Dr. Krenner, in 1874, wrote of Dóbsina as “a natural ice cellar of giant dimensions, whose ice masses formed in winter, the summer does not succeed in melting.”
Professor W. Boyd Dawkins wrote in 1874: “The apparent anomaly that one only out of a group of caves exposed to the same temperature should be a glacière, may be explained by the fact that these conditions [those formulated by the Rev. G. F. Browne] are found in combination but rarely, and if one were absent there would be no accumulation of perpetual ice. It is very probable that the store of cold laid up in these caves, as in an ice house, has been ultimately derived from the great refrigeration of climate in Europe in the Glacial Period.”
Mr. Theodore Kirchhoff examined the lava caves in the State of Washington and in 1876 wrote that he considered that the ice in the smaller ones were simply remains of the winter’s cold. He thought that the ice in the large cave where there is a draught could not be accounted for in the same way, so he concluded that the ice must be due to the draught.
Mr. N. M. Lowe, in 1879, proposed the Compressed Air or Capillary theory[74] about the Cave at Decorah.
[74] See Part II., [page 142].
Mr. John Ritchie, Jr., in 1879, gave an exceedingly clear exposition of the theory in the same journal.
Mr. Aden S. Benedict, in 1881, published his observations about Decorah. He found that there was no water falling in the cave to compress the air, that there was no water falling near enough to be heard, nor any aperture giving vent to cold air in the cave. He thought that the cold of winter cools the sides of the cave several degrees below freezing point and that these rocks are so far underground that it would take a long season of hot weather to raise this temperature to the melting point of ice. In the spring the water percolates through the soil and drips on to the yet freezing rocks; on which it freezes and remains until the heat of summer penetrates to a sufficient depth to melt it away. The rocks once raised above 0° remain so until the following winter and consequently if there are heavy autumn rains there is water on the rocks but no ice. Mr. Benedict concluded that there was nothing more mysterious about Decorah than the fact that if you drop water on a cold stone it will freeze.
Professor Friederich Umlauft in 1883 wrote about glacières "that as moreover they were generally protected against warm winds and strong draughts and as their entrances look towards the north or east, there is consequently more ice formed under these conditions in winter than can melt away in summer. Other ice grottoes however show the remarkable characteristic, that it is warm in them in winter, in the summer on the contrary it becomes so cold that all the dripping water freezes. They are found near snow clefts and gorges; when in the hot summer months the snow melts, then the cold which has become free presses down the temperature in the cave so much that the water freezes into ice. Such grottoes are in Austria at * * * Frauenmauer, * * * Brandstein, * * * Teplitz, * * * Scilize, * * * Dobschauer."