[35] In June, 1899, I mentioned these facts to Monsieur Armand Viré, director of the Biologic Laboratory in the catacombs of the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. He was much interested, and promised to make a careful investigation of the matter.
Flora.—The flora of glacières has been as little observed as the fauna. There are scarcely any references to such a thing as glacière plant life in literature. Whether there is a special flora in any glacière cave is still an open question. In the cases of several boulder taluses, there is no doubt that, even if there is not a special flora, at least that the plants near the ice beds are greatly retarded every year in their development. Probably the flora among the boulders blooms a month or six weeks later than the flora in the immediate vicinity. In the cases of the Cave of Paradana and of the Kuntschner Eishöhle it is reported that the plant life becomes more and more arctic in character towards the bottom of the pit.[36]
[36] See Part I.: Ausable Pond, [page 80]; Giant of the Valley, page 83, note 7; Ice Gulch, [page 85]; Spruce Creek, [page 91]. See Part III: Spruce Creek, [page 188]; Paradana, [page 237]; Kuntschner Eishöhle, [page 241].
Paleontology.—No paleontological remains have as yet been reported from glacière caves. No bones of animals have been found, except those of bats in Skerisora[37] and a few of the common genus bos.[38] No relics of the handiwork of man have been discovered; nor, indeed, with the exception of the skeletons found in the cave of Yeermallik in Kondooz,[39] anything which reveals the presence of man in glacières or that they were ever used for habitation. The reason that there are so few remains in glacière caves is undoubtedly because their temperatures are too low for their occupation by animal or man; but, from the evidence afforded by their non-occupation, may be drawn the valuable inference that the glacière caves of to-day were glacière caves long ago.
[37] See Part III.: Skerisora, [page 245].
[38] See Part I.: Saint-Livres, [page 68].
[39] See Part III.: Yeermallik, [page 261].
Legends and Religion.—There are scarcely any legends connected with glacières. I know only of one about one of the caves of the Mont Parmelan.[40] Nor does there seem to be any reference to glacière caves in works of fiction. Dante makes his last hell full of an ice lake, but an attentive perusal fails to reveal a single line which in any way describes or suggests a glacière. In at least two cases,[41] however, the ice in caves is connected with religion, as in Kashmere, the Hindoos, and in Arizona, the Zuni Indians, either worship or pray at glacière caves, overawed, from some mystical feeling, by the permanence of the ice formations which they connect with their deities.
[40] See Part III.: Glacière de l’Enfer, [page 216].
[41] See Part III.: Amarnath, [page 262]; Cave, White Mountains, Arizona, [page 176].