Glacières; or, Freezing Caverns

by Edwin Swift Balch

Glacière Cave of Amarnath. (Miss Mary Coxe of Philadelphia showed me a copy of a letter of Dr. Wilhelmine Eger describing a visit to this cave.)—It lies three days’ journey from Pailgam in Kashmere, on the borders of Little Tibet. The altitude is evidently high as one crosses snow fields to get to it. A small path zigzagging up a grassy slope leads to the cave and is a stiff climb from the valley. The cave opens on the side of a mountain and has a large, almost square mouth at least as big as the floor area within. The floor of the cave is the continuation of the grass slope and slants upwards and backwards to the back wall, the only case of the kind so far reported. This cave is most curiously connected with religion. Dr. Eger says that there are two small blocks of ice in it which never melt. From time immemorial these blocks of ice have been sacred to the Hindoos who worship them—as re-incarnations—under the names of Shiva and Ganesh. Dr. Eger saw offerings of rice and flowers on them. Thousands of pilgrims come every year at the end of July or beginning of August from all parts of India. Thousands of miles have been traversed and hundreds of lives laid down through this journey. Every year people die either before reaching the cave or after. The trip from Pailgam in Kashmere takes three days up and two days down, if one returns by a shorter route where the way is unsafe because of avalanches. So many have perished there that the pass is called “The Way of Death.” This must be taken by one class of pilgrims, Sardhas or Holy Men, to complete the sacred circuit, but the Hindoos say any one dying on the pass will go straight to heaven.

Icicles Formed by Radiation. (General Sir Richard Strachey, Geographical Journal, 1900, vol. XV., page 168.)—On the Balch pass of the Balch range in Tibet, General Strachey, in 1848, saw icicles of which he says: "On the rocks exposed to the south were very curious incrustations of ice, icicles indeed, but standing out horizontally like fingers towards the wind. I was not able to understand how they were caused, nor can I tell why they were confined to particular spots. The thermometer stood at 41°[F.], and though the dew point at the time would probably have been below 32°[F.], and the cold produced by evaporation sufficient therefore to freeze water, yet it is evident that no condensation could ever take place simultaneously with the evaporation. * * * It has since occurred to me that these icicles were formed by radiation. I found, subsequently, in a somewhat similar position, that a thermometer suspended vertically, and simply exposed to the sky in front of it, was depressed as much as 20° F. below the true temperature of the surrounding air. This result was, of course, due to the radiation through the extremely dry and rarefied atmosphere at the great elevation at which the thermometer was exposed. As radiation takes place freely from a surface of ice, the growth of such icicles as those described might be due to the condensation of vapour brought up by the southerly day winds that so constantly blow over these passes, and its accumulation in the form of ice on the exposed extremity of the icicle, the temperature of which might thus have been greatly reduced."

INDIA.

Ice Formed by Radiation. (T. A. Wise, Nature, vol. V., page 189; R. H. Scott, Elementary Meteorology, Third Ed., pages 61, 62.)—Mr. Bunford Samuel called my attention to the mode of manufacturing ice by radiation in India. It is as follows:—

“A very practical use of nocturnal radiation has been made from time immemorial in India in the preparation of ice, and on such a scale that about 10 tons of ice can be procured in a single night from twenty beds of the dimensions about to be given, when the temperature of the air is 15° or 20° [F.] above the freezing point. * * * The locality referred to is the immediate neighborhood of Calcutta. A rectangular piece of ground is marked out, lying east and west, and measuring 120 by 20 feet. This is excavated to the depth of two feet and filled with rice straw rather loosely laid, to within six inches of the surface of the ground. The ice is formed in shallow dishes of porous earthenware, and the amount of water placed in each is regulated by the amount of ice expected.

“In the cold weather, when the temperature of the air at the ice fields is under 50°, ice is formed in the dishes. The freezing is most active with N. N. W. airs, as these are driest; it ceases entirely with southerly or easterly airs, even though their temperature may be lower than that of the N. N. W. wind.

“No ice is formed if the wind is sufficiently strong to be called a breeze, for the air is not left long enough at rest, above the bed, for its temperature to fall sufficiently, by the action of radiation.

“The rice straw, being kept loose and perfectly dry, cuts off the access of heat from the surface of the ground below it, and, when the sun goes down, the straw being a powerful radiator, the temperature of the air in contact with the dishes is reduced some 20° below that prevailing some two or three feet above them. The rapid evaporation of the water into the dry air above creates also an active demand for heat to be rendered latent in the formation of steam, and the result of all these agencies is the formation of ice, under favorable circumstances, on the extensive scale above mentioned.”

KOREA.

Glacière Cave on the Han Gang.—Messrs. J. Edward Farnum and George L. Farnum, of Philadelphia, inform me that they saw a small cave containing ice on the banks of one of the Korean rivers. It is about 75 kilometers from Seoul, nearly northeast, near the ferry where the old road leading from Seoul towards northern Korea crosses the Han Gang, the river which passes by Seoul. The entrance is small; perhaps 2 meters wide. The cave is not thoroughly explored. Ice lies near the entrance, and as far back as the Messrs. Farnum could see.