Freezing Cave, Fergus County, Montana.—Mr. Robert Butler, of San José, Cal., visited this place, which is about 35 kilometers southeast of Lewistown. It is on the north side of a butte. Masses of ice and great icicles form in some parts of the cave in such quantities during the latter part of winter that the cave furnishes ice for cooling the drinking water for several dozen families. During July and August the people come from some distance around to get the ice. The people in the neighborhood believe that the ice forms in summer and thaws away in winter. They also speak of the ever upward draught of cold air coming possibly from some great hidden cavern in the lower recesses of the mountain.
Freezing Well at Horse Plains, Montana. (Levi Allen, Scientific American. New Series, 27th October, 1883.)—The well is described as 13.60 meters deep. It is dug through solid gravel, and in sinking it there was encountered, at a depth of 10.60 meters, a current of air strong enough to blow out a candle. It began to freeze in September, 1882, and in November it was frozen solid.
Freezing Silver Mine, Bighorn County, Wyoming.—This place is in the Sunlight Basin of the Shoshone Mountains. Mr. William Worrell Wagner, of Philadelphia, informs me that he visited it in August, 1897. It is a silver mine or tunnel, running straight into the mountain for about 60 meters, at an altitude of about 3300 meters. The peaks of the Teton range were in sight from the mouth of the tunnel. For the first half of the way in, a good many icicles were hanging from the rocks. The last half of the tunnel was thickly coated with ice and looked like a cold storage plant. Snow disappears on the rocks outside about June, and begins to fall again in September, so that Mr. Wagner’s visit was at about the hottest time of the year. Mr. Wagner presented the meat of a bull wapiti he had shot to the miners, and they stored it in the mine as if it had been an artificial refrigerator.
Rifts of Ice, Mount McClellan, Colorado. (Edward L. Berthoud, American Journal of Science and Arts. Third Series, 1876, vol. XI., page 108.)—Near the summit of Mount McClellan, is the Centennial Lode, which runs into the mountain, at an altitude of about 3900 meters. Intercalated in the mineral vein are three or four well defined veins of solid ice parallel with the bedding of the rock and filling all its inner side-cracks and fissures. The same frozen substratum is found in two other lodes near by on the same mountain. Nothing of the kind is known on other Colorado mountains. The soil is loose and largely made up of rocky débris, which shows that the ice is probably due to local causes.
Freezing Tunnel on the Hagerman Pass, Colorado. (Philadelphia Press, October 16th, 1897.)—The Hagerman Pass Railroad line is said to have been abandoned after the completion of the Busk-Ivanhoe tunnel, but to have been rebuilt. The Hagerman tunnel for a distance of over 700 meters was filled with solid ice, and it required blasting with dynamite, and a month’s continuous labor, day and night, to dig the ice out.
Freezing Cavern in Cow Mountain, Colorado. (Post Dispatch, St. Louis, Mo., July 13th, 1897, and September 5th, 1897. Mail Order Monthly, St. Paul, Minn., October, 1899.)—The cave was discovered by parties doing assessment work on a group of claims. A man was picking in a three meter hole when he struck his pick into an opening, which was gradually enlarged and showed a deep pit underneath. The men got a rope and descended into an immense cavern full of ice. Later exploration led to a small hall, some 5 meters in diameter, full of icicles. From here a fissure led into a second rock chamber larger than the first. A small hole in the floor at an angle of some 45° gave access to a third and larger hall, about 25 meters by 40 meters. Great masses of ice were found in this, also a small lake, about 12 meters by 20 meters. “Some who have visited the wonderful discovery are of the opinion that it is a great cave or fissure in a glacier which for centuries has been slowly making its way down from Pike’s Peak and whose waters are now feeding the Arkansas River.”
Windhole, Arizona. (Christian Herald, March 24th, 1897.)—Mr. Cofman, while drilling a well on his place, is said to have opened a windhole from which the escaping air current was strong enough to blow off the hats of the men who were recovering the lost drill. Some days the air escapes with such force that pebbles the size of peas are thrown up, accompanied by a sound much like the distant bellowing of a fog horn. Again for days there will be a suction current, unaccompanied by sound, in which the current of air passes into the earth with somewhat less force than when escaping, and any light object, as a feather or a piece of paper, will be immediately sucked in. The account is probably exaggerated.
Freezing Lava Cave near Flagstaff, Arizona.—Professor W. B. Scott of Princeton University told me of this cave, which he had not visited himself. It lies 14.5 kilometers south of Flagstaff, on the Mesa table land, at an altitude of about 2000 meters. It was described to Professor Scott as a double cave, with two floors, one over the other, the lower containing the most ice. It is in lava, and can only be entered by crawling in on hands and knees.
Freezing Cave or Gorge, White Mountains, Arizona.—Mr. Frank Hamilton Cushing has told me of this place. It is a cleft among lava rock, which being roofed at the further end, might be described as a cave. In this the ice remains until June or July, much later than anywhere else in the neighborhood. The Zuni Indians worship before this, calling the ice the breath of the Gods, the snow they consider as a sort of down. The region is arid, which makes any water precious, and this fact has developed the element of mysticism about snow and ice among the Indians.