Glacières; or, Freezing Caverns

by Edwin Swift Balch

Much stress appears to have been laid on the paper of Professor Pleischl by Professor Krauss and one or two others. The weak point in it is that Pleischl did not see the ice form in summer, but was only, as usual, told that it did so. There is nothing in the facts given to show that the places mentioned are different from any other taluses, where ice does not form as the result of heat.

Mr. C. B. Hayden, in 1843, wrote about the Ice Mountain in Virginia, and held that the porous nature of the rocks makes them poor conductors of heat, and that the mountain is a huge sandstone refrigerator.

Dr. S. Pearl Lathrop, in 1844, wrote of the Ice Bed at Wallingford, Vermont, as a great natural refrigerator.

Sir Roderick Impey Murchison wrote in 1845 about the salt mine and freezing cave of Illetzkaya-Zatschita. He visited them during a hot August, and was assured that the cold within is greatest when the external air is hottest and driest; that the fall of rain and a moist atmosphere produce some diminution in the cold of the cave and that on the setting in of winter the ice disappears entirely. He accepted these statements evidently only in a half hearted way, submitting them to Sir John Herschel, who tried to explain them, in case they were true, of which Herschel was likewise doubtful. Murchison at first thought that the ice was due to the underlying bed of salt, but soon recognized that this explanation could not be correct. He also rejected Herschel’s “heat and cold wave” theory. Shortly after this he came across Pictet’s memoir, and on the strength of it concluded that the ice in Illetzkaya-Zatschita could not be the residue of a winter deposit, but must be due to descending currents of air; to the previously wet and damp roof affording a passage to water; and to the excessive dryness of the external air of these southern steppes contributing powerfully to the refrigerating effects of evaporation.

Professor Arnold Guyot, in 1856, said that the well at Owego admitted large quantities of snow which melts, but not readily, because it is not accessible to the sun. It therefore goes through the same process as glaciers, of partly melting and refreezing; and we have the formation of a glacier without movement.

Professor W. B. Rogers, in 1856, held that the well at Owego became the recipient of the coldest air of the neighborhood, and the temperature remained abnormal because the bad conducting power of the materials of the well retained the cold.

Professor D. Olmstead, in 1856, held about Owego that cold air exists in the interior of the earth which may have found a ventilating shaft in the well.

Professor Petruzzi, in 1857, considered the following requirements necessary for a glacière: A high altitude above the sea; a decided drop into the interior of the mountain; absence of all draught; protection against all warm and moist winds, therefore the opening to north and east. He also says about the glacière on the Pograca: that it is in shadow; that the thick forest round the mouth keeps the temperature down; that it begins to freeze below when it does above; that the cold remains there into the spring; and that the water from rain or other sources, which flows into the cave, must freeze there, and the ice form in greater quantities than the heat of summer can melt away.

Mr. Albert D. Hager wrote in 1859: "The question now arises, why it was that such a congealed mass of earth was found in Brandon at the time the frozen well was dug. My opinion is, that the bad conducting property of the solids surrounding it, the absence of ascending currents of heated air, and of subterranean streams of water in this particular locality favored such a result; and that the bad conducting property of clay, as well as that of the porous gravel associated with it, taken in connection with the highly inclined porous strata, and the disposition of heated air to rise, and the cold air to remain below, contribute to produce in the earth, at this place, a mammoth refrigerator, embracing essentially the same principle as that involved in the justly celebrated refrigerator known as 'Winship’s Patent.'

“Clay is not only nearly impervious to air and water, but it is one of the worst conductors of heat in nature. (Note.—To test the question whether clay was a poor conductor of heat or not, I took two basins of equal size, and in one put a coating of clay one-half inch thick, into which I put water of a temperature of 52° Fahrenheit. Into the other dish, which was clean, I put water of the same temperature, and subjected the two basins to equal amounts of heat; and in five minutes the water in the clean dish indicated a temperature of 70° while that of the one coated with clay was raised only to 56°.) If we can rely upon the statements of those who dug out the frozen earth, it rested upon a stratum of clay that lay upon the bed of pebbles in which the water was found, for it was described as being a very sticky kind of hard pan.