelation, the walls of which were nearly 2 feet thick; the floor, sides, and roof were smooth and slippery, and their figures were reflected from floor to ceiling and from side to side in endless repetition. The inside of this chilly abode was divided into several compartments of every fantastic shape: in some the glittering icicles hung like curtains from the roof; in others, the vault was smooth as glass. Beautifully brilliant were the prismatic colours reflected from the varied surface of the ice, when the torches flashed suddenly upon them as they passed from cave to cave. Around, above, beneath, everything was of solid ice, and being unable to stand on account of its slippery nature, they slid, or rather glided, mysteriously along the glassy surface of this hall of spells. In one of the largest compartments the icicles had reached the floor, and gave the idea of pillars supporting the roof.

The cavern in which this marvellous mass of ice stood, branched off into numerous galleries, one of which led the party to a sloping platform of rapidly increasing steepness, where they were startled by the reappearance of the naked foot-prints, passing down the slope. The toes were spread out in a manner which showed that they belonged to some one who had been in the habit of going barefoot, and Captain Burslem took a torch and determined to trace the steps: a large stone, however, gave way under his weight; and this, sliding down at first, and then rolling and bounding on for ever, raised such a tumult of noise and echoes that the natives with one accord cried 'Sheitan! Sheitan!' and fled precipitately, extinguishing all the lights in their fear; so that but for 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 use to attempt to follow the footsteps, as it was well known that the cave extended to Cabul! The guides had now lost their small allowance of pluck, and wandered about despairingly for a long time before they could find their way back to the ice-cave, and thence to the foot of the rock where the two men and the turban-ladders had been left. As soon as they came in sight of this, their comrades above cried out to them that they must make all haste, for Sheitan himself had appeared an hour before, running along the ledge where they now were, and finally vanishing into the gloom beyond; an announcement which of course produced a stampede in the terrified party of natives. Five or six rushed to the spot where the turbans hung, and only an opportune fall of stones from above prevented their destroying the apparatus in their blind hurry to escape. The chief claimed the privilege of being drawn up first, and he and all his followers declared that nothing should ever tempt them to visit again the Cave of Yeermalik.[104]

The Surtshellir, in Iceland.

The first account of this lava-cavern is given by Olafsen,[105] who visited it in 1750 and 1753. Ebenezer Henderson[106] explored it in 1815, and Captain Forbes gives some account of it in his recent book on Iceland.[107] It is mentioned in some of the Sagas,[108] and appears to have been a refuge for robbers in the tenth century, and Sturla Sigvatson, with a large band of followers, spent some time here. The Landnama Saga derives the name Surtshellir from a huge giant called Surtur, who made his abode in the cave; but Olafsen believed that the name merely meant black hole, from surtur or svartur, and was due to the darkness of the cave and the colour of the lava: in accordance with this view, it is called Hellerin Sortur, or black hole, in some of the earlier writings. The common people are convinced that it is inhabited by ghosts; and Olafsen and his party were assured that they would be turned back by horrible noises, or else killed outright by the spirits of the cave: at any rate, their informants declared they would no more reach the inner parts of the cavern than they had reached the traditional green valley of Aradal, isolated in the midst of glaciers, with its wild population of descendants of the giants, which they had endeavoured to find some time before.[109]

The cave is in the form of a tunnel a mile or more in length, with innumerable ramifications, in the lava which has flowed from the Bald Yoekul. It lies on the edge of the uninhabited waste called the Arnavatns-heidi, in a district described by Captain Forbes as distorted and devilish, a cast-iron sea of lava. The approach is through an open chasm, 20 to 40 feet in depth, and 50 feet broad, leading to the entrance of the cave, where the height is between 30 and 40 feet, and the breadth rather more than 50. Henderson found a large quantity of congealed snow at this entrance, and along pool of water resting on a floor of ice, which turned his party back and forced them to seek another entrance, where again they found snow piled up to a considerable height. Olafsen also mentions collections of snow under the various openings in the lava which forms the roof of the cave. The latter explorer discovered interesting signs of the early inhabitants of the 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 down the middle, forming the only passage to the inner parts of the cave. The spaces enclosed by these stones were strewn with black sand, on which rough wool was probably laid by way of mattress. This could scarcely have been a bedstead in the time of the giants, for a total breadth of 14 feet, deducting for the pathway down the middle, will not give more than 6 feet for the layer of men on either side, unless indeed they lay parallel to the passage, and required a length of 36 feet. He also found an old wall, built with blocks of lava across one part of the cave, as if for defence, and a large circular heap of the bones of sheep and oxen, presumably the remains of many years of feasting. Captain Forbes scoffs at these bones, and suggests errant wild ponies as the depositors thereof.

Olafsen had found in his earlier visit that the way was stopped, far in the recesses of the cave, by a lake of water, which filled the tunnel to a depth of 3 feet or more, lying on ice; but in 1753 there was not more than a foot of water, through which they waded without much difficulty. The air soon became exceedingly cold and thick, and for some hundreds of paces they saw no light of day, till at length they reached a welcome opening in the roof. Beyond this, the air grew colder and more thick, and the walls were found to be sheeted with ice from roof to floor, or covered with broad and connected icicles. The ground also was a mass of ice, but an inch or two of fine brown earth lay upon it, which enabled them to keep their footing. This earth appeared to have been brought down by the water which filtered through the roof. 'The most wonderful thing,' Olafsen remarks, 'that we noticed here, was, that the stalactites of ice were set with regular figures of five and seven sides, joined together, and resembling those seen on the second stomach of ruminating animals. The condensed cold of the air must have imparted these figures to the ice; they were not external (merely?), but in the ice itself, which otherwise was clear and transparent.'

Henderson and his party appear to have had much more wading to do than Olafsen, walking in one instance through a long tract of water up to the knees. In the deeper recesses of the cave, apparently in the part where the earlier explorers had found the reticulated ice, they found the whole floor of the passage covered with thick ice, with so steep a dip that they sat down and slid forward by their own weight—a most undignified proceeding for a grave gentleman on a mission from the Bible Society. On holding their torches close to the floor, they saw down to a depth of 7 or 8 feet, the ice being as clear as crystal. 'The roof and sides of the cave were decorated with most superb icicles, crystallised in every possible form, many of which rivalled in minuteness the finest zeolites; while from the icy floor rose pillars of the same substance, assuming all the curious and phantastic shapes imaginable, mocking the proudest specimens of art, and counterfeiting many well-known objects of animated nature. Many of them were upwards of 4 feet high, generally sharpened at the extremity, and about 2 feet in thickness. A more brilliant scene perhaps never presented itself to the human eye, nor was it easy for us to divest ourselves of the idea that we actually beheld one of the fairy scenes depicted in Eastern fable. The light of the torches rendered it peculiarly enchanting.'

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

Mr. Baring Gould mentions this cavern in his book on Iceland, and believes that its interest has been much overrated. He seems to have visited 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 in Iceland, in 1861, and an account of his visit is given in the first volume of 'Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers.'[112] After following in Olafsen's steps for some time, the party reached a cave whose floor was composed of very clear ice, apparently of great thickness, for they could not see the lava beneath it. The walking on this smooth ice-floor Mr. Holland describes as being delightful, the whole sloping considerably downwards. 'In five minutes,' he continues, 'we reached the most beautiful fairy grotto imaginable. From the crystal floor of ice rose up group after group of transparent icy pillars, while from the glittering roof most brilliant icy pendants hung down to meet them. Columns and arches of ice were ranged along the crystalline walls ... I never saw a more brilliant scene; and indeed it would be difficult to imagine anything more fairy-like. The pillars were many of them of great size, tapering to a point as they rose. The largest were at least 8 feet high, and 6 feet in circumference at their base. The stalactites were on an equally grand scale. Through this lovely ice-grotto we walked for nearly ten minutes.'



The temperature of the caves, Mr. Holland states in a note, was from 8 deg. to 10 deg. C. (46.4 deg. to 50 deg. F.), that of the air outside being 53.6 deg. F.

The Gypsum Cave of Illetzkaya-Zastchita, in the Steppes of the Kirghis, South of Orenburg.

The district in which this cavern occurs is a small green oasis on the undulating steppe, lying on a vast bed of rock-salt, which extends over an area of two versts in length, and a mile in breadth, with a thickness of more than 100 feet. When the thin cover of red sand and marl is removed, the white salt is exposed, and is found to be so free from all stain, or admixture of other material, excepting sometimes minute filaments of gypsum, that it is pounded at once for use, without any cleansing or recrystallising process.

In the immediate neighbourhood of Illetzkaya-Zastchita there are two or three gypseous hillocks, and a cavern in one of these is used by the inhabitants as a cellar, having been artificially enlarged for that purpose. Sir Roderick Murchison and his colleagues visited this cavern on a hot day in August, with the thermometer at 90 deg. in the shade, in the course of their travels under the patronage of the late Emperor of Russia.[113] They found the hillock to be an irregular cone 150 feet in height; the entrance was by a frail door, on a level with the village street, and fully exposed to the rays of the sun; and yet, when the door was opened, so piercing a current of cold air poured forth, that they were glad to beat a retreat for a while; and on eventually exploring farther, they found the quass and provisions, stored in the cave, half-frozen within three or four paces of the door. The chasm soon opened out into a natural vault from 12 to 15 feet high, 10 or 12 paces long, and 7 or 8 in width, which seemed to have numerous small ramifications into the impending mound of gypsum and marl. The roof of this inner cavern was hung with undripping solid icicles, and the floor was a conglomerate of ice and frozen earth. They were assured that the cold is always greatest within when the external air is hottest and driest, and that the ice gradually disappears as winter approaches, and vanishes when the snow comes. The peasants were unanimous in these statements, and asserted that they could sleep in the cave without sheepskins in the depth of winter.

Sir Roderick Murchison and his friends were at first inclined to explain these phenomena by supposing that the chief fissure communicated with some surface of rock-salt, 'the saliferous vapours of which might be so rapidly evaporated or changed in escaping to an intensely hot and dry atmosphere as to produce ice and snow.' But Sir John Herschel, to whom they applied for assistance, rejected the evaporation theory, and suggested that the external summer wave of heat might possibly only reach the cave at Christmas, being delayed six months in its passage through the rock; the cold of winter, in the same manner, arriving at midsummer. To this the explorers objected, that the mound contained many caves, but' only in this particular fissure was any ice found. Dr. Robinson, astronomer at Armagh, endeavoured to explain the matter by referring to De Saussure's explanation of the phenomena of cold caves in Italy and elsewhere; but this, too, was considered unsatisfactory. At length, Professor Wheatstone referred them to the memoir by Professor Pictet, in the Bibliotheque Universelle of Geneva, where that savant improves upon De Saussure's theory, and applies it in its new form to the case of caves containing permanent ice, in tracts whose mean cold is above the freezing point. This they seem to have accepted, adding that the climatological circumstances of Orenburg—a wet spring, caused by the melting of the abundant snows, followed by a summer of intense and dry Asiatic heat—must be particularly favourable for the working out of the theory, and must also act powerfully in producing the refrigerating effects of evaporation.[114]

The traveller Pallas visited Illetzkaya in July 1769, and describes this gypseous hillock.[115] In his time the entrance by the side of the hill was unknown, as also was the existence of ice in the cavern. He saw at the top of the Kraoul-nai-Gora, or Watch-mountain, as it was called, a fissure which had once formed a large cavern, into which the Kirghis were in the habit of throwing furs and other materials as religious offerings. Although the cave had since fallen in, they still kept up a part of the ceremony, marching solemnly round the base of the hill once a year, and bathing in the neighbouring water. In earlier times, a man had descended through the fissure by means of cords, and found the cold within insupportable, having very probably reached the present ice-cave.

Pallas describes many caves in various parts of Russia, but never seems to hint at the existence of ice in them, though he specially mentions their extreme cold. Some of these occurred in gypsum, and some in limestone; and the gypseous caves showed universally a very low temperature, though still far above the freezing-point.[116] Thus in the dark cavern of Barnoukova,[117] on the Piana, in a rock of gypsum, while the thermometer in the shade stood at 75 deg..2, the temperatures at various points in the cave were,—at the entrance 59 deg..36, 25 feet from the entrance 46 deg..4, and in the coldest part 42 deg..8. This cold he describes as insupportable. The temperature of the water which had accumulated in the coldest parts of the cave was 48 deg..8, considerably higher than the surrounding atmosphere; from which Pallas concluded that the cold of gypsum-caves is due to the acid vapours which are generally observed in grottoes of this description. In May 1770, he found snow on the sloping entrance to the cavern of Loekle, in the neighbourhood of the Oufa; but the air of the interior was not colder than was to be expected in a deep cave.

Sir R. Murchison wrote to Russia for further information with respect to this 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 thermometric observations have been made in the cavern. He encloses a short statement by M. Helmersen, one of the members of the Academy, to the following effect:—About 50 versts SE. of Miask, in the chain of the Ural, is a copper mine, called Kirobinskoy, which was abandoned more than fifty years ago. On the 7th July, 1826, M. Helmersen found a thick wainscoting of ice on the sides and roof and floor of the horizontal gallery, within 10 feet of the entrance. He was assured that this ice never melts, and that its thickness is greater in summer than in winter. M. Helmersen adds, that to the best of his belief no one has investigated the cavern of 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 therefore not far below the snow-line of the latitudes of the Canary Isles. The entrance is by a hole 3 or 4 feet square, in the roof of the cave, which may be about 20 feet from the floor. The peasants who convey snow and ice 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 stout ladder, by which photographic instruments and a lady were taken down.

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

Though occurring in lava, this cavern is quite different from lava-tunnels, such as the Surtshellir, which are recognised formations, produced by the cooling of the terminal surface-crust of the stream of lava, and the subsequent bursting forth of the molten stream within. This, on the contrary, proved to be a smooth dome-shaped cave, running off into three contracting lobes or tunnels which might be respectively 70, 50, and 40 feet long, and were all filled to a certain depth with water: in the smoothness of the interior surfaces, Professor Smyth believed that he detected the action of highly elastic gases on a plastic material.

The astronomer takes exception to the term 'underground glacier'[120] which had been applied to this cavern. He represents that the mountain is abundantly covered each winter with snow, in the neighbourhood of the ice-cave, which is nearly within the snow-line, and the stores of snow thus accumulated in the cave have no great difficulty in resisting the effects of summer heat, since all radiation is cut off by the roof of rocks. The importance of this protection may be understood from the fact that in the middle of July the thermometer at this altitude gave 130 deg. in the sun, but fell to 47 deg. when relieved from the heat due to radiation. At the time of this observation, there were still patches of snow lying on the mountain-side, exposed to the full power of direct radiation; and, therefore, there is not anything very surprising in the permanence of snow under such favourable circumstances as are developed in the cave. 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 open door, and had been preserved from solar radiation by the thick roof.[121]

Humboldt remarks, that the mean temperature of the region in which the Cueva del Hielo (ice-cave) occurs, is not below 3 deg. C. (37.4 deg. F.), but so much snow and ice are stored up in the winter that the utmost efforts of the summer heat cannot melt it all. He adds, that the existence of permanent snow in holes or caves must depend more upon the amount of winter snow, and the freedom from hot winds, than on the absolute elevation of the locality.

The natives of Teneriffe are men of faith. They have large belief in the existence and intercommunication of numerous vast caverns in the Peak, one of which, on the north coast, is said to communicate with the ice-cavern, notwithstanding 8 miles of horizontal distance, and 11,000 feet of vertical depth. The truth of this particular article of their creed 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 the belief that he would eventually come to light again in the ice-cave: he was accordingly found lying there some days after, greatly fatigued and emaciated, having in the interval accomplished the 11,000 feet of subterranean climbing. How he could enter, from below, a water-logged cave, 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 following account is given of them:—'During the winter a great quantity of ice accumulates in these caves, which is not entirely melted before the commencement of the ensuing winter. In the summer months they are consequently filled with vast masses of ice broken up into a thousand fantastic forms, and presenting by their lucidity a singular contrast to the sombre vaults and massive stalactites of the cavern.'

The Drachenhoehle (Murray, 1. c.p. 553), a series of caverns not far from Neusohl in Hungary, afford another instance of an ice-cave, one of the largest of them being said to be coated with a sheet of translucid ice, through which the stalactitic fretwork of the vault is seen to great 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. and xi.]

[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's own words.]

[Footnote 104: I am indebted for the knowledge of the existence of these caves to W.A. Sandford, Esq., F.G.S., who informed me that an account of them was to be found in a book of travels by an English officer. I am not aware that they have been visited on any other occasion than this.]

[Footnote 105: Reise durch Island, Copenhagen, 1744 (being a German translation 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 this unapproachable valley, the Aradal, or Thoris-thal, with its rich meadows and gigantic inhabitants, and made an expedition for this purpose in 1664. They reached a point where the glaciers fell off into a valley so deep that they could not see whether there were meadows at the bottom or not, 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 of London, on March 9, 1842, by Sir John Herschel and Sir E. Murchison, the substance of which has been given above.

See also the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal for 1843 (xxxv. 191), for an attempt by Dr. Hope to explain the phenomena of this cave by a reference to the slow penetration of the winter and summer waves of cold and heat. Dr. Hope believes that, although the external changes do not travel to any great depth, they reach far enough to communicate with some 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 the Iren, there is a cave containing ice. Four of its chambers have ice, in one of which a stalagmite of ice rises almost to the roof. The farthest chamber, 625 fathoms from the entrance, contains a lake of water which stretches away out of sight under the low roof. (Taschenbuch fuer die gesammte Mineralogie; Leonhard, 1826; B. 2, S. 425. Published as Zeitschrift fuer Mineralogie.)]

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

[Footnote 118: Teneriffe, by Professor Smyth, ch. viii., and Humboldt, Voyage aux Regions Equinoctiales; Paris, 1814; i. 124.]

[Footnote 119: They afterwards discovered smoke issuing from the centre of this patch of stones; so that volcanic heat may possibly have had something 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 in the 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 an ice-hole closely resembling some of the glacieres of the Jura. It is described by Sartori,[123] as lying in a much-fissured region, reached after four hours of steep ascent from the neighbouring village, through a forest of fir. Some of the fissures contain water and some snow, while others are apparently unfathomable. From one of the largest of these, a strong and cold current blows in summer, and in this fissure is the ice-hole. Sartori found crimpons necessary for descending the frozen snow which led from the entrance to the floor of the cave, where he discovered pillars and capitals and pyramids of ice of every possible shape and variety, as if the cave had contained the ruins of a Gothic church, or a fairy palace. At the farther end, after passing large cascades of ice, his party reached a dark grey hole, which lighted up into blue and green under the influence of the torches; they could not discover the termination of this hole, and the stones which they rolled down into it seemed to go on for ever. The greatest height of the cave is about 36 feet, and its length 192 feet, with a maximum breadth of 126 feet. Towards the end of autumn, the temperature of the ice-hole rises so much, that the glacial decorations disappear, and various wild animals are driven by the cold of winter to take shelter in the comparative warmth of the cave. The elevation of the district in which this ice-hole occurs is about 1,800 German feet above the sea.

In Upper Styria, where the Frauenmauer overlooks the basin in which the mining town of Eisenerz is situated, an ice-cave has been explored, and a description of it has been given by certain members of the Austrian Alpine Club.[124] The Brandstein is spoken of as one of the peaks in the immediate neighbourhood; and as the cave previously described is stated by Sartori to be on the Brandstein, that district would seem to be rich in glacieres. The cavern is most easily explored from Eisenerz, and on that side the entrance is 4,539 Vienna feet above the sea. Its other outlet, in the Tragoess valley, is 300 feet higher. The total length of the cave is 2,040 Vienna feet. After passing the entrance, which is an archway from 12 to 18 feet high, the main course of the cave is soon left, and a branch is followed which leads to the Eis-kammer. This ice-chamber consists of a grotto from 30 to 40 fathoms long, decked with ice-crystals, pillars of ice, and cascades of the same material, the floor being composed of ice as smooth as glass. In the summer, pleasure-parties assemble in the cave and amuse themselves with the game of Eisschiessen, so popular in Upper Styria as a winter diversion. The hotter the summer, the more ice is found in the Eiskammer, and the general 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 Trias formation, and so far no limestone stalactites have been discovered. It has not, however, as yet been fully explored. The editor of the proceedings of the Austrian Alpine Club gives a reference to Scheiner, 'Ausflug nach der Hoehle der Frauenmauer,' (Steiermarkische Zeitschrift, neue Folge, i. 2, 1834, p. 3.)

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

Near Glaneck in the Untersberg, not far from Salzburg, is a cave called the Kolowrathoehle, of which a description is given by Guembel in his great geological work on the Bavarian Alps.[126] It is a spacious cavern, opening in a steep wall of rock above the Rositenschlucht between the Platten and Dachstein-kalk.[127] An ice-current rushes from within, and ice is found on the threshold, becoming more prevalent in the farther recesses of the cave. The lower parts are tolerably roomy, and masses of ice of various shapes are found piled one upon another, lighting up with magical effect when torches are brought to bear upon them. Guembel believes that the cold currents which stream into the cave from the numerous fissures in its walls are the cause of the ice; and though this is the only known ice-cave far and near, he imagines that the icy-currents which are frequently met with in that district, and in the Hochgebirge, would be found to proceed in reality from like caves, if the fissures from which they blow could be penetrated.

Behrens[128] describes two ice-caves near Questenberg, in the county of Stollberg, on the Harz mountains. They both occur in limestone, and are known as the Great and Little Ice-holes. The one is close to the village of Questenberg, and consists of a chasm several fathoms deep, so cold that in summer the water trickling down its edges is frozen into long icicles. The opening is large and faces due south, and yet the hotter the 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 is spacious and light, and very cold in summer.

In Gehler's Physik. Woerterbuch (Art Hoehle), a small hole is mentioned near Dole, which is said to be remarkable for the large and curiously-shaped icicles found there; but no sufficient account of it seems to have been given.

An ice-hole is also spoken of in the same article, which occurs on the east side of the town of Vesoul.[129] The hole is described as being small, with a little rivulet of water: this water, and also that which trickles down the walls of the cave, is converted into ice, and so much is formed on a cold day that it requires eight warm days to melt it. Gollut, in his description of the fre-puits of Vesoul,[130] observes that the remarkable pit known by that name was so cold, that in his time it had never been fully explored. Gehler's expression, however, 'a small hole,' cannot possibly apply to the fre-puits; so that these would seem to be two different examples of cold caves near Vesoul.

There is an interesting account in Poggendorff's Annalen[131] of a visit made by Professor A. Pleischl to a mountain in the circle of Leitmeritz, where ice is found in summer under very curious circumstances. The mountain is called Pleschiwetz, and lies above Kameik, in Bohemia, not far from the town of Leitmeritz. On the 24th of June in each year, large numbers of pilgrims assemble at the romantic chapel of S. John the Baptist in the Wilderness; and it is a part of their occupation to search for ice under the basaltic rocks, and carry it home wrapped in moss, as a proof that they have really made the pilgrimage. Professor Pleischl visited this district at the end of May 1834. The weather was hot for the season, as had been the case in April also, and there had been 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 small plain to the foot of the basaltic rocks. Here the mountain slopes away very steeply to the south, and the slope is thickly strewn with basaltic debris. From east to west this slope measures about 40 fathoms, and its length is about 70 fathoms. It is surrounded on both sides and at the foot by trees and shrubs. The sun burned so directly on to the debris, that the basaltic blocks were in some cases too hot to be touched by the naked hand.

Professor Pleischl spent three hours of the early afternoon on this spot. The upper surface of the basaltic blocks had a temperature of at least 122 deg. F. The presence of an icy current was detected by inserting the hand into the lower crevices; and on removing the loose stones to a depth of 1-1/2 or 2 feet, ice was found in considerable quantities. On the 27th of August, he proceeded to make a further investigation of this phenomenon; but he found the temperature of the blocks only 106 deg. F., and in the crevices, at a depth of 2 or 3 feet, the lowest temperature reached was 38 deg..75 F. The external temperature in the shade was at the same time 83 deg. F.

A third visit, in January 1835, gave no results; but on January 21, 1838, the Professor succeeded in determining some very remarkable facts. A depression in the sloping plain is called, par excellence, the ice-hole; and this is surrounded by firs and birches, which grow within three or four fathoms of the edge of the hole, so that the rays of the sun do not reach the hole in winter. Fresh snow lay on these trees; and there was nowhere any sign of melted snow, or of the formation of icicles. The basaltic debris, in which ice had been found in the summer, covers here a space of 5 fathoms long by 3 or 4 broad, immediately at the foot of a steep basaltic precipice. At eleven in the morning the temperature was 14 deg. F. in the shade; and snow lay all round the ice-hole, to a thickness of 1-1/2 or 2 feet. The snow which covered the debris was pierced by holes, which could not have been caused by the sun, for its rays did not penetrate the trees; and, indeed, no sun had been visible for some days. These holes were generally turned towards the north, and were like chimneys. On investigation, it was found that icicles hung down into them, showing, of course, past or present thaw, and within the cavities no ice was found. The thermometer gave here from 27 deg..5 F. to 25 deg..15 F.; but in the crevices, into which the thermometer could not be pushed, the hand discovered a warm air. The moss drawn from these crevices was found to be steeped in unfrozen water, and it froze promptly when brought into the outer air.

The party afterwards climbed up the precipitous basalt, and reached, at 3 P.M., a level covered with large blocks of the same material, where the thermometer was slightly under 12 deg. F. in the shade. The blocks were for the most part stripped of snow, and in some cases thin shields of ice were observed standing out two or three inches from them, forming hollow chambers, in which an agreeable warmth was found. These shields were invariably on the south side of the stones, the north side being free from ice and snow alike. In some places vapours were seen to rise. The thermometer gave 41 deg. F. at a depth of six inches among the stones, though the external temperature, as has been said, was 12 deg. F. For eight days previously, the thermometer had been always far below the freezing point, and on the 17th (four days before) had been 13 deg. below zero (F.). On the 19th and 20th heavy snow had fallen. All these facts seem to show that the warmth which had caused the chimneys in the snow over the ice-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 hotter the summer, the more ice is formed; and that it disappears when the nights become long and the days short. Dr. Weiss, for six years head of the Gymnasium of Leitmeritz, stated that when one of the holes was emptied of ice in the summer, it filled again in a few days. The explanation given by the Professor of this phenomenon is, that the blocks of basalt, that being an excellent conductor of heat, pass so much warmth through to their under surfaces—which form the roof of small chambers filled with a spongy mass of decaying leaves—that the rapid evaporation thereby caused produces the cold air and the ice. He omits to explain why there should be anything exceptional in the winter phenomenon of the crevices among the stones.