Aigue, or egue, in the patois of this district, is equivalent to eau, the Latin aqua.
Ebel, in his Swiss Manual (French translation of 1818, t. iii.), mentions this glacière under the head Motiers, and observes that it and the grotto of S. Georges are the only places in the Jura where ice remains through the summer. This statement, in common with a great part of Ebel, has been transferred to the letterpress of Switzerland Illustrated.
Switzerland sent 7,500,000 gallons of absinthe to France in 1864.
Point d'argent, point de Suisse, is a proverbial expression which the Swiss twist into a historical compliment, asserting that it arose in early mercenary times, from the fact that they were too virtuous to accept the suggestion of the general who hired them, and wished them to take their pay in kind from the defenceless people of the country they had served.
It is probable that the ice is on the increase in this glacière, and that an archway, now filled up by the growing ice, has at one time existed in the wall on this side of the care, through which the ice and water used to pour into the subterranean depths of which the old woman had told us. At the time of our visit, we could find no outlet.