Glacières; or, Freezing Caverns

by Edwin Swift Balch

Behrens, in 1703, thought it was colder in summer than in winter in the caves near Questenberg in the Harz.

M. de Billerez, in 1712, writes that at Chaux-les-Passavant it is really colder in summer than in winter; and that the ice is harder than river ice, and this he thinks is due to the presence of a nitrous or ammoniacal salt, which he says he found in the rocks.

M. de Boz made four trips to Chaux-les-Passavant on the 15th of May and 8th of November, 1725; and the 8th of March and 20th of August, 1726. His memoir says that his observations tend to disprove those of M. de Billerez, and that “the cause for the great cold, which is less great in summer, although always remaining, is quite natural.” He cites as causes for the ice the exposure to the north-north-east; the rock portal sheltering the entrance, and all the forest covering the surrounding lands; and adds that some veracious persons told him that since some of the big trees above the grotto had been cut down there was less ice than before. He found no traces of salt, nor any springs, and that the water supply came from the rains and melted snows filtering through the ground.

In 1739, Matthias Bel published his curious account of Szilize.[73]

[73] See Part III.: [page 254].

J. N. Nagel, a Vienna mathematician, visited the Ötscher in 1747. He concluded that the ice was made in winter and preserved in summer as in an ice house.

M. de Cossigny wrote, in 1750, about Chaux-les-Passavant. He made a plan of the cave and took many observations in April, August and October, and concluded that the interior condition of the cave does not change noticeably from winter to summer, no matter what the external conditions of temperature may be; that what people say of greater cold in summer, vanishes before actual experience and that, as a state of freezing reigns more or less continuously in the cave, it is not surprising if the ice accumulates. Apparently he was the first to notice and insist on the necessity of drainage to the cave through cracks in the rocks. He also made a series of observations disproving those of M. de Billerez, as to the presence of any kinds of salts in the rocks or ice.

Hacquet, in 1778, thought that the ice in the cave at Lazhna-gora formed in winter, but he also thought that there must undoubtedly be some salt in the water. He says he found ice in the cave in the spring, and that his companion, a priest, had never found any in winter. He therefore concluded that by that time it had all melted.