Glacières; or, Freezing Caverns

by Edwin Swift Balch

Fig. 7. Vertical Section of the Glacière de Saint-Georges.

Under the vertical shaft, which is at one end of the cave, was a mass of winter’s snow which had fallen through the opening. Under this snow was a deep hole, which I believe was the drain hole of the glacière before the ice floor was cut away to a level below its mouth. Into this hole I threw lumps of ice and heard them go bumping down for three or four seconds.

The atmosphere was not uncomfortable, although the temperature was about 7° C. The air did not feel damp, and seemed almost still, but standing on the ice floor nearly under the vertical hole, I found that the smoke from my cigar ascended rapidly, and it seemed as if there were a rising air current, which sucked up the smoke.

Saint-Georges is a fine cavern and well worth visiting. Émery said that the ice was not cut out for eight years preceding the summer of 1897, and that for several years it was not possible to go down at all, as there were no ladders, until he put in the two we utilized.[5] All the natives of Saint-Georges believed that the ice was a summer formation and that it was warm in the cave in winter.

[5] In the illustration of the Glacière de Saint-Georges, the opening to the left is the vertical pit, through which the ice is taken out: underneath it, is the heap of winter snow. The man in the upper part of the picture is standing on the rock shelf at the base of the upper ladder and at the top of the lower ladder. To the right of the lower ladder near the bottom, a bit of the ice curtain is visible.

THE GLACIÈRE DU PRÉ DE SAINT-LIVRES.

From the Glacière de Saint-Georges, Émery and I pushed on through the woods to the Pré de Saint-Livres. In several places we came on the tracks of deer, and my guide told me he had killed eleven roe during the last hunting season. He said also that an attempt is being made to introduce the red deer into the Jura, and that the experiment seemed to be meeting with success. We kept to the crest of the ridge along wood paths, and, as the day was fortunately cool and cloudy, we were able to walk fast and reached the Pré de Saint-Livres in two hours. At a spot called La Foiraudaz we met the workmen coming down with a cartload of ice, which they were taking to Bière. Some of this ice was extremely prismatic.

The Pré de Saint-Livres is a big mountain pasture or meadow, surrounded with hills covered with pine trees. In the middle of it is the Châlet de Saint-Livres, round which numerous cows and calves were congregated and where a small shepherd gave us some milk. The châlet is not one of the old picturesque Swiss châlets with great stones on the roof to keep it from being blown away by the wind, but a strongly built single storied stone structure, which looks extremely modern among the green hills.

The glacière lies close to the châlet, on the southern side of the meadows, just on the edge of the woods, and is surrounded with trees. It is at an altitude of 1362 meters and faces nearly due north. To prevent the cattle from falling in, it is enclosed with a stone wall, except in front, where there is a fence formed of an abattis of pine trees. The cave belongs to the pit variety, and the pit is a big one. As you stand at the top, you can look down to the end of the glacière. The rocks are vertical all round the pit, and in front there is a small rock shelf, one-third of the way down, which divides the rock wall into two long drops. Against each of these was a rickety ladder, so we fixed the end of my rope to the pine trees of the fence, and hung on to it while we climbed down. The base of the lower and longer ladder rested on a mass of snow. This was the beginning of a long snow slope which gradually turned to ice and filled the cave. The cave itself, measuring along the snow slope, is some forty meters long and some ten to fifteen meters wide, and is entirely lighted by daylight.