Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland

by G. F. Browne

SECOND CAVE OF THE UPPER GLACIÈRE OF THE PRÉ DE S. LIVRES.

The breadth of the fan at the bottom was 27 feet; and near the archway a very striking column poured from a vertical fissure in the wall, and joined the main stream. The fissure was partially open to the cave, and showed the solid round column within the rock: this column measured 18-1/2 feet in circumference, a little below the point where it became free of the fissure, and it had a stream of ice 22 feet long pouring from its base. The colour of the column was unusual, being a dull yellowish green, and the peculiar structure of the ice gave the whole mass the appearance of coursing down very rapidly, as if the water had been frozen while thus moving, and had not therefore ceased so to move. At the bottom of the fan, the flooring of the cave consisted of broken stones for a small space, and then came a black lake of ice, which occupied all the centre of the cave, and afforded us no opportunity of even guessing at its depth. From the manner, however, in which it blended with the stones at its edge, I am not inclined to believe that this depth was anything very great.

Renaud, in his impetuosity, had ceased to cut steps towards the bottom of the slope, and had slipped down the last few feet, of course cutting the remaining steps before attempting to reascend. We found him strutting about the floor of the cave, tossing his wet cap in the air, and crying No one! No one! I the first!, declining to take any part in measurements until the full of his delight and pride had been poured out. He shouted so loud that I was obliged to stop him, lest by some chance the unwonted disturbance of the air should bring down an unstable block from the roof of the arch, and seal us up for ever. There was no sign of incipient thaw in the cave, and the air was very dry, so much so as at once to call attention to the fact. At the farthest end, a lofty dome opened up in the roof; and possibly at some time or other the rock may here fall through, and afford another means of entrance. Beneath this dome a very lovely cluster of columns had grouped itself, formed of the clear porcelain-like ice, and fretted and festooned with the utmost delicacy, as if Andersen's Ice Maiden had been there in one of her amiable moods, and had built herself a palace. This dome in the roof was similar to many which I afterwards observed in other glacières, being a vertical fissure with flutings from top to bottom--not a spherical dome, but of that more elegant shape which the female dress of modern times assumes on a tall person.

Between the base of the circular column and the wall, we found a rare instance of clear jelly-like ice, without any lines external or internal, such as is formed in the open air under very favourable circumstances.

VERTICAL SECTIONS OF THE UPPER GLACIÈRE OF THE PRÉ DE S. LIVRES.

The ordinary number of undergraduate May Terms had afforded various opportunities for studying the comparative clearness of different pieces of ice, but certainly no one ever saw a lemon pippin through an inch and a half of that material so clearly as we now saw the white rock through 1-1/2 feet. Mignot, indeed, said 2 feet; but it was his way to make a large estimate of dimensions, and he constantly interrupted my record of measurements by the assertion that I had made them moins que plus. We were all disappointed by the actual size of the ice-fall which it had cost us so much time and trouble to descend, the distance from the first step to the last being only 26 feet: as this, however, was given by a string stretched from the one point to the other, and not following the concave surface of the ice, the real distance was something more than this.

It was now getting rather late, considering the journey one of us had yet to perform, and we walked quickly away from the glacière, agreeing that it was not improbable that in that part of the Jura there might be many hidden caves containing more or less ice, with no entrance from the world outside, except the fissures which afford a way for the water. The entrance to this cave was so small, that the same physical effect might well be produced by one or two cracks in the rock, such as every one is well acquainted with who has walked on the fissured limestone summits of the lower mountains; and, indeed, Renaud positively affirmed that at the time of his former visit there was not even this entrance to the lower cave, for the ice-stream reached then a higher point of the wall, and completely filled and hid the arch we had discovered. It is very difficult to see how ice can exist in a cave which has no atmospheric communication with the colds of winter, as would apparently be the case with this cave if the one entrance were closed; but where the cracks and small fissures in the rock do provide such communication, there is no reason why we should not imagine all manner of glacial beauties decorating unknown cavities, beyond the general physical law to which all the glacières would seem to be exceptions.

Mignot now became communicative as to the amount of ice supplied by his glacière, the lower of the two we had seen; and his statistics were so utterly confused, that I gave him ten centimes and an address, and charged him to write it all down from his account-book, and send it by post. The letter was accordingly written on July 24, and after trying many unsuccessful addresses in various parts of Switzerland, it finally reached England in the middle of September. It tells its own tale sufficiently well, and is therefore given here with all the mistakes of the original.