The weather was abominable next morning, the clouds lying along and dripping into the valley; but the inn was so awful that we decided to try to reach the cave. We had a nice little blue-bloused peasant for a guide, Sylvain Jean Cotterlaz by name. We went first for about an hour on foot towards Le Grand Bornant on a fair road, to an alp called La Salle. This was surrounded by a herd of cows, some of whom seemed interested in our party. It now began to rain fiercely, and except for my brother’s perseverance, I should certainly have given in. A fair path led up steep grass slopes into the clouds covering the Mont Bargy. Each of us had his umbrella raised, and the ascent was slippery and uninspiring. An hour took us to two deserted huts, the Alpe Montarquis, and half an hour beyond, we came to the caves; by which time we were thoroughly soaked.
The caves are on Mont Bargy, at the base of a limestone precipice, which, I think, faces nearly north. There are three caves close together. The lowest, or Petite Cave de Montarquis, Cotterlaz said is also called La Cave des Faux-Monayeurs; as according to a, probably untrue, tradition, it was once used by counterfeiters. Above this is a small rock pocket, accessible down an easy slope. We went in and found that there was no ice and indeed scarcely any water in it.
The Grand—not Grande—Cave is a little higher up, and as we came to it, several sheep, which had taken refuge in the mouth from the storm, hastily skipped away, evidently distrusting our intentions. The altitude of the cave is said to be 2078 meters. The entrance must face about north east; it is elliptical in shape, about fifteen meters wide, and six meters high, and is badly sheltered against the wind. The cave is of moderate size, about sixty meters in length and forty-five meters in width, and the average height of the roof is not over four or five meters. A gentle slope leads downwards. Many blocks of rock in the front part had bits of moss growing on them, and some of the mud there was of a dull purple color, as if some dark madder was mixed with it. There was a red streak in the right hand wall, probably caused by iron. I observed no limestone stalactites nor stalagmites in the cave, the main body of which was well lighted throughout by daylight.
Fig. 8. Vertical Section of Grand Cave de Montarquis.
The ice was in the shape of a nearly level floor, about twelve meters long and eight meters wide: the shape was irregular, and the ice so smooth that it was hard to stand up. The rocks in the rear overhung the ice floor at one spot; and here, there streamed from a fissure to the ice floor an ice column, some three meters high, whose base was fully two meters distant from the rock wall. Near this column was a tiny ice cone, which evidently had been bigger. Cotterlaz seemed impressed with the fact that there was only one column in the cave, as he said that in June, there would have been many columns and a larger and deeper ice floor. The ice was sloppy in places, with several small hollows cut by the drip and containing water. In one place there was a tiny runnel filled with water, but there was no current. There was a good deal of drip all through the cave, and in fact in one or two places we might have kept on holding up our umbrellas with advantage. I hacked at several pieces of ice, but none of it was prismatic.
At the rear of the cave, the ice ran, in a tongue, up the entrance of an ascending fissure in the rocks. My brother cut here six or seven steps in the ice; and he found them difficult to make, as the ice was hard and thin, and not in a melting state. Above the ice tongue we clambered up the rocks of the fissure some four or five meters further, finding there some lumps of ice which were not melting. At this spot we were almost in darkness. A lighted match burned steadily, so that there was evidently not much draught, but the smoke gradually descended, showing a slight downward current. This was the coldest, as well as the furthest point of the cave we could reach, and we there heard a tiny waterfall trickling within the fissure, although we could not see it.
By this time we were all chilled to the bone, so, abandoning the idea of entering the Petite Cave, we retreated down the sopping wet, slippery grass slopes to Pralong, and then immediately walked all the way to Cluses to avoid taking cold. The Grand Cave was the most fatiguing trip I ever made after glacières, but the circumstances were rather unusual.