Index 329
ILLUSTRATIONS.
Ice Slope and Basin, Kolowratshöhle Frontispiece
Glacière de Chaux-les-Passavant 8
Ice Stalagmites, Chaux-les-Passavant 10
Vertical Section of Chaux-les-Passavant 11
Ice Stalagmites, Chaux-les-Passavant 12
Vertical Section of Dóbsina 15
The Lower Rositten Alp and the Untersberg 16
The Entrance of the Kolowratshöhle 18
Vertical Section of the Kolowratshöhle 19
Top of Ice Slope, Kolowratshöhle 20
At the Entrance of the Schafloch 22
Hollow Cones and Fissure Columns, Schafloch 24
On the Ice Slope, Schafloch 26
In the Rear of the Schafloch 28
Vertical Section of Déményfálva 29
The Frauenmauer and the Gsoll Alp 38
In the Frauenmauerhöhle 40
Vertical Section of the Frauenmauerhöhle 42
Ice Stalactite, Frauenmauerhöhle 42
Vertical Section of the Suchenreuther Eisloch 57
La Glacière de Saint-Georges 62
Vertical Section of the Glacière de Saint-Georges 64
Vertical Section of Grand Cave de Montarquis 72
The Bluff at Decorah 86
Entrance of the Cave of Decorah 88
Locus Glacialis, Cave of Decorah 90
Gorge at Ellenville 92
Vertical Section of Pit near Summit 97
Vertical Section of Freezing Cave near Williamstown 103
Vertical Section of a Windhole 125
Freezing Cavern at Brainard 180
PART I.
EXPERIENCES IN GLACIÈRES.
EXPERIENCES IN GLACIÈRES.
SUBTERRANEAN ICE IN KING'S RAVINE.
Subterranean ice was brought to my notice by a mere accident, late in
the month of September, 1877, while on a descent of King's Ravine,
on Mount Adams, in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. We had just
descended the rock wall of the mountain and had reached the head of
the gorge, when my companion, Mr. Charles E. Lowe, the well-known
Appalachian guide of Randolph, suddenly said to me, "Would you like a
piece of ice? I can get you some presently." I answered, "Certainly,"
wondering where he would find any. When we got among the big boulders,
which form so rough a path for the traveler at the bottom of the
ravine, Mr. Lowe climbed down under one of the biggest, and presently
reappeared with a good sized lump of ice. I was much impressed at
finding ice at the end of the summer in this gorge, when for months
past no ice or snow had been visible on the surrounding mountains. I
noticed also the peculiar, flaky formation of the ice, and saw at once
that it was something new to me, and in fact it was a piece of what I
have since learned to know as "prismatic ice."
GLACIÈRE NEAR BRISONS.
In the summer of the year 1880, I traveled through the Alps, with a
friend from Philadelphia. On the 17th of September, we drove from
Geneva to Bonneville. Thence we started on foot without a guide, and as
a result got lost in the woods, from which we only extricated ourselves
at nightfall. After retracing our steps to Bonneville, we were glad to
find a man to show us the way we should have taken, and finally reached
the little village of Brisons in France, where we slept. The next day
we took a guide and made our way across the mountains to Annecy, at
one spot going out of our direct route to see a place spoken of by the
natives as a glacière. It was a little pit, and at the base of one
side thereof was the mouth of a small cave into which we could not see
any distance. At the bottom of the pit lay a mass of dirty snow and
ice to which we did not descend, as the sides of the pit were sheer
and smooth, and there was no ladder. This pit seemed to be more of
the nature of a gully filled with winter snow, than a true rock cave
containing ice.
THE GLACIÈRE DE L'HAUT-D'AVIERNOZ.
Three days after this, on Tuesday, the 21st of September, 1880, we
visited the two largest glacières on the Mont Parmelan, near Annecy,
France. At Annecy we inquired at the hotel for a man who knew the Mont
Parmelan; and, after finding one, we made our way to Les Villaz, where
we spent the night in an _auberge_. Our companion was an odd personage.
He was small, about fifty years of age, and looked meek, crushed and
hungry. He wore a long black frock coat and black trousers, thin boots
and a linen shirt, certainly not the ideal outfit for a cave explorer.
Under his care we started early in the morning and toiled up a mountain
path some eight hundred or a thousand meters,[1] through woods and
pastures, to the higher plateau of Mont Parmelan, in which was situated
the first glacière. This was in a great pit, at the bottom of which,
on one side, was a big cave. On the side of the pit opposite to the
opening, there was a steep rock slope, forty or fifty meters long,
whose lower portion was covered with snow. Down this slope we descended
with but little difficulty, reaching at the bottom an almost level ice
floor which spread over the entire cave and was formed throughout of
thick, solid ice. A second and much smaller pit in the roof of the cave
opened directly over the ice floor; and under this pit rose a small
cone of ice, some two meters high, the only one in this glacière.
[1] The metric system is used throughout this book, except in a few
quotations. Thermometric observations are given in degrees Centigrade.
The glacière itself was approximately round in shape, and some twenty
meters in diameter. At one place the rock wall was broken and we could
look into a much smaller inner cave or chamber. Into this we could not
penetrate on account of a long, narrow crack or hole which yawned in
the ice floor for a distance of some five or six meters and continued
through the opening into the second chamber. We tried to cut our way
along the side of the hole, but had to give it up, finding the ice
too hard and our time too short. The crack or hole, whose sides were
solid ice, proved conclusively that the ice in this glacière was many
meters in thickness, for we could look a long way down into the hole,
certainly for ten or twelve meters, until the ice sides disappeared in
darkness, without any visible bottom. The hole cannot be spoken of as
a crevasse, for, besides not looking like a crevasse, it was certainly
formed by other causes than those which form the crevasses in glaciers,
since there is, as a rule, no perceptible movement in subterranean
ice. Doubtless, the hole was due to the drainage of the cave, which
undoubtedly passed off through the hole. There may be, nevertheless,
some little motion in the ice of this glacière, for it is evident that
it is fed principally directly by the winter snows; which, whether as
frozen or melted snow, descend gradually, by the force of gravitation,
from the slope of the pit into the glacière.
As for any possibility of this great mass of ice melting away and
forming again in any one year, it passes belief; there must be at least
the cubic contents of a dozen ordinary houses in the cave, and such a
mass could hardly be destroyed or formed again in any such short space
of time as a fall or spring. This is, therefore, probably a permanent
or perennial glacière.
THE GLACIÈRE DE CHAPUIS.
Starting out from the Glacière de l'Haut-d'Aviernoz we walked across
the plateau of the Mont Parmelan, _en route_ for the second glacière.
This plateau is a curious rock formation, consisting of what the
natives call _lapiaz_, which might be translated "stone-heaps." The
plateau is full of great projecting rocks; and myriads of cracks
and crevices everywhere rend the surface, and over these crevices
one sometimes has to jump. Still, I do not remember any particular
difficulty. It was certainly not nearly as bad walking as the taluses
of loose rocks one meets at the base of many mountains.
Our guide led us for about an hour across the plateau in a southerly
direction, and then, looking over the side of the Parmelan, with a
sweep of the arm covering south, west and north, he told us that the
glacière lay between those points, but he did not know exactly where.
This seemed a rather hopeless prospect, so, as we had no clue to the
whereabouts of our prospective hole, we descended to a couple of
châlets we saw some two hundred meters below, but which at least were
in the direction of Annecy. We followed a goat-herd's path which led
to the châlets from the plateau, one of those dangerous grass tracks,
where nothing would be easier than to make a slip, and where a bad
slip might have unpleasant results. This is, however, just the kind
of place where every one is particularly careful not to slip. We were
careful and so reached the châlets all right, and there we found a
strong, intelligent boy, who at once pointed out the place where the
glacière was, about half way up the slope we had just come down. So we
took him with us, leaving our guide at the châlets to await our return.
The entrance to the glacière was in a wall of rock, set at an angle of
some thirty-five degrees; at the bottom of this there was some grass.
An easy chimney some fifteen meters high led up to the glacière. Up
this chimney we climbed. At the top we entered a little cave about
two meters deep, by a sort of portal about two meters wide. The cave
made an elbow to the right, and passing this we found that it turned
to the left and pointed directly into the mountain. The rock went
down vertically in front of us, but the boy said we could get down,
so having first lowered a candle by a string to see the depth, which
turned out to be a perpendicular drop of some four or five meters,
with the help of the rope we all climbed down. We were already almost
entirely away from the daylight and a few steps took us into complete
darkness, except for the light we had from the candle each of us held
in his hand.
The fissure led straight into the mountain. It was a couple of meters
wide at places, and there we moved along the bottom. In one place it
narrowed below to a wedge, and there we progressed either by climbing
along one side or by placing one foot on one side and the other
foot on the other. The fissure led downwards as well as inwards. It
would have been nothing in daylight to go through it; but in the
semi-darkness it was not easy.
After a descent of some twenty-five meters or thereabouts, we arrived
at the glacière, and I have certainly never seen a weirder place. There
was a great arched rock dome, perhaps six meters in height, and some
twelve in diameter; the floor was a sheet of smooth, slippery ice, at
one end curling over, gently at first, afterwards more steeply, to a
lower depth; and on the sides were seven or eight ice columns streaming
from cracks in the rocks to the floor. Each of these columns was some
three or four meters high, and, small at the top and in the middle,
spread out at the base into the shape of fans. In the dim candle light
and the cold damp atmosphere, the columns loomed up like so many
ghosts, and the landscape impression was strange and solemn. The air
here seemed perfectly still.
There was another curiosity. The fissure we had come down, at this
point some three meters wide, was filled, just beyond the glacière,
with pure, transparent water, which formed a little lake: this was
perhaps one meter deep, and extended across the fissure, barring
further progress. It certainly seems strange that in the same cavern,
under nearly the same conditions of temperature, there should be one
place covered with a flooring of ice and another filled with water. The
explanation, however, is perhaps not far to seek. Over the lake there
was a distinct draught of air. The draught probably melts the ice in
summer, if indeed it does not prevent any from forming in winter. There
are, so far, no winter observations reported of this cave, yet it would
seem to be one which would well repay the trouble.
THE GLACIÈRE DE CHAUX-LES-PASSAVANT.
On the 17th of August, 1894, my brother and I arrived at Besançon,
the Vesontio of the Romans, bent on seeing the Glacière de
Chaux-les-Passavant or de la Grâce-Dieu, which is not far distant
from the town. The hotel we stopped at was pretty bad; the beds were
surmounted with those old-fashioned curtains which were of use before
the invention of glass windows, but which now only serve to exclude air
and ventilation. However, I learnt something of the manners and customs
of the country, for on getting down at six o'clock the next morning
for breakfast, the first question the waiter asked was: _Quel vin
monsieur prendra-t-il?_ At seven o'clock we sallied forth in a little
open one-horse victoria, with a dull gray sky overhead. Besançon is
well down in a valley, so the first five miles of the road were a slow,
gradual rise to the surrounding levels. The scenery as we drove along
reminded us of Turner's pictures: distant vistas of hills and valleys
with factories blowing off their smoke and with tumble-down old houses
ensconced in picturesque nooks, just those long-distance effects that
Turner loved to paint and which, for some reason, the artists of the
present generation have generally neglected and usually speak of as
unpaintable or unpicturesque. There was a row of trees, the whole way,
on each side of the road, a bit of practical forestry, the wisdom of
which it would be well for Americans to recognize. After our poor horse
had pulled us up the long hills, we had an almost level road running in
a straight line as far as the eye could see. We saw at least a hundred
little hawks, who live on field mice and other rodents, and whose
preservation is another evidence of French wisdom. The last four miles
of the drive was up a ravine in the woods, near the beginning of which
we passed the Trappist convent of la Grâce-Dieu.
[Illustration: GLACIÈRE DE CHAUX-LES-PASSAVANT.
From a Photograph by E. Mauvillier.
]
Opposite the entrance of the glacière, there is a little restaurant
where the peasants come to dance and picnic, and where the few
travellers who get to these parts, can obtain a tolerable _déjeuner_.
They keep a fair _vin du pays_ there, and we had some trouble on the
way home in consequence. Our driver, a talkative specimen of the genus
and an old soldier of Bourbaki's, told us, on the way out, many things
about Besançon during the Franco-German war and of the retreat of the
French army into Switzerland; but on the way home, he showed that he
evidently was not a member of the blue ribbon army. He first seemed
desirous of not taking us back to Besançon, preferring to go in the
other direction towards Bale; and afterwards he evinced a violent
inclination to go to sleep. We thought we should have to request him
to change seats with us, and drive back ourselves, but we obviated the
difficulty by plying him with questions as soon as he began to nod on
his box. Eventually, we reached Besançon all right, only once bumping a
passing cart, and only once nearly capsizing into a ditch. If Americans
can learn some points from Europeans about forestry, I think the latter
might get some equally valuable information from us concerning the use
of water, externally and internally.
The good lady at the restaurant acts the part of the old-fashioned
cave dragon, and we had to appease her by handing over four _sous_ as
a preliminary to exploration. She also had a sign up, saying that no
one is allowed to break off or take away any ice, which must sadly
interfere with the tourists' privilege of bringing away specimens.
The entrance of the glacière was surrounded by woods, which formed
a natural rampart to anything like wind. As we stood facing the
glacière a great pit opened before us, with a slope about one hundred
and thirty-five meters long leading to the bottom. This slope is at
first gentle in its gradient, but lower down it steepens to an angle
of some thirty degrees so that we were glad to resort to the trail
which descends in regular Alpine zigzags. In one place, on the right
hand, there were the remains of a stone wall with a door, and local
tradition relates that in former times there was a sort of fortified
habitation there, which was used in war times as a place of retreat.
The lower part of the slope is covered by a protecting roof of rock
which, thin at the rim where it is edged with forest, gradually slopes
downward overhead so that at the mouth of the glacière we looked back
and up what might be described as an immense tunnel. The lower part
of the slope was a mixture of broken rocks, mud and ice: the last,
however, seemed to be all on the surface, although it was impossible to
determine whether it went to any depth.
[Illustration: ICE STALAGMITES, CHAUX-LES-PASSAVANT.
From a Photograph by E. Mauvillier.
]
At the base of the tunnel we found ourselves on the threshold of an
immense, almost circular cave, with a diameter of some fifty meters,
rising overhead into a regular vault or dome about twenty-seven meters
in height. The entrance to the cave is so large that plenty of daylight
is admitted, and the whole cave easily examined. The rocks are of a
yellowish brown hue, and I could not help thinking of Nibelheim in
Richard Wagner's Rheingold.
[Illustration: Fig. 1.[2] Vertical Section of Chaux-les-Passavant.]
[2] The figures in this book are rough sketches, without pretense at
accuracy of measurement, and are only explanatory of the text.
The bottom of the cave was entirely covered with a flooring of ice. How
thick this flooring was there was no means of judging, as there were
no holes, but it must have been at least two or three meters thick in
places. At the back of the cavern, directly facing the entrance, one
magnificent frozen water fall streamed from a fissure. It was perhaps
five meters high, and began to take the fan shape from its origin. The
base was about four meters wide, and did not rest on the ice floor, but
on a sloping rock extending out from the side of the cave.
Perhaps the most remarkable feature of all, were six or seven great ice
stalagmites, shaped like cones or rough pyramids, which rose on the
floor of the cave. One of these was at least five meters in diameter
and six in height, and seemed perfectly solid. In the case of two of
the others, however, the cones were broken on one side, revealing in
each the stem and branches of a young pine tree. These evidently had
been planted in the ice and round them the columns had grown. Whether
all the ice cones were thus artificial in their origin I could not
determine, but it seemed probable that they were the result of years of
undisturbed accretion and growth. In both the cones where the break on
the side gave a view into the interior, the dark blue-green color of
deep glacier crevasses was present.
A pool of water, perhaps thirty centimeters in depth and three or four
meters in diameter, lay at one place on the ice floor. The whole cave
was damp and the ice in places decidedly slushy, in fact all the signs
showed that it was thawing. In the case of this glacière as well as
in those of the Mont Parmelan, it seemed clear that it must be in the
winter months that the formation of ice takes place.
[Illustration: ICE STALAGMITES, CHAUX-LES-PASSAVANT.
From a Photograph by E. Mauvillier.
]
DÓBSINA JEGBARLANG.
The cavern of Dóbsina, in the Carpathian Mountains, is easily reached
either from Poprád to the north, or from Dóbsina to the south. The
hotel at Poprád is better, however, than the inn at Dóbsina, where
my brother and I spent two nights. It was decidedly primitive. The
food was not so bad, but the pigs ran round in the courtyard, and one
morning a gypsy band woke us at half-past three o'clock by playing
in front of our windows, in dreadful wailing tones, which were most
irritating at that hour. At the proper time, however, Hungarian gypsy
music,--despite the fact that none of the players ever seem to look at
the leader, and that each man appears to play the tune he likes the
best,--is strangely fascinating.
Dóbsina itself lies in a hollow, surrounded with well-wooded hills, the
general appearance much resembling some of the valleys of the White
Mountains of New Hampshire. My brother and I started from Dóbsina on
the morning of the 27th of July, 1895, at half-past seven o'clock, in
a little open carriage with excellent horses and a Hungarian driver in
national costume. He was a nice fellow, but he did not understand a
word of German. The road reminded us of some of our own mountain roads,
as it was rough, full of holes and partly washed away by the rains. We
first ascended to the crest of the surrounding hills and then descended
to the Stracena Thal, a wild limestone valley covered with fine
forest. Two hours and a half driving landed us at the hotel-restaurant
near the cave, at which I should certainly stop on another visit. It
was half an hour's stroll thence, through beautiful woods, to the
cavern's entrance. Northwards in the distance the Tátra Range was
visible, a set of sharp bare rock peaks, at whose base, ensconced in
pine forests, is situated the famous Hungarian summer resort of Tátra
Füred, which much resembles Bar Harbor.
The entrance to the cavern is enclosed by a fence with a gate, and here
the Dóbsina people have a high tariff and take toll from tourists. At
the gate, we waited for half an hour, until a sufficient number of
persons had arrived to form a party. This mode of visiting the cave
rather detracts from the pleasure, even though it does away with all
difficulty and makes the beauties of Dóbsina accessible to everyone. It
was also necessary to wait long enough to cool off thoroughly before
entering, on account of the icy air of the cavern, where heavy winter
clothes are indispensable.
[Illustration: Fig. 2. Vertical Section of Dóbsina.]
The entrance to Dóbsina faces nearly due north. It is small, perhaps
two meters wide and three meters high, and is perfectly sheltered
from any wind. The sudden drop in temperature at the entrance was
startling; in fact it was the most extreme change I have noticed in any
cave. Within the length of an ordinary room, say in a distance of five
meters, we passed from an extremely hot summer morning to the chill of
a mid-winter afternoon. A slight air current, perhaps, issued from the
entrance, as we observed a faint mist there. At the rock portal there
was ice on the rocks overhead, and underfoot was the beginning of the
huge mass of ice which almost fills the cavern. A descent down eighteen
wooden steps landed us at the beginning of a great ice floor, in what
is called the _Grosser Saal_. It is a magnificent cave. The floor is
a sheet or rather a mass of solid ice, the surface of which is level
enough in one place to permit of skating; in other spots it is sloping
and covered with small ice hillocks. The ice is solid throughout,
without any holes or cracks. Several fissure columns stream to the
floor from cracks in the sides. Joining the roof to the floor are
numerous big ice stalactites, which form frozen pillars and columns.
These are from eight to eleven meters in height, and some two to three
meters in average breadth and width. Nearly translucent, they are
covered with all sorts of icy ornaments hanging about them in tufts and
fringes; they are beautiful in their shapes, as well as in their white
and blue colors. One of these columns is called the _Brunnen_, because
until about ten years ago, a small stream dribbled continuously from
the roof and cut a channel across the ice floor; but now the stream has
solidified into the pillar, and the channel is filled up, although it
can still be traced in the ice.
The cavern is lighted by electricity, which has the merit, even if it
brings in an element of artificiality, of clearly revealing one of the
chief glories of Dóbsina. This is the rime or hoar frost, which in the
shape of ice or snow crystals, covers the entire limestone roof, and,
reflecting the electric light, shines like frosted silver. Some of
these frost crystals seem to be precipitated to the floor, and in one
place I found a small sheet of them, perhaps two meters in width each
way, which looked and felt like genuine snow. The general color effect
of all this upper cave is white, although there is some blue in the
ice, and gray and brown in the rocks and shadows. It would not be much
of a misnomer to call Dóbsina "the great white cave."
The ice extended to the sides of the cave except in two places. Here
there were holes in the ice, bridged by low rock arches. We passed
through one of these and descended by a wooden staircase some eighty
steps, afterwards returning up through the other arch by another
staircase. At the bottom we stood in a magnificent gallery named the
_Korridor_, formed by a solid wall of ice on one side and by a wall
of limestone rock on the other. The ice wall is the lower portion of
the ice floor; the rock wall is the continuation of the roof. For the
entire distance the ice wall rises almost perpendicularly some fifteen
meters in height, while the rock wall arches overhead.
[Illustration: THE LOWER ROSITTEN ALP AND THE UNTERSBERG.]
The bottom of the _Korridor_ was filled with blocks of fallen
limestone, through which any water drains off, and on which there was a
wooden walk, so that we circled round the ice with the greatest ease.
At one place on the limestone wall hung a cluster of big icicles,
which, from their shape really deserved the name they bear, of the
_Orgel_. At another place a hole, some six or seven meters deep, was
hewn, in the form of a small chamber, directly into the ice mass. This
is the _Kapelle_, where we performed our devotions by leaving our
visiting cards on the floor. Near the middle of the _Korridor_ the ice
mass bulges out and extends to the limestone wall, breaking the whole
_Korridor_ into two parts, the western portion about eighty meters, and
the eastern about one hundred and twenty meters long. This necessitated
cutting a tunnel about eight meters long in the ice to get through. The
color of the _Korridor_ is a darkish gray and is much more sombre than
that of the _Grosser Saal_. A remarkable feature of the ice wall is the
fact that distinct bands of stratification are visible in the ice in
many places. Why the _Korridor_ is not filled up with ice and why the
ice is perpendicular for such a distance are questions I am unable to
answer satisfactorily; but it is probable that the temperature of the
rock walls is sufficiently high to prevent ice from forming in winter
or to melt it in summer if it does form in winter.
The air in Dóbsina seemed still, and scarcely felt damp. In one or two
places in the _Grosser Saal_ there was a slight sloppiness, showing
incipient signs of thaw. In the _Korridor_ it was freezing hard.
THE KOLOWRATSHÖHLE.
The Kolowratshöhle is situated on the north slope of the Untersberg,
near Salzburg, at an altitude of 1391 meters. My brother and I visited
it on the 2d of August, 1895. We had one of the patented guides of the
district, Jacob Gruber by name, in regular Tyrolese dress, with gray
_jacke_ and black chamois knee breeches. We left Salzburg in the early
morning in an _einspänner_ and drove to the foot of the Untersberg in
about an hour, whence, by a rough path passing by the Rositten Alp, we
ascended to the cave in about three hours. The last hundred and sixteen
meters of the path were cut across some moderately steep rock slabs and
a perfectly unnecessary iron hand-railing affixed.
The entrance faces northeast. Here there must have been a slight
draught of cold air moving outwards, the effect of which was
perceptible to the eye, as at the point where the cold inside air
met the quiet warm outside air, a faint mist was visible. From the
entrance, a sharp slope, set at an angle of about forty degrees, led
to the lowest point of the cave. The upper half of this slope was
still covered with the winter snow which had blown or had slid in. We
descended on the right hand edge of the snow by means of some steps
cut in the rock by the _Deutschen-Oesterreichischen Alpen Club_.
These steps were covered with a sticky, red mud, which left almost
ineradicable stains on our clothing, and as there was also ice in
places, they were decidedly slippery.
[Illustration: THE ENTRANCE OF THE KOLOWRATSHÖHLE.]
[Illustration: Fig. 3. Vertical Section of the Kolowratshöhle.]
At the bottom of the slope we were at the lowest point of the cave,
to which all the water flowed, and where it drained off into a crack
with a loud gurgling noise. Back of us was the daylight streaming
through the entrance; opposite to us was first an ice floor, then a
great ice slope, which came down from the further end of the cave. The
ice was transparent and of a pale ochre-greenish hue, and filled the
entire width of the cave. There is a streak of iron, probably, through
the limestone, which in places tints the rocks a dull red. The color
impression is a dull green-red, and, on account of the size of the
entrance, the light effect is only semi-subterranean.
The ice floor was covered with a layer of slabs of ice, eight or ten
centimeters thick, which, earlier in the year, had evidently had water
under them. The ice wall or ice slope consisted of two big waves, one
above the other, the lower set at an angle of about ten degrees, the
upper set at an angle of about twenty-five degrees. To get up the upper
wave required about twelve steps cut with the axe. Behind the upper
wave, five or six fissure columns streamed out to the beginning of the
ice. One ice stalactite, at least two or three meters long, overhung
the ice floor, and Gruber said about this: "Well, I wonder it has not
fallen yet: they seldom last as late in the year," a confirmation of
what was clearly evident, namely, that the whole cave was in a state of
thaw.
In two places there was a strong, continuous drip from the roof to the
ice floor, which formed, in each case, what I can only call an ice
basin. These basins were nearly circular; one was about four meters,
the other about two, in diameter. Around about two-thirds of the rim
of the larger one, ice rose in a surrounding ring two or three meters
high, suggesting that earlier in the year this basin was a cone, and
possibly a hollow cone. The depth in the ice floor, in both cases,
was about one and a half meters, and each basin contained some thirty
centimeters in depth of water. They reminded me of the rock basins one
sees in mountain torrents, where an eddying current has worn smooth all
the edges of the rocks. From the larger of these basins, a channel as
deep as the basin ran to the lowest point of the cave. This channel was
cut out by the overflow, which ran through it in a tiny stream.[3]
[3] The photographs of the Rositten Alp, of the entrance of the
Kolowratshöhle, and of the interior of the Kolowratshöhle, were made
for me on the 16th of July, 1896, by Herr Carl Hintner, Jr., of
Salzburg. The two latter photographs are, I believe, the first good
ones ever obtained of the inside of the cave. They were taken without
artificial light on quick plates; the best of the two received an hour
and a half, the other two hours' exposure. The photographer said at
first that it was not possible to succeed, and it was only by promising
to pay him in any case, that he could be induced to try.
[Illustration: TOP OF ICE SLOPE, KOLOWRATSHÖHLE.]
THE SCHAFLOCH.
The Schafloch, on the Rothhorn, near the Lake of Thoune, is one of the
biggest glacières in the Alps. On the 15th of August, 1895, after early
coffee, made by the _portier_ of the Hotel Belvedère at Interlaken,
I drove to Merligen, on the north shore of the lake, with Emil Von
Allmen, an excellent guide. We left Merligen on foot at a quarter
before seven, and, making no stops on the way, reached the Schafloch at
ten minutes past ten. The path mounts gently up the Wüste Thal, which
higher up is called the Justiz Thal. The track through the latter is
almost on a level, over grassy alps. On the right hand rise the steep,
almost dolomitic, limestone cliffs of the Beatenberg. On the left is
the range of the Rothhorn, with steep grass and forest slopes below,
and limestone cliffs above. The last hour of the walk was up these
slopes, by what Baedeker calls a "giddy path." By leaving the word
"giddy" out, his description is accurate. The cavern is at the base of
the limestone cliff, and the grass slope extends up to it.
The entrance to the Schafloch is at an altitude of 1752 meters: it
is a fine archway, and a low wall is built partly across it. In
front of this, we sat down and consumed our chicken and cheese, and
that best of a traveller's drinks, cold tea. The day was windless,
and when I lighted a cigar, to see whether there was any draught at
the entrance, the smoke rose straight up, showing that the air was
perfectly still. When we were sufficiently cooled off, we entered the
cave. The entrance faces east-south-east, but after about ten meters
the cavern takes a sharp turn to the left, forming a sort of elbow,
and runs about due south, constantly descending in an almost straight
line. For the first eighty meters or so, the floor was covered with
blocks of fallen limestone, among which we had to carefully pick our
way. Then we began to find ice, which, a few meters further on, spread
out across the entire width of the cave, with a gentle slope towards
the left. The surface of the ice was rather soft, and the whole cave
was evidently in a state of thaw. A few scratches with the axe--the
most invaluable friend in an ice cave--were necessary at one place to
improve our footing. It would have been impossible to move here without
a light, and I carried our torch, made of rope dipped in pitch, which
occasionally dropped black reminders on my clothes. We were in the
middle of a great ice sheet to which several fissure columns streamed.
On the right hand a beautiful ice stalactite flowed from the roof to
the floor; it was some five meters high, and perhaps seventy-five
centimeters in diameter, and swelled out slightly at the base. On the
left hand were three or four ice stalagmites, shaped like pyramids or
cones.
[Illustration: AT THE ENTRANCE OF THE SCHAFLOCH.]
One of these cones was especially remarkable. It was at least five
meters high--Von Allmen said eight--and at the bottom was about four
meters in diameter. The base of this cone was entirely hollow. There
was a break on one side by which we could enter, and we then stood
on a rock floor with a small ice dome or vault overhead. I have seen
no other hollow cone like this. The guide lighted a red Bengal fire
inside, when the whole pyramid glowed with a delicate pink light,
resembling _Alpenglühn_. Near this cone stood the half of another
ice cone. It was quite perfect, and the missing half was cut off
perpendicularly, as if with a huge cleaver. A hollow in the base of
the remnant showed that this cone must have been originally also a
hollow cone, and its destruction was probably due to the change in the
temperature of the drip from the roof, at the setting in of the summer
thaw.
Just beyond the cones, the ice floor steepens and curls over into a
big ice slope, one of the finest I have seen. Von Allmen spoke of this
as _der gletscher_, an expression I never heard applied elsewhere to
subterranean ice. On the right side, the slope would be difficult
to descend in the darkness. On the left, the slope is gentle and a
rock juts out a little way down. Von Allmen insisted on roping--an
unnecessary safeguard--but he said: "If you slip, you will probably
break an arm or a leg, and then we shall be in a nice mess." He then
cut about twelve steps in the ice, down to the rock, while I shed light
on the performance with our torch. We were so completely away from
daylight that black was the predominating color; and even the ice was a
dark gray, and only appeared white in the high lights. Below the rock,
we found a narrow strip on the left side of the ice slope free from ice
and blocked with boulders, over which we carefully picked our way down.
At the bottom, the ice expanded into a level surface, stretching nearly
to the end of the cave. There were only a few fissure columns in this
part of the cavern, where the most remarkable feature was the cracks
in the rock walls, which were so regular in formation that they almost
looked like man's handiwork. The rocks are free from stalactites, and
in fact stalactites seem a good deal of a rarity in glacières.
On retracing our steps, we saw, when the first glimmers of daylight
became perceptible, the rocks assume a brilliant blue color, as if they
were flooded with moonlight. This effect lasted until near the mouth of
the cavern.
[Illustration: HOLLOW CONE AND FISSURE COLUMNS, SCHAFLOCH.]
DÉMÉNYFÁLVA JEGBARLANG.
A little west of Poprád, in Northern Hungary, on the railroad between
Sillein and Kassa, is the village of Liptós Szt Miklós, to which place
I journeyed on the 12th of June, 1896. The conductor was the only man
on the train or at any of the stations who would admit that there was a
glacière at Déményfálva, and that it was feasible to get into it: every
one else professed entire ignorance on the subject. It is perhaps,
worth noting at this time that it is always difficult to get any
information about glacières; in fact, the advice about cooking a hare
might well be applied to glacière hunting: first catch your glacière.
The scenery between Sillein and Miklós was picturesque. The hills were
covered with forest. In one place, the railroad ran through a beautiful
mountain gorge alongside a river, where a number of rafts were floating
down. There were also some primitive ferries, where a rope was
stretched across the river, and the force of the current carried the
ferryboat across, once it was started. Many peasants were at work in
the fields; often in squads. White, blue, brown, and a dash of red were
the predominating colors in their dress. The men wore white trousers,
made of a kind of blanket stuff, and a leather, heelless moccasin of
nearly natural shape. Almost all the women had bare feet; those of
the older ones were generally shaped according to Nature's own form,
while those of the younger ones were generally distorted from wearing
fashionable shoes. We went past several villages of huts with thatched
roofs, something like the Russian villages one sees beyond Moscow, only
less primitive.
The inn at Miklós was poor, and as at Dóbsina, the pigs lived in the
yard and occasionally came for an interview under the covered doorway.
Inquiries elicited the information that Déményfálva could be reached
by carriage, so I engaged one at the livery stable. The owner told me
that about twenty years before, he leased the glacière and carried on a
regular business in supplying Buda-Pest with ice. He had thirty lamps
put in to give light to the workmen, who brought up the ice in baskets
on their backs.
At half past five o'clock next morning the carriage, which was innocent
of paint, lined with a sort of basket work and without springs, but
certainly strongly built, stood at the door. A boy of about eighteen
years of age, who could speak German, went along as interpreter. The
morning was dismal, and, every quarter of an hour or so, a shower of
thick mist fell and gradually made us damp and uncomfortable. After
about twenty minutes on a pretty bad road, we came to a place where
there was a fork, and the driver turned to the left, over a track which
consisted of two deep ruts through the fields. Soon after, we heard
some shouting behind us, and a fierce-looking man, in a leather jacket
and carrying a large axe, came up and abused the driver. He was not
an agreeable person; however, presently he simmered down and began to
smile. It turned out that he was a _wächter_, that is, a guardian of
the fields, and that we were trespassing. The driver meekly promised
to return by the other route, and we went on our way in peace. After
awhile, we drove into some woods and then into a mountain gorge, with
forest-covered slopes at the base and with limestone cliffs jutting
out above. Here we came to the cottage of the _wächter_ or _förster_
of the surrounding woods, who also acted as guide to the cave, for the
few tourists who came to see it; and when he heard of our destination,
he at once slipped on a second ragged coat, took a woodman's axe and
started on foot, going much faster than the carriage. This was not
surprising, for the road resembled nothing but the bed of a mountain
brook, a mass of boulders with ruts between them. This highway was made
by the peasants driving their carts over the plain in the same place,
and as the soil was cut away, the boulders appeared; and over and among
these we went banging along, and we were jolted about and bumped into
each other, until every bone in my body ached.
[Illustration: ON THE ICE SLOPE, SCHAFLOCH.]
At a quarter past seven o'clock we came to another house in a little
glade, where the carriage stopped; and on asking the _förster_ for
his name, he wrote down in my note book, in a clear well formed
hand:--Misura, Franz. From the glade, ten minutes' walk on a mountain
path, up an easy slope, took us to the entrance of Déményfálva. It is
about two meters wide by three quarters of a meter high. We passed
through and entered a large chamber, well lighted from the right by
another opening, which is higher up and bigger than the entrance.
The air in this chamber was at about the same temperature as that of
the outside air, and, on our return from the nether world, it seemed
positively balmy. In the floor at the end of the chamber, a small pit
yawns open. It is perpendicular on three sides and set at a sharp
angle on the fourth. A wooden staircase of some two hundred steps, many
of which are sadly out of repair, leads nearly straight down this slope
to the glacière.
After descending about eighty steps of the staircase, bits of ice
appeared on the walls and floor and after some thirty steps more, a
lateral gallery opened to the right, and into this we turned. This may
be called the upper cave or story, for in Démenyfálva--besides the
entrance chamber--there are practically two stories, the upper one of
which is mainly ornamented with stalactites, the lower one with ice.
There was a little ice on the floor from which rose some small ice
columns, perhaps fifty centimeters in height. The cave or gallery had
a gentle downward slope and turned towards the left. After some little
distance, we came to another wooden staircase, of ten or twelve steps,
quite coated over with thick, solid ice. Misura had to cut away at it
for several minutes, before he could clear the steps enough to descend.
This was in fact the beginning of an ice wall, the _Eiswand_ or
_Eismauer_, which, turning to the right, flowed through a rock arch to
the lowest cave. The rock arch or portal was some three meters wide and
two meters high, and a fringe of beautiful organ-pipe like icicles hung
on it on the right hand. Just beyond the portal the ice sloped steeply
for a couple of meters; then it became level and on it rose a little
pyramid, a meter and a half in height perhaps, and a column; then the
ice sloped away again to the lower cave.
[Illustration: IN THE REAR OF THE SCHAFLOCH.]
[Illustration: Fig. 4. Vertical Section of Démenyfálva.]
We then continued our course beyond the rock portal along the upper
cavern for about two hundred meters. It was a fine large gallery or
passage and during the first fifty meters or so, we found numerous
small ice cones, perhaps a hundred of them, from tiny little ones to
some about forty centimeters in height. Many of these were columnar in
form, nearly as large at the top as at the base: in some cases the top
was flat, and the columns then looked almost as if an upper portion
were sawn off. I have seen this shape of column nowhere else. In places
there were slabs and bits of ice on the floor. The last hundred meters
of this upper cave was free from ice and was exceptionally dry. It was
formed of a pale yellow limestone rock, almost dolomitic in color, and
many stalactites, in their thousand various shapes, hung from the roof
and on the sides. In one spot, one big limestone stalagmite towered up
directly in the middle of the gallery. We did not go to the end of the
cave, where ice has never been found.
Retracing our course past the rock portal to the entrance pit, we
descended on the long staircase for some eighty steps more, the amount
of ice on the rocks steadily increasing. In places, frost crystals had
formed in small quantities on the roof and walls. At the bottom of the
pit, another lateral gallery, directly under the upper gallery, opened
to the right. Entering this, we passed over broken limestone débris,
which seemed to overlie a mass of ice. Limestone stalactites were
noticeable all through this lower cavern, and frost and icicles had
sometimes formed over them, in which case the ice stalactite assumed
the form of the limestone stalactite. Advancing a few meters, we went
by, on our right hand, an ice pyramid of a couple of meters in height.
Just beyond this, the cave turned to the left like the upper cave,
and we descended to a level floor of transparent ice, into which we
could see some distance. At this spot, numerous icicles, generally of
inconsiderable size, hung from the roof and on the sides of the cavern.
At the further end of this ice floor or ice lake we reached an ice
slope, the _Eiswand_, which flowed to the ice floor from the upper
cave in several waves. It was some six meters wide and twenty-five
meters long; and it was not steep, perhaps fifteen degrees in the
steepest portions. On the slope some old, nearly obliterated steps were
visible, and at these Misura proceeded to cut, and with torch in one
hand and axe in the other, gradually worked his way up, until he once
more reached the level spot whence we had looked down the ice slope.
Here he stood waving his torch, a proceeding indeed he did constantly
throughout the trip, for he seemed exceedingly proud of the beauties of
his cavern. This waving of torches, however, is exceedingly foolish,
as their smoke quickly blackens stalactite, and in fact nothing but
candles and magnesium wire should be carried for lighting purposes
underground. The ice of the ice slope was hard, gray and opaque, quite
different from that of the ice lake. The ice floor is formed of new
ice, which is gradually refilling the place from which Misura said the
ice for Buda-Pest was taken out twenty-five years ago. To prove this
assertion, he called my attention to the side of the lake directly
opposite the ice slope. At that spot, under the limestone rubbish over
which we came, there was an outcrop of perpendicular opaque ice about a
meter high. Misura said that the workmen began to cut at the ice slope
and that they dug out a couple of meters in depth from the ice lake,
until they had cut back to where the vertical outcrop was standing.
The explanation seemed to be in accord with the facts, and if so, it
would go to show that the ice in this cave is of slow formation and
great permanency; as seems also proved by the steps on the ice wall,
which--we were the first party in the cave in 1896--had remained over
from the preceding summer. Misura told me he had never seen so much
ice nor seen it so hard as during our visit, and he added that there
was generally water on the ice lake, and he thought there would be some
in two or three weeks more. The greatest quantity of ice in the upper
cave was at the head of the ice-slope, and it would seem as though
there must be cracks or fissures in the overhead rocks there, through
which the water is supplied to feed the ice, not only that of the upper
cave, but also the larger portion of that of the lower cave.
The heavy winter air would naturally sink down into the entrance
pit to the lower cavern, and some of it diverge into the beginning
of the upper cavern, which at first is distinctly a down slope. A
little beyond the portal at the head of the ice slope, the upper cave
is either horizontal or in places slightly ascending. Probably this
prevents the cold air from entering further, and probably also, the
heat of the earth neutralizes the cold air of winter beyond a definite
spot.
The air in the cave seemed absolutely still throughout; it was
also extremely dry, undoubtedly because melting had not yet begun.
The icicles evidently were formed by the slow drip freezing as it
descended, and there were no perceptible cracks nor fissures in the
rocks underneath them. The facts seem to me to prove that neither
evaporation nor regelation can be the factors at work in making the ice
and we may deduce an important rule therefrom. When a cave is dry, then
the air is dry; when a cave is wet, then the atmosphere is damp. In
other words, the state of dryness or dampness of glacière atmosphere
depends on how much the ice is thawing and parting with its moisture.
On our return to the base of the long staircase, and while we ascended
it, we had an exquisite moonlight effect, much resembling the one at
the Schafloch.
THE FRAINER EISLEITHEN.
About two hours by rail, north of Vienna, is the village of Schoenwald,
to which I journeyed on June the 15th, 1896. At the railroad station
there was a K. K. Post Omnibus in waiting, which, when it was packed
with passengers and luggage, drove over to Frain in an hour. The
admirable road lies across a rolling plain, until it reaches the
brink of the valley of the Thaya, to which it descends in long Alpine
zigzags. On the bluff overlooking the opposite side of the river, there
is a fine _schloss_.
I secured the seat next to the driver and questioned him about the
Eisleithen. Although he had driven on this road for five years, without
visiting the Eisleithen, yet he was positive that they were warm in
winter, but cold in summer. He said more than once: _Desto heisser
der Sommer, desto mehr das Eis_, and in fact was an emphatic exponent
of the notions generally held by peasants, which some _savants_ have
adopted and tried to expound. At Frain, I applied at the little hotel
for a guide, and was entrusted to the care of the hotel boots. He was
an intelligent, talkative youth, but he insisted also that "the hotter
the summer, the more ice there is." However, he was polite, and made
up for any shortcomings by always addressing me as _der gnädige Herr_.
The day was hot, so it took us three-quarters of an hour on foot, along
the valley of the Thaya, to reach the base of the bluff where the
Eisleithen are situated, at an altitude of about four hundred meters.
The hillside is covered with patches of scrubby forest; and towards
the summit, the entire mass of the hill is honey-combed with cracks
and the rocks are much broken up. After about ten minutes' ascent up
a little path, we came to small holes, from each of which a current
of cool air poured out; these holes seemed fairly horizontal, and the
temperatures were high enough to prove that there was no ice within.
A little further on, we came to a hole or tiny cave among a pile of
rocks, where there was a painted sign: _Eisgrube_. It went down from
the mouth, and I put my hand well in, but, beyond the length of my arm,
I could neither see nor measure its shape or depth. The air felt cold,
but was nowhere near freezing point; nor was it possible to determine
whether there was a draught: it may or may not be a wind cave. Not
far from this, there were two gullies, each terminating in a small
cave. The first gully was planned somewhat like certain traps for wild
animals, that is, it narrowed gradually from the entrance, then became
covered over; and then dwindled, after some four meters more, into a
small descending hole, the end of which we could not reach. But we got
in far enough, to come to large chunks or slabs of ice plastered about
on the floor and sides. In this cave, which was sheltered against sun
and wind, the air, as tested by the smoke of a cigar, was motionless,
and the cave seemed unconnected with any air current. The second gully
terminated in a somewhat larger cave, whose floor was well below the
entrance; no ice was visible, however, although the air was still and
the temperature low. This cave may or may not be a glacière; but surely
it is not a cold current cave.
These Frainer Eisleithen certainly offer an interesting field to anyone
studying subterranean ice, from the fact that there are, in the same
rocks, caves without apparent draughts in summer and containing ice,
and caves with distinct draughts and no ice. The problem seems more
intricate than is usually the case, but the solution is simply that the
two classes of caves happen to be found together.
THE EISHÖHLE BEI ROTH.
The Eifel is one of the bleakest districts of Central Europe, and to
one entering it from the vineyards and the well-inhabited basin of the
Rhine, the contrast is impressive. The railroad rises gradually to a
land of comparatively desert appearance, with rocks and trees on the
heights and a sparse cultivation in the valleys. But, if the country is
unattractive to the agriculturist, it is interesting to the geologist,
on account of the great number of extinct volcanoes. Almost in the
centre of the Eifel is the little town of Gerollstein, famed for the
_Gerollsteiner Sprudel_, which gives forth an effervescence undreamed
of by anyone, who has not visited the birth place of some of these
German table waters.
About an hour's walk from Gerollstein, on the side of a small hill,
is situated the little Eishöhle bei Roth, named after a neighboring
village. I went to this place, on the 25th of June, 1896, with a young
boy as guide. The cave is sheltered from the wind by a wood around it,
among which are many large trees. It is at the base of a wall of piled
up lava, or at least volcanic, rocks which form a sort of cauldron. The
entrance is a small tunnel some five meters long, which goes straight
down at an angle of about twenty-five degrees and then turns sharply to
the left. At the turn, the cave may be perhaps one meter in height. We
did not go beyond this spot, where the air was icy and the temperature
sub-normal, as the tunnel was blocked up by a large boulder, which
had evidently recently fallen from the rocks in front. There was no
ice, as far as we went, and the boy said it began three or four meters
further in. He told me that there was no ice in the cavern in winter,
but admitted that he had not entered it at that season, so that was
hearsay. He had heard also that the ice was sometimes taken out for
sick people, but otherwise it was not used.
It seemed to me that the conditions at Roth show that the ice is formed
by the cold of winter alone: the cave is well below the entrance; it is
the lowest point of the surrounding cauldron of rocks and all the cold
air naturally gravitates to it; it is sheltered by rocks and trees
from wind or exposure to the rays of the sun; the tunnel faces nearly
due north; and the water necessary to supply the ice, easily soaks
between the lava blocks.
THE FRAUENMAUERHÖHLE.
Eisenerz, in Eastern Tyrol, is a picturesquely situated little town. It
is at the bottom of a great valley, with mountains all around it. Two
of these are bare, gaunt limestone peaks, which are decidedly dolomitic
in form and color. The sharpest of these is to the north. It is called
the Pfaffenstein and is the beginning of the range culminating in the
Frauenmauer. On a mountain to the east of the town, one sees the iron
mines and works, whence the town takes its name "Ironore," and whence
quantities of iron are taken out every year. The mines are said to have
been in operation for over a thousand years, since about A. D. 800.
After the ore is taken from the mine and roughly prepared, it is run
down in small cars through a covered way to the railroad station to be
shipped; and at certain times there is a seemingly endless procession
of these cars, each bearing, besides its load of ore, a miner, with
clothes and person entirely begrimed to the yellow-brown color of the
iron.
As I walked out of the Eisenerz railroad station, an old man in
Tyrolese costume asked me if I wanted a _träger_ and a guide, so, while
he was carrying my valise to the hotel, we came to terms. He was one of
the patented guides of the district and wore the large badge of the
Austrian guides. If the size of the badge made the guide, one should
be safe with Tyrolese, but for difficult excursions, it will not do
to trust to a guide simply because he happens to be "patented"; that
is, not if one values the safety of one's neck. Next morning, July the
9th, 1896, the old guide arrived betimes at the hotel and roused me by
tapping on the wall below my window with his stick. We left at half
past five o'clock. My companion, who should have known better, had not
breakfasted, so by the time we reached the Gsoll Alp at a quarter-past
seven, he was almost tired out. He wore the regulation black chamois
knee breeches and a _gamsbart_ in his hat. He picked many flowers en
route, ostensibly because they were pretty; but in reality, I think,
because it gave him the opportunity to recover his wind. He told me
he was sixty-three years old, and he certainly went up hill with some
difficulty, and for the first time in my life, I fairly succeeded in
showing a clean pair of heels to a _patentirter führer_ on a mountain
side. At one place he found a large snail in the road. This he wrapped
up in leaves and placed on a rock, and on our return he picked the
leaves and snail up, and rammed the whole bundle into his pocket,
informing me that it was excellent _Arznei_, although he did not
mention for what complaint.
[Illustration: THE FRAUENMAUER AND THE GSOLL ALP.]
The road led up a wooded valley, in a sort of series of steps,
bits of even ground interspersed by steeper ones, with the
Pfaffenstein-Frauenmauer limestone peaks poking up their jagged summits
on the left. The sky was clear at starting, except in the west, where
clouds were forming, and these gradually overspread the whole sky, and
finally turned to rain. Just before we reached the Gsoll Alp, we went
by a huge snow avalanche, which had fallen in February and torn a lane
clear through the pines, bringing down numbers of them with it. The
remains of the avalanche were banked up on the side of the road, which
was cut out, and many of the pines were still piled on and in the snow.
Stopping ten minutes at the alp to allow my guide to recuperate on some
bread and milk, we then crossed the pastures and pushed up a rather
steep slope by a small path, at one place crossing the remains of
another avalanche. We also came near having the attentions of a little
bull which was screaming viciously. My guide said it was an extremely
disagreeable beast, but he did not think it would attack him, as he
always made a point of giving it bread when at the châlet. We reached
the entrance of the cave at a quarter-past eight.
A man and a boy from Eisenerz, who had heard I was going to the cavern
and who wished to profit by my guide, caught up with us here. They were
much disappointed when I told them I should visit only the _Eiskammer_.
They went into the cave at the same time that we did, and eventually
we left them pushing up one of the side chambers, with only one torch
in their possession. My guide said he thought they were risking their
lives, as there were many holes they might fall into, besides the
probability of their finding themselves in total darkness. He told me
that once, while in the cavern, he heard distant yells, and, going up
the gallery whence they proceeded, found a man half dead, who said
he had tried to come through the mountain by himself, had broken his
lantern and had remained in the darkness an indefinite number of hours;
a situation, the horror of which could not be realized by anyone
who has not been underground without a light and felt the absolute
blackness of a cavern.
The Frauenmauer is a limestone peak, 1828 meters in height, one of
several forming a horseshoe round the Gsoll Alp. It presents on that
side a sheer wall of rock, in which there are two holes close together,
at an altitude of 1335 meters. These are the lower openings of the
Frauenmauerhöhle, of which the higher and biggest one is used for
an entrance. They are some thirty or forty meters from the base of
the rock wall, and a flight of wooden steps leads up to the entrance
opening, which is narrow and high. At the top of the steps, we stood
in the mouth of the cave; and, going in four or five meters, saw the
other opening to the left, below us. About five meters further, there
was one small lump of ice, as big as a pumpkin, lying on the ground,
but this may have been carried there from within. The cavern went
nearly straight for some twenty-five meters from the entrance, rising
all the time gently. Then came a steep little drop, of some four or
five meters, in the rock floor, and here a small wooden staircase was
placed. A gallery opened to the right and this was the cavern proper,
which leads through the mountain. It rose considerably and contained
no ice as far as we went, which was for some distance. The walking was
bad, as the floor was covered with _geröll_, that is broken detritus.
[Illustration: IN THE FRAUENMAUERHÖHLE.
From a Photograph by A. Kurka.
]
Returning and continuing towards the freezing chamber, the floor of the
cavern began to rise once more, continuing for some forty-five meters
to its highest point, which is lower, however, than the top of the
entrance, an important fact to notice. For, although the floor of the
cave is considerably higher, at a distance of seventy meters within,
than the level of the bottom of the entrance; still, that highest spot
is below the level of the top of the entrance. This fact, and also the
size of the gallery, unquestionably explains why the cold air can get
in as far as it does. At this highest spot we found a considerable mass
of ice, a couple of cartloads in bulk perhaps, which the guide said
would melt away later in the summer. This was, perhaps, the remains
of a fallen stalactite. This mass of ice is an interesting point in
connection with the Frauenmauerhöhle, for it shows that ice in a cave
sometimes forms, even if in small quantities, above the level of the
base of the entrance. There seems no reason why it should not do so,
provided there is the necessary water supply. Such ice would, however,
suffer more, as soon as the outside air was over freezing point, than
would ice which was below the level of the entrance. It would probably
disappear early in the year, unless the cave were in a latitude or at
an altitude where snow remained in the open during most of the year.
[Illustration: Fig. 5. Vertical Section of the Frauenmauerhöhle.]
From this highest point, the cave turns somewhat to the left, and the
floor begins to slope downward, sinking gradually to some six meters
below the level of the entrance. Ten meters or so from the highest
point, we began to find icicles and fissure columns, and about twenty
meters further, we reached an almost level ice floor, stretching across
the entire width of the cave--some seven meters--and extending about
fifty meters more to the end of the cave. In several places there was
much frozen rime on the rock walls. There were also a number of columns
and icicles, though none of any special beauty. I broke a piece off one
of them, and the ice was transparent and free from prisms, showing that
this column was probably of fairly recent origin. Letting a bit melt in
my mouth, the water tasted pure and sweet.
[Illustration: ICE STALACTITE, FRAUENMAUERHÖHLE.
From a Photograph by A. Kurka.
]
In two places, there were _abgrunds_, that is, holes in the ice. One
of these was a wide, deep hole on the left side of the cave, between
the rock and the ice floor. The other was a great hole in the ice floor
itself. As the edges of both holes sloped sharply, it was impossible
to get near enough to look into either, but I threw in lumps of ice,
and from the sound should judge that the holes were about three meters
deep. The hole in the ice floor seemed to be cut by drip, and I think
they both carried off the drainage.
The ice floor was sloppy and thawing rapidly. At the furthest point we
reached, within about fifteen meters from the end of the ice chamber,
we were stopped by an accumulation of water lying on the ice. I poked
into it with my ice axe and found it about twenty centimeters in depth.
There was a crust of ice on top in places. The lake was cold, but I am
sure the water was not freezing, as I held my hand in it at least a
minute without pain. The guide assured me that in two weeks or so the
lake would be completely frozen, provided there was some fine, warm
weather; but, if there was rain, he said that it would not freeze. By
this statement, he unintentionally explained, what he asserted was
true, namely, that the cave froze harder in August than in July. The
explanation of course is, that in fine, dry weather, water does not run
into the cavern, and then the lake gradually drains off, leaving the
ice floor free from water; and this the natives interpret to mean that
the water has frozen up.
At the edge of the lake there was a fissure in the left hand rock
wall, in which my companion assured me that a column would shortly
form. I absolutely doubt this statement, as, if it were true, it
would be contrary to everything I have seen; still, I wish I could
have returned in August, to verify the matter. I poked my torch up
the fissure, also felt in with my hand. It was cold, and on the rocks
inside there was much hoar frost, but I could neither see nor feel any
ice mass, nor am I sure how far the fissure extended.
The air was still, damp and over freezing point throughout the
_Eiskammer_, and all the signs showed that the cave was in a state
of thaw. Although the rocks are limestone and scarcely blackened by
smoke anywhere, yet as our torches did not give much light, the color
impression was black and gray, like the Schafloch.
At the hotel the landlord confirmed in every particular the story of
the cave freezing hardest in August or September. He had never been
there himself, but stated that everyone said the same thing, and
that many people had "broken their heads" trying to account for it.
At eight o'clock in the evening, my guide came to let me know that
the man and boy, whom we left trying to penetrate the cave, had just
turned up after making all their relatives extremely anxious. They
were nearly lost, and had in general an extremely uncomfortable time.
It is scarcely to be wondered at that accidents occur in caves and on
mountains when people, with neither knowledge nor proper preparation,
go wandering off by themselves into the unknown.[4]
[4] On the evening of June 29th, 1897, I met at Hieflau three Viennese
tourists who had come that day through the Frauenmauer. They found the
lake on the ice floor of the _Eiskammer_, just as I had in 1896. They
said also, moreover, that they found ice and icicles or ice columns
in the main cave; unfortunately, they did not explain clearly in what
part.
THE MILCHHÄUSER OF SEELISBERG.
The summer of 1896, will long be remembered by Alpine climbers for
the pitiless rain storm, which kept coming steadily down during the
vacation months. It was in the midst of this that I arrived at Trieb,
on the Lake of Lucerne, on the 6th of August, to see whether I could
find the windholes which were reported near Seelisberg. At the landing
place I found Herr J. M. Ziegler, the owner of the Hotel Bellevue at
Seelisberg, who promptly secured a nice, blond bearded young fellow,
a relative of his and his _knecht_, as a guide. It was pouring when
we started, a proceeding which kept on during our entire excursion.
We tramped up a narrow road, paved with great stones in the old Swiss
fashion, and, as my guide truly said, awfully steep for horses.
Half an hour from the boat landing, took us to the first milkhouse,
which belonged to Herr Ziegler. It was in a small patch of woods, and
was placed against a cliff, where rocks had fallen down and formed a
talus of broken detritus. The side walls of the house were built out
from the cliff and roofed over, and the front wall had a doorway closed
with a wooden door. At the back the detritus or _geröll_ was built into
a vertical, unplastered wall between most of the interstices of which,
cool air came forth. Several of these interstices were fairly large
holes of uncertain depth. It was a cool day and the air currents were
only a little cooler than the temperature outside.
Another half an hour of uphill walking, partly on roads and partly
over soaking meadows, took us to Seelisberg, where we stopped at the
house of the owner of the second milkhouse, to get the key. The owner
could not go with us because he had damaged his foot, by wearing great
wooden shoes or _sabots_ armed with enormous spikes, while cutting
grass on steep slopes. He was hospitable enough: unlike his dog, who
was exceedingly anxious to attack us. The owner said--in the intervals
of the dog's howls--that ice formed during the winter in the rear wall
of his milkhouse and remained until about June. The milkhouse was in
a little patch of woods against a small cliff, at the bottom of which
were broken rocks. We had some difficulty in getting in, working for
at least ten minutes at the lock, while drops of rain-water would
occasionally drip into our coat collars. Just as I had given up hope,
my companion succeeded in getting the key to turn. There were several
pans, full of milk, placed to cool, and several barrels of potatoes;
and, as at the first milkhouse, we found that the rear wall consisted
simply of heaped up detritus built into a vertical position. Gentle air
currents flowed from several large holes and from the cracks between
the stones.
From here we went by a path through woods and over meadows down to the
lake, coming to the shore some distance to the west of the steamboat
landing. Everything was soaking wet, and as we proceeded, I felt my
clothes getting wetter and my shoes absorbing water like sponges until,
when we came to an overflowing brook, wading through seemed rather
pleasant. There is one advantage of getting thoroughly wet feet in the
mountains: it makes crossing streams so much easier, as one does not
delay, but simply steps right in.
The lower milkhouse was on the shore of the lake, near the house of
a fisherman, whose wife opened the door for us. There was some milk
in pans and several barrels of wine; and on a board were a number of
_ferras_ from the lake; the result of two days' catching in nets. This
was the largest of the three milkhouses; although it did not have as
many big holes in the rock wall as the others, but only the interstices
between the blocks of rock, whence we could feel cool air flowing out.
The woman said that the ice melted away by April or May, but that in
winter the wine barrels were all covered with frost. She also said that
the air coming from the clefts in summer was colder when the weather
was warm, than when it was rainy. Doubtless the temperature of the
draughts remains the same during the summer, but the air feels cooler
to the hand when the outside air is hot.
A walk of another half hour, through more soaking wet grass, brought
us back to the steamboat landing at Trieb, where I touched my guide's
heart with the gift of a five franc piece, and had a talk with Herr
Ziegler. He said that there were a number of places in the neighborhood
whence cold air came forth during the summer from cracks in the rocks:
that there were also other milkhouses, notably one at Tell's Platte, on
the lake: and that the milkhouses were not generally used in winter,
when the doors were left open, to allow the cold air to penetrate as
much as possible through the rocks behind. During the winter the
draughts were reversed, and poured in instead of out of the openings,
and Herr Ziegler thought that at that time the interior of the rock
cracks became chilled, and that possibly ice formed in them which
helped to chill the summer currents, when the draughts poured out from
the holes.
THE GLACIÈRE DE LA GENOLLIÈRE.
On Tuesday, the 11th of August, 1896, a cool and rainy day, I left
Geneva and went by train to Nyon, where I found at the station a little
victoria, in which I drove up to Saint-Cergues. The road lay across
the plain to the base of the slopes of the Jura, and then up these in
long zigzags; it was admirably built and on the hill slopes passed
the whole way through a beautiful thick forest, principally beeches
and birches. At Saint-Cergues, I went to the Pension Capt, where
the landlady soon found a guide in the shape of the gendarme of the
district, a right good fellow, Amy Aimée Turrian by name. He was in
uniform, with an army revolver in a holster at his belt. We then drove
about half an hour beyond Saint-Cergues, the road rising but little,
and the thick forest giving place to a more open wood of evergreens,
with patches of pasturage. As a forest sanitarium, Saint-Cergues seems
unsurpassed in the whole of Europe. The carriage turned up a little
country road, which soon became too rough for driving, so we proceeded
on foot for about another half hour, through pine woods and pastures,
to the glacière. Turrian enlivened the way with an account of his life
as a gendarme, of the long solitary six hour patrols in the woods in
winter, and of how he lay in ambush for poachers. He said he would not
take long to fire on anyone resisting arrest, as that was _sérieux_.
The glacière is in the middle of a pasture, with several pine trees
overhanging it. It is surrounded by a wall, built to prevent the cows
from falling in. There are two pits, side by side and about three
meters apart: they are some thirteen meters in depth, with a width of
five or six meters. They open into one another at the bottom; the rock
separating them, forming a natural bridge overhead. One of the pits is
vertical on all sides. The other is vertical all around, except on the
side furthest away from the natural bridge. Here the side of the pit
is in the shape, so usual in glacières, of a steep slope. Down this
slope we descended. It was slippery and muddy, owing to the recent
heavy rains, and my ice axe proved invaluable and probably saved me
some unpleasant falls. Under the bridge, the floor was covered with a
mass of shattered limestone debris, among which there was neither ice
nor snow; both of which my guide said he had found in abundance the
preceding June. A little limestone cavern opened on one side below the
bridge. A great, flat limestone slab formed a natural lintel, and,
lighting our candles, we stooped down and passed under it into the
cave, which was about the size of a room and in which we could just
stand up. At the entrance and over most of the floor there was ice, in
one place thirty or forty centimeters in depth, as I could see where a
drip from the roof had cut a hole. There were no signs of icicles or
columns. My guide said he had never penetrated into this chamber, which
he thought, on his earlier visit, was blocked with ice and snow. I did
not see any limestone stalactites anywhere, and I am inclined to think
that the low temperatures of glacières have a tendency to prevent their
formation.
After our visit, we went to the Châlet de La Genollière close by, where
there were some thirty cows and calves. The intelligent _berger_ or
manager said that most of the ice from the glacière was used for butter
making during the hot weather; and that between the inroads thus made
upon it and from other causes, the ice disappeared every year before
autumn, but that it formed afresh every winter; pretty good evidence to
show that the ice in this cave has nothing to do with a glacial period.
He also stated that when he first entered the inner chamber in the
spring there were four ice columns there.
The glacière de La Genollière is a clear exemplification of the theory
that the cold of winter is the sole cause for the ice. The whole
glacière is rather small and is fairly well protected against wind.
Although snow cannot fall directly under the rock arch, yet I should
imagine it drifts under, or after melting, runs in and refreezes. To
the inner cave snow, as snow, could hardly reach; and the cavern is
probably filled, like most cave glacières, from frozen drip. The inner
cave is, therefore, a true cave glacière, while the outer pits and the
bridge are something between a gorge and a cave. La Genollière should,
I think, be visited about the end of June, when the ice formations are
certainly larger and more interesting than in August.
THE FRIEDRICHSTEINER OR GOTTSCHEER EISHÖHLE.
A little to the east of, and in about the same latitude as Trieste,
is the small town of Gottschee, now reached by a branch railroad from
Laibach. Gottschee is a German settlement almost in the centre of
the district known as the Duchy of Krain, Austria, which is mainly
inhabited in the north by Slavonians and in the south by Croatians.
Gottschee lies directly at the western base of the Friedrichsteiner
Gebirge, one of whose peaks is the Burgernock. On the eastern slopes of
this mountain is situated the Friedrichsteiner or Gottscheer Eishöhle,
at an altitude of about nine hundred meters.
On the 24th of June, 1897, I left Gottschee at half past six o'clock in
the morning with Stefan Klenka, a nice little man. I had asked to have
him come at six o'clock, but he did not turn up and I had to send for
him. His excuse was, that tourists always ordered him for six o'clock,
but when the time came, they were still in bed. He had taken a German
officer and his wife to the cave the year before, and after keeping
him waiting three hours, they started at nine o'clock. The result was
that they did not get to the cave until two o'clock, and returned to
Gottschee just at nightfall.
We reached the cave at half past eight o'clock. The steep and rough
path went uphill through a fine forest, which my guide said was
_Urwald_, _i. e._, primeval forest; and there were certainly some
big trees and many fallen ones, and much underbrush. He assured me
that bears were still plentiful in the neighborhood, and that Prince
Auersperg, who owns the shooting, does not allow them to be killed,
preferring to pay for any damage they may cause to the peasants'
fields or for any cattle they may dine on, rather than to have these
interesting animals exterminated from his woods. He also said that
there was a two meter snowfall in Gottschee in winter: a sufficient
quantity to account for the glacières. At one place on the road we
stopped before a small crack in the rocks, and Klenka dropped in some
small stones, which we could hear strike two or three times a long
distance below. There is surely an unexplored cavern at this spot.
The Friedrichsteiner Eishöhle is a large pit cave, well lighted by
daylight. It is sheltered from any winds by the great trees which grow
all around it and even over the rock roof. A long, steep slope leads
straight into the pit and from the top the ice floor is in full sight.
On both sides of the slope the rocks are almost sheer. Over the bottom
of the slope the rock roof projects at a great height. The sides of the
cave rise perpendicularly at least forty meters, and in fact, the cave
suggests an unfinished tunnel set on end.
Some years ago, the _Deutschen und Oesterreichischen Alpen Verein_
built a wooden staircase, in a series of zigzags, on the slope. This
staircase should have been cleared off earlier in the year, but, of
course, the matter was neglected. Down these steps we descended until
they became covered with snow, and lower down with hard ice. All this
was winter's snow which fell directly on to the slope and gradually
melted and froze again, so this was really a miniature glacier. It was
not subterranean ice at all. We cut down the snow, but had to stop when
we came to the ice, as it would have involved a couple of hours at
least of the hardest kind of step cutting; and this my guide did not
care to undertake, especially as he was nearly killed on this slope the
week before. He had reached, with some tourists from Trieste, a place
above that where we stopped, when he slipped and fell down the slope,
shooting clear across the cave, where he remained until ropes were
procured, and he was dragged out. He afterwards showed me the numerous
cuts and bruises he had received on his perilous glissade.
We had to stop also for another reason. I had unwisely brought as wrap,
a thick overcoat reaching to the knees, and this was such an impediment
on the icy staircase, that I took it off, and soon began to feel long
shivers creeping down my spine. This question of extra clothing for
glacière exploration is hard to arrange. One must guard against most
trying changes of temperature. For, on entering a big glacière, the
heat of a July day without, will, at a distance of only a few meters,
give place to the cold of a January day within, and nothing could be
better devised than a big glacière to lay the seeds of rheumatism.
It is difficult to plan a garb suitable to meet all the varying
conditions, but the dress must be cool and warm, and light enough to
permit free motion. The clothes I have found most practical are a thin
waistcoat and thick trousers, and two short sack coats, one of them
a heavy winter one. The coats should button at the throat, and it is
well to place straps round the bottom of the trousers. Thick kid gloves
should always be worn in caves, to save cutting the hands on rocks or
ice in the darkness, and hobnails may prevent some unpleasant slips.
From the point where we stopped, some ten meters away from the ice
floor, the largest portion of the cave was visible. The finest object
was a big ice curtain or _vorhang_, as my guide called it, which, from
a height of five or six meters, flowed down from fissures to the ice
floor, and which covered the rocks on the eastern side. Under one point
of this curtain, Klenka said that there was a deep hole in the ice.
Smaller fissure columns also streamed from the rear wall to the ice
floor. The ice floor itself was flat, of an ochre greenish tinge, and
was covered with broken ice fragments. We could not see the western
portion of the cavern, as the rocks jutted out in a sort of corner.
Klenka said that there were several small pyramids there; a large one
which he spoke of as the _Altar_; and a small ice slope, plastered on
the side rocks.
The sides of the cave were of a dark gray limestone rock, and from
the top of the slope they assumed a decidedly bluish tone, and I
am inclined to think that there was already--we were there from
eight-thirty A. M. until ten A. M.--a faint mist in the cavern. This
is the most interesting phenomenon connected with the Friedrichsteiner
Eishöhle. The cavern faces due south, and about midday, in clear
weather, the sun shines directly into it, causing a mist or cloud to
form in the cave on warm days; a mute witness that evaporation is
connected with the melting, not with the forming, of the ice. The air
at every point seemed still.
On my return to Gottschee, I called on one of the professors of the
K. K. Gymnasium, and he told me many interesting facts about the
surrounding country. Among other things he said that no traces of a
glacial period or indeed of glaciers were found in the Krain; and as
this district is particularly rich in glacières, this fact is a strong
proof against the glacial period theory. He assured me also that many
bears still existed in the neighborhood; that one family was known to
inhabit the woods round the Friedrichsteiner Eishöhle, and that he had
often seen bear tracks on his own shooting, some ten kilometers to the
south.
THE SUCHENREUTHER EISLOCH.
On the 25th of June, 1897, I left Gottschee at six-thirty A. M. in an
_einspänner_, and drove thirteen kilometers southward, over a good
road, albeit hilly in places, to Mrauen, which we reached in about
two hours. The weather was exceedingly hot. I took Klenka along, as
he spoke German, and he entertained me on the drive by telling me
that there were many poisonous snakes in the country, of which the
_kreuzotters_ or vipers were the worst, and that three or four persons
were bitten every year.
Mrauen is in Croatia, and I could see a slight difference in the people
and their dress from those of Gottschee. From Mrauen, the landlord of
the _Gasthaus Post_, Josef Sirar, led us to the Grosses Eisloch. This
is sometimes spoken of as the Eisloch bei Skrill, but as it lies in
a patch of woods below the village of Suchenreuth, the Suchenreuther
Eisloch seems the correct name. At least that was what Sirar called it.
It took us about an hour on foot from Mrauen to get into the woods.
On the way we met two guards in uniform, carrying Männlicher carbines
with fixed bayonets, and it was agreeable to feel that the strong arm
of the Austrian government extended over this semi-wild land. In the
woods, following Sirar's able guidance, we took a short cut--always a
mistake--and were lost temporarily in a maze of bushes and brambles, in
which I thought of the _kreuzotters_. After that, Sirar at first could
not find the cave and had to hunt around for it, while I sat on a stone
and waited impatiently.
At the cave a rather steep slope of wet mud, covered with dead leaves,
led down through a rock arch. Sirar had to cut several steps in the
mud with his hatchet, or we should probably have sat down suddenly.
The archway opened into a moderately large cavern, which was about
twenty meters deep, almost round and some fifteen meters in diameter.
The slope continued right across the cave, and on some parts of it
were logs of wood and much débris. On the wall hung a few limestone
stalactites. In the roof of the cave was a great hole, and under
this was a big cone of old winter snow, which had become icy in its
consistency, and on which there was much dirt and many leaves. The
temperature in the cave was several degrees above freezing point, and
there was no ice hanging anywhere. Sirar said that when the weather got
hotter, the ice would come; but as he said also, that he had been only
once before in the cave, some ten years ago, his opinion was not worth
much. Both men said that the preceding winter was unusually warm.
[Illustration: Fig. 6. Vertical Section of the Suchenreuther Eisloch.]
THE NIXLOCH.
Near Hallthurm in Bavaria, a railroad station between Reichenhall and
Berchtesgaden, is a well known congeries of windholes, called the
Nixloch. I visited it on Friday, July the 2d, 1897, with a railroad
employee, whom I found at the peasants' _gasthaus_.
The Nixloch is ten minutes distant in the forest, on the slopes of the
Untersberg. It is among a mass of big limestone blocks, and close by
are the remains of the walls of an old castle or fortification. The
Nixloch descends from the entrance for about two meters nearly sheer,
and there is just room to get through. As I sat within the outside edge
of the mouth of the cave, the smoke of my cigar was slowly carried
downward into it.
Dropping down through the hole, we found ourselves in a small cavern
formed of rough limestone blocks overhead and underfoot. It is possible
to go still further down and my companion said that formerly it was
possible to go through the cave and come out at a lower opening; this
exit, however, was destroyed when the railroad was built. The draught,
as tested by the flame of a candle, was still drawing in some seven or
eight meters from the entrance. There is a second cavity immediately
next to the entrance, and at the bottom of these holes, the inward
draught was so violent as to blow the candle out. The thermometer
outside in the shade was 28°C.; inside the cave, where the draught was
still perceptible, it was about 20°C. Within the cave I noticed two
large, dark brown spiders.
On returning to the _gasthaus_, I had a talk with some peasants who
were dining there, and they told me that it was warm in winter in the
Nixloch, and that ice never formed there.
THE DORNBURG.
If one draws a line northeast from Coblentz and another northwest from
Frankfort-on-the-Main, they will intersect nearly at the Dornburg. The
railroad from Frankfort goes, via Limburg and Hadamar, to Frickhofen
and Wilsenroth, from either of which villages the ice formations of the
Dornburg are easily reached on foot in half an hour.
I arrived at Wilsenroth on the 26th of July, 1897, and soon found
an old forester, who said he had lived in the neighborhood for over
fifty years, to show me the way. The Dornburg is a low hill, perhaps a
hundred meters high and a kilometer long. It is basaltic and covered
with sparse woods. The forester said that on top were the remains of
the foundations of an old castle, and that this was possibly the origin
of the name Dornburg. We circled round the eastern base of the hill
for some ten minutes, when we came to a little depression, filled with
basalt debris, among which were several small holes, out of which came
currents of cool air.
Ten minutes further in the woods, we arrived at the _Dornburg
Restauration_ and then almost immediately at the glacière. It is at the
bottom of a talus of broken basaltic rocks and has been much affected
by the agency of man. In it are two _eislöcher_ or _stollen_, as the
forester called them. These are little artificial pits or cellars, dug
into the talus. They are side by side, opening about southeast, and
each is about one and a half meters wide, three meters long, and two
meters high. The sides are built up with wooden posts and overhead is
a thick roof of logs strewn with dirt. The day was cool and at the
mouth of each _eisloch_, a faint outward current of air was discernible
at nine-thirty A. M. I could not find any currents coming into the
_eislöcher_. Inside it was cold and damp, and evidently thawing. There
was a good heap of ice in each _eisloch_; it was clear, and I could
detect no trace of prisms.
By much questioning, I dug out something of the history of these
_stollen_ from the forester. Formerly the ice was found at this spot,
among the boulders at the base of the slope. But the people gradually
took many of these basaltic blocks away, to break up for road making,
and then the ice diminished. About 1870, a brewery, since burnt, was
built at the Dornburg and the brewer had these _stollen_ built, a sort
of semi-natural, semi-artificial ice house. Every winter, the present
owner of the _stollen_ throws a quantity of snow into them, and this
helps materially in forming the mass of ice.
Just below the restaurant there is a spring, which was said to be
extremely cold, but there was nothing icy nor apparently unusual about
it.
Under the restaurant itself is an interesting cellar. It was closed by
wooden doors. First there was a passage way which turned steadily to
the right, and which we descended by some ten steps. This was about
two meters wide and was full of beer bottles and vegetables. On the
left of the passage was a large double chamber where meat is kept. At
eleven-thirty A. M. a faint draught blew down the passage and into the
hall, the outside door being then open. The double hall was perhaps six
meters each way, and I could detect no air currents coming into it at
any place, except from the passage way. Both passage and halls were, as
far as I could see, entirely built over with masonry. There was no ice
and the temperature was some 7° or 8° above freezing point.
The daughter of the proprietor of the restaurant said that ice began
to form in the cellar in February and that it lasted generally until
October; but that this year it was destroyed early because the masonry
was repaired, although it was still possible to skate in the cellar as
late as March. In the beginning of winter the cellar was warm, and as
she expressed it, _der Keller schwitzt dann_, which I suppose means
that the walls are damp. She also said that it was a _naturlicher
Keller_, and I am inclined to think that it was a natural glacière,
converted into a cellar.
This visit to the Dornburg gave me many new ideas about classifying
glacières, especially in relation to the movements of air. I was
long puzzled by the German terms, _Eishöhlen_ and _Windröhren_; and
it suddenly struck me, at the Dornburg, that this terminology is
incorrect, when used as a classification of glacières. The presence or
absence of strong, apparent draughts, cannot be considered as a test
as to whether a place is or is not a glacière; the presence of ice,
for at least part of the year, alone makes a glacière, and this it
does whether there are or are not draughts. It seems to me more than
ever clear, however, that it all depends on the movements of air, as
to whether ice forms in a cave. If the movements of air take the cold
air of winter into a cave, then and then only--provided there is also
a water supply--do we have ice. I am now inclined to think that caves,
as far as their temperatures are concerned, should be classified into
caves containing ice, cold caves, ordinary normal caves, and hot caves,
without reference to the movements of air.
THE GLACIÈRE DE SAINT-GEORGES.
From Rolle, on the north shore of the Lake of Geneva; an excellent
carriage road leads in two hours and a half to Saint-Georges in the
Jura. At first the way goes steeply uphill and passes through many
vineyards, and afterwards it crosses level fields to Gimel, then rises
through woods to Saint-Georges. On arriving there on the afternoon of
August 3d, 1897, I found the street filled with evergreens, and long
benches and tables; the débris of a _fête de tir_, which had lasted for
two days, with dancing and banquets and, I suspect, much _vin du pays_.
When I got down stairs at six o'clock next morning, all the people
of the inn were sound asleep recovering from the effects of the
_fête_, and instead of their calling me, I had to call them. Finally I
succeeded in getting breakfast and then started in company with a first
rate fellow, named Aymon Émery.
[Illustration: LA GLACIÈRE DE SAINT-GEORGES.
From a Photograph by E. Truand.
]
We walked up through woods, in about an hour and a half, to the
Glacière de Saint-Georges, which lies at an altitude of 1287 meters in
the midst of the forest. There are two holes close together. One of
these descends vertically and is partly roofed over with logs on which
is rigged a pulley. Émery, who was the _entrepreneur_ of the glacière,
which means that he attended to getting out the ice, told me that they
pulled the ice up through this vertical hole, making a noose with a
rope round each block.
The other and shallower opening ended in a rock floor, which was
reached by a short ladder. To the right was an arch, under which the
rock terminated as a floor and descended vertically, forming the wall
of the cave. On this wall two ladders, spliced at the end into one long
ladder, were placed in a nearly vertical position. I tied the end of my
rope round my waist, and got a workman, who had come to cut ice, to pay
out the rope to me, while I went down.
The cave is rather long and narrow, perhaps twenty-five meters by
twelve meters, and the limestone roof forms an arched descending curve
overhead. I could not see any limestone stalactites; neither were there
any ice stalactites or stalagmites in the cave, but a good part of the
wall, against which the long ladder was placed, was covered by an ice
curtain. It was thin and had evidently been damaged by the ice cutters
or I think it would have covered the entire lower portion of the wall.
The base of the long ladder rested on an ice floor which filled the
bottom of the cave, and which would probably have been level if it had
not been cut out here and there in places, leaving many holes. A good
many broken ice fragments lay on the floor and in some of the holes
were pools of water. Some of the floor ice was exceedingly prismatic in
character, and I was able to flake it off or break it easily with my
hands into prisms.
[Illustration: Fig. 7. Vertical Section of the Glacière de
Saint-Georges.]
Under the vertical shaft, which is at one end of the cave, was a mass
of winter's snow which had fallen through the opening. Under this snow
was a deep hole, which I believe was the drain hole of the glacière
before the ice floor was cut away to a level below its mouth. Into
this hole I threw lumps of ice and heard them go bumping down for three
or four seconds.
The atmosphere was not uncomfortable, although the temperature was
about 7° C. The air did not feel damp, and seemed almost still, but
standing on the ice floor nearly under the vertical hole, I found that
the smoke from my cigar ascended rapidly, and it seemed as if there
were a rising air current, which sucked up the smoke.
Saint-Georges is a fine cavern and well worth visiting. Émery said that
the ice was not cut out for eight years preceding the summer of 1897,
and that for several years it was not possible to go down at all, as
there were no ladders, until he put in the two we utilized.[5] All the
natives of Saint-Georges believed that the ice was a summer formation
and that it was warm in the cave in winter.
[5] In the illustration of the Glacière de Saint-Georges, the opening
to the left is the vertical pit, through which the ice is taken out:
underneath it, is the heap of winter snow. The man in the upper part
of the picture is standing on the rock shelf at the base of the upper
ladder and at the top of the lower ladder. To the right of the lower
ladder near the bottom, a bit of the ice curtain is visible.
THE GLACIÈRE DU PRÉ DE SAINT-LIVRES.
From the Glacière de Saint-Georges, Émery and I pushed on through the
woods to the Pré de Saint-Livres. In several places we came on the
tracks of deer, and my guide told me he had killed eleven roe during
the last hunting season. He said also that an attempt is being made to
introduce the red deer into the Jura, and that the experiment seemed to
be meeting with success. We kept to the crest of the ridge along wood
paths, and, as the day was fortunately cool and cloudy, we were able to
walk fast and reached the Pré de Saint-Livres in two hours. At a spot
called La Foiraudaz we met the workmen coming down with a cartload of
ice, which they were taking to Bière. Some of this ice was extremely
prismatic.
The Pré de Saint-Livres is a big mountain pasture or meadow, surrounded
with hills covered with pine trees. In the middle of it is the Châlet
de Saint-Livres, round which numerous cows and calves were congregated
and where a small shepherd gave us some milk. The châlet is not one
of the old picturesque Swiss châlets with great stones on the roof to
keep it from being blown away by the wind, but a strongly built single
storied stone structure, which looks extremely modern among the green
hills.
The glacière lies close to the châlet, on the southern side of the
meadows, just on the edge of the woods, and is surrounded with trees.
It is at an altitude of 1362 meters and faces nearly due north. To
prevent the cattle from falling in, it is enclosed with a stone wall,
except in front, where there is a fence formed of an abattis of pine
trees. The cave belongs to the pit variety, and the pit is a big one.
As you stand at the top, you can look down to the end of the glacière.
The rocks are vertical all round the pit, and in front there is a small
rock shelf, one-third of the way down, which divides the rock wall
into two long drops. Against each of these was a rickety ladder, so we
fixed the end of my rope to the pine trees of the fence, and hung on
to it while we climbed down. The base of the lower and longer ladder
rested on a mass of snow. This was the beginning of a long snow slope
which gradually turned to ice and filled the cave. The cave itself,
measuring along the snow slope, is some forty meters long and some ten
to fifteen meters wide, and is entirely lighted by daylight.
The snow and ice slope fell in a series of small waves, and the upper
portion was rather dirty. On the right hand the workmen had fixed a
rope as a handrail, and all the way down had cut a staircase in the
ice, so that the descent was not difficult. Some of the ice was sloppy.
The ice mass did not abut entirely against the end of the cave, but
left an open space between the ice and the rock, some three or four
meters wide and some four or five meters deep. Here the workmen had
been getting their ice, and had cut into the ice mass for several
meters, forming a little tunnel.
There were no ice cones nor stalactites, neither did I see any
limestone stalactites. Much of the ice was prismatic; in fact, together
with that at Saint-Georges, it was the most strongly prismatic I have
seen. I can perhaps best describe it, by saying that it was brittle
in texture, as I could break up small lumps in my hands. There was
more prismatic ice at Saint-Livres, however, than at Saint-Georges.
The air in the cave was still and decidedly damp; and the temperature
was several degrees above freezing point. The day, however, was almost
windless, and I would not assert that movements of air, due to the
wind, might not sometimes take place in the pit.
The Glacière du Pré de Saint-Livres is one of those caves which may
be looked on as a transitional form between gorges containing ice and
caves containing ice. The winter snow falls into the mouth of the pit,
and is the chief foundation of the ice mass. It would be interesting
to make a series of observations in this cave to see whether there was
anything like glacier motion. Émery, of his own accord, expressed the
opinion that much of the ice here was due to the winter snows; in fact,
he thought that it was all due to it, and that it gradually descended
into the cave and turned, little by little, into ice. He told me that
some years ago a cow was found by the workmen, frozen into the ice,
at a depth of four meters; the flesh was perfectly preserved, and was
eaten. I asked him if he had ever seen insects in either cave, and he
said he had not.
From the glacière we walked back to the village of Saint-Georges. On
asking my guide how much I owed him, he said he received four francs
for a _journée_, so I gave him six francs, and we parted the best of
friends.
GLACIER ICE CAVE IN THE FEE GLACIER.
During a rather protracted stay at Saas-Fee in Switzerland, I visited
the glacier ice cave of the Fee Glacier on the 15th and 16th of
August, 1897, both cool and rainy days. It is about half an hour's
walk from the hotel to the ice cave, which is in the snout of the Fee
glacier, below the Eggfluh. A considerable stream issued from the cave.
On nearing the opening, a strong cold air current poured out above
the stream. At the front edge of the ice, the height of the ice roof
in the centre was perhaps twelve meters and the width fifteen meters.
Around the edge, the roof formed an almost perfect curve. The ice walls
contracted in a regular manner within, and the cave became narrower and
lower, and suggested an enormous funnel cut in half, into which you
looked from the larger end. The cave also grew gradually darker, and
the darkness prevented seeing further than to a depth of some fifteen
meters. In the ice walls, just inside the entrance, were several
crevasses, of the ordinary blue-green color. They followed nearly the
same curve as the roof, but did not go through to the outside. There
were no icicles. The ice was faintly stratified in places, and at the
outer edge was brittle. It did not break into the long narrow prisms
of the ice at Saint-Georges and the Pré de Saint-Livres, but rather
into small lumps with facets, of all sorts of shapes. It was evidently
unsafe to penetrate under the ice roof, for while I stood in front of
the cave, a large lump broke off from the roof and fell with a clatter
among a lot of other ice fragments already on the moraine floor. In two
places there was a steady rain of drops from the roof, showing that the
ice was melting.
This is perhaps the glacier cave in Switzerland which is easiest to
visit, and my inspection intensified my belief in what I consider
the correct explanation of some of the phenomena in glacières. The
suggestion was that as soon as the temperature gets above freezing
point in a glacier ice cave, the only process is that of destruction of
the ice, which seems to be also the case with glacières.
LA GRAND CAVE DE MONTARQUIS.
My brother and I left Cluses, in Savoie, a railroad station on the line
between Geneva and Chamonix, at two o'clock on the afternoon of the
22d of August, 1897, and drove up in two hours and a half to Pralong
du Reposoir, a distance of eleven kilometers. The road is a _route
nationale_, fine and broad, with parapets in many places. After passing
Scionzier, it mounts gradually, passing through a tremendous wild
gorge, cut by the waters and heavily clad with firs. We reached Pralong
at four-thirty, and stopped at a primitive inn, still in process of
construction, and tenanted only by blue-bloused peasants, who, as it
was Sunday night, sat up late, drinking and making a heathenish noise
they mistook for singing. I talked to some of these men, and they all
insisted that there was no ice at the Grand Cave in winter, but that
it came in summer. _Plus il fait chaud, plus ça gêle_, they said. One
man explained the formation of the ice in an original way, and with
an intelligence far above that of the average peasant. He considered
that it was due to air currents, and thought that in winter the snow
stopped up the holes in the rocks, through which the currents came; but
that when the snow melted, the draughts could work, and that then they
formed the ice.
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.
[Illustration: 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.
THE FREEZING WELL OF OWEGO.
On Thursday, June 23d, 1898, I went to Owego, in Tioga County, New
York. Inquiries at the Lehigh Valley railroad station and at the chief
hotel failed to elicit any information about a freezing well; and in
fact, I soon found that the existence of such a thing was a blank to
the rising generation. So I called on an old resident of Owego, who
told me that he knew of the well in question and that it was filled up
with stones many years ago; but that he remembered that, when he was a
boy, it used to freeze, and that it was spoken of as the deep well or
freezing well. I then walked up to the site of the well, which is about
one and a half kilometers to the northwest from the centre of Owego and
about one kilometer from the Susquehanna River. It is directly in the
middle of the highway, and nothing is now visible but a heap of stones.
Near by was the house of a Mr. Preston, who told me he was born in
1816, and had lived all his life at this spot. He said that the well
was about twenty-eight meters deep, and that it went first through
a layer of sand and then through a layer of gravel. He had more than
once been down the well and had seen the sides covered with ice. A
bucket sent down for water would sometimes come up with ice on the
sides. Whether the water at the bottom ever froze, no one knew, for
the ice caked and filled up the bore at about two-thirds of the way
down and became so thick, that as Mr. Preston put it, "it was just like
hammering on an anvil to try to break it." He also stated that another
well was dug about one hundred meters further down the road, and that
originally this sometimes had a little ice on the sides. Of late years
however, it was covered over with a wooden top and since then no ice
was known to form. I could obtain no information about any other wells
in the neighborhood ever showing similar peculiarities.
THE ICY GLEN, NEAR STOCKBRIDGE.
The Icy Glen is situated on Bear Mountain, about one kilometer from
Stockbridge, Massachusetts. It is in the midst of fine woods and there
are many big trees in it. The bottom of the glen is full of rocks
and boulders, among which there is a rough path. I was told that ice
remained over there much longer than anywhere else in the neighborhood,
sometimes as late as May. On the 3d of July, 1898, I not only found no
traces of ice or snow, but the temperatures under the boulders showed
nothing abnormal. To make up for this, however, there were legions of
mosquitoes.
FREEZING MARBLE CAVE, NEAR MANCHESTER.
Near Manchester, Vermont, there is a little cave,[6] which is
noteworthy, in that it is in a marble formation. It is known as
Skinner's Cave, because it was owned for many years by Mr. Mark
Skinner. It lies in Skinner's Hollow, some five or six kilometers from
the centre of Manchester, at the base of the eastern slope of Mount
Equinox, of the Taghconic Range of the Green Mountains.
[6] My attention was called to this cave, by Messrs. John Ritchie, Jr.,
of Boston, and Byerly Hart of Philadelphia, who visited it some years
ago. Mr. Ritchie's opinion is that it is simply a refrigerator.
The cave is on the property of Mr. N. M. Canfield, who, on learning the
object of my visit, on the 5th of July, 1898, with true native American
courtesy, walked up to it with me. The last two kilometers were over a
rough logging road, which towards the end was steep and covered with
many broken logs. I could not have found the cave alone, as it was
so surrounded with bushes, that the entrance was invisible until we
actually reached it. It is in a gorge of Mount Equinox, in the midst
of a beautiful forest, which effectually cuts off any wind. The cave
faces nearly north and can scarcely ever, if indeed at any time, be
reached by the rays of the sun. The moment we got into the entrance, we
found the chilly, damp, summer atmosphere of true glacière caves. The
rocks were brown and mossy on the outside, but Mr. Canfield called my
attention to the fact that they were marble, and on his knocking off
a small piece, a section of pure white marble was exposed. In no other
instance have I heard of a marble cave in connection with ice. There
were scarcely any cracks or crevices in the rock.
The cave goes down with a steep slope from the entrance, much in the
shape of a tunnel, for some ten meters. The slope was covered with
slippery mud and decayed leaves, and at the bottom expanded into a
little chamber, in which lay a mass of wet, compact snow, some two by
three meters. It was evident that the snow was simply drifted in during
the winter, and was in too large a mass and too well protected to melt
easily, and there could be no question but that this place was purely
a refrigerator. The air was tranquil throughout and there were no
draughts. On the same day, a good breeze was blowing in the Manchester
Valley.
THE FREEZING WELL OF BRANDON.
The Freezing Well of Brandon is situated on the western or southwestern
outskirts of the village of Brandon, Vermont, not far from the railroad
station. I visited it on the 7th of July, 1898. The well was protected
by a wooden cover. On raising this, a faint stream of cool air seemed
to issue forth; but this was probably only imagination. The sides, as
far down as one could see, were built in with rather large blocks of
stone without cement. At the bottom water was visible and there were
no signs of ice. We drew up some water in a bucket, and although it
was cool there was nothing icy about it. I twice lowered a thermometer
nearly to the water and each time after ten minutes it registered only
13° C. There was certainly nothing abnormal in this temperature, in
fact it was strictly normal and my thermometer showed conclusively by
its actions that it could not have been near any ice mass. The people
at the house, however, assured me that a month before there was ice in
the well.
Afterwards I called on Mr. C. O. Luce, the owner of the well. He stated
that it was eleven and a half meters deep to the bottom, that it was
dug in 1858, and that the ground through which it goes was found frozen
at a depth of about four and a half meters. Here there is a stratum of
gravel and this is where the freezing occurs. Mr. Luce thought that
the water was under the ice, that is, that the water came up from the
bottom. He said also that the well usually froze solid in winter; but,
that as this winter was an open one, there was less ice this year than
usual. He thought that there was less ice anyway now than in former
years, partly because of the cover which was put over the well, and
which keeps out some of the cold; and partly because a neighboring
gravel hillock, called the Hogback, was a good deal cut away, and this
in some way affects the supply of cold in the gravel. He added that the
sandy soil round Brandon does not as a rule freeze to a greater depth
than two meters each winter. The house built beside the well was said
to be comfortable in winter.
There seems no doubt that this is another refrigerator. The cold water
of the winter snows percolates into the gravel mass and refreezes, and,
owing to the bad conductive quality of the material, the gravel remains
frozen later than the soil elsewhere in the neighborhood. The fact that
the well went through a frozen gravel stratum when dug, proves that it
is not alone the air that sinks into the well itself, which makes the
ice. The fact that the well freezes on the whole less than formerly,
apparently partly owing to the digging up of some of the gravel close
by, goes to prove the same thing. The fact that the well generally
freezes solid every winter, shows that although some of the gravel
mass possibly remains frozen all the time, much of the ice is renewed
each year. This is especially important as proving that the ice found
in gravel deposits is due to the cold of winter and not to a glacial
period, although, of course, no one could say for how long a time the
ice was forming and melting; and this process might date back to the
time of the formation of the gravel mass.
I could learn nothing of any similar place near Brandon, except that
Mr. Luce said that in an old abandoned silver mine in the neighborhood,
he had once seen ice during hot weather.
FREEZING TALUS ON LOWER AUSABLE POND.
On the eastern side of Lower Ausable Pond, Essex County, New York,
at the foot of Mount Sébille or Colvin, there is a talus of great
Laurentian boulders, which fell from the mountain and lie piled up
on the edge of the lake. Among these boulders, at a distance of
about five hundred meters from the southern end of the lake, there
are spaces, several of which might be called caves, although they are
really hollows between the boulders. On the 12th of July, 1898, I
visited this spot with Mr. Edward I. H. Howell of Philadelphia. From
several of the rock cracks we found a draught of air flowing strongly
out, as tested by the smoke of a cigar. The air was distinctly icy and
there could be no question that there was a considerable quantity of
ice among the rocks to produce the temperature.
In three places we found masses of ice. One of these hollows was small,
and the other two were much larger. One of the latter was almost round
in shape, and perhaps three meters in diameter; with a little snow near
the mouth and with plenty of ice at the bottom. The other was a long
descending crack between two boulders which joined overhead, and with
the bottom filled by a long, narrow slope of ice, perhaps seventy-five
centimeters in width and six meters in length, set at an angle of about
thirty-five degrees. The ice was hard and non-prismatic.
The cold air affects a large area of land around the boulders. Mr.
Howell called my attention to the flowers of the bunch-berry, which he
said were at least two weeks behind those on the surrounding mountains.
The same was true of _oxalis_, a pretty white flower, of which we found
several beds in full bloom.
Mr. Howell went to this talus, on the 4th of July previous, with Mr.
Niles, President of the Appalachian Mountain Club, on which occasion
they found plenty of snow near the entrance of the larger hollow. Mr.
Howell, indeed, has repeatedly visited this place, and always found
ice, which must, therefore, be looked on as perennial. At all times
also he has felt cold draughts flowing out; sometimes they were so
strong as to lower the temperature over the lake to a distance of
thirty meters or more: on hot days he has seen occasionally a misty
cloud form on the lake in front of the boulders. Mr. Howell considers
that the draughts so affect the surrounding air, that an artificial
climate is produced, and it is owing to this that spring flowers bloom
late in July and sometimes in August. Another fact well known to him,
is that in hot weather, the spot in front of the boulders is the best
in the whole lake to catch trout, as they always congregate in the
coldest water. The Adirondack guides use these ice retaining hollows,
which they call ice-caves, as refrigerators for their provisions and
game in hot weather: they say that the ice is formed in winter and
remains over during the summer, as it is so well sheltered.
FREEZING TALUS OF THE GIANT OF THE VALLEY.
On the indications of Mr. Otis, chief guide of the Adirondack Reserve,
I explored with Mr. C. Lamb, a guide from Keene Valley, the southern
base of the Giant of the Valley Mountain, Essex County, New York, on
the 14th of July, 1898. A road runs from Keene Heights to Port Henry,
through the gap between the south base of the Giant of the Valley and
the north base of Round Mountain, and passes close to a small lake
called Chapel Pond. Some three hundred meters west of this lake, we
left the road and struck north, across the brook, into the thick, mossy
woods. After perhaps one hundred meters, we came to a talus of great
boulders of Laurentian rock, with the cliffs of the Giant, whence the
boulders had fallen, rising steeply above. We found ice under several
of them, although never in any quantity. The thermometer, after an
exposure of fifteen minutes in one of these little hollows, registered
6° C., although not more than one meter from where the sunshine fell on
the moss. In the shade of a tree one meter distant from the same hollow
it registered 26° C.; a difference of 20° C. at a distance of only two
meters.
Perhaps one kilometer east of Chapel Pond, there is a place, where the
bases of the mountains come much nearer together, which bears the name
of "The Narrows." Here we crossed the brook again, and, after some
fifteen or twenty meters of scrambling through rough woods, reached
once more the talus of the Giant, composed of tremendous boulders.
Among these we found ice in many places and this time in large
quantities. Within one boulder cave we found an ice slab some four
meters in length, by two meters in width, and one meter in thickness.
This was pure, hard and non-prismatic ice, and was evidently not formed
of compressed snow: in fact snow could not have drifted in under the
boulder. We broke off a large piece of ice and took it back to Saint
Hubert's Inn, and it melted rather slowly. From the mouth of this cave
an icy draught issued, and, as it struck the warmer air outside, a
slight mist was formed. Mr. Lamb said that from the road itself he had
sometimes seen mist rising from this talus. Further explorations of the
talus of the Giant would probably reveal ice in many other places than
those we examined.[7]
[7] Mr. E. I. H. Howell examined several times, in 1899, the talus of
the Giant of the Valley. He found ice in many places; also cold air
currents blowing out. At one spot, there is a spring which flows all
through the summer, and the water is so cold, that its temperature is
little above that of melting ice. Mr. Howell found, as at Ausable Pond,
spring flowers growing in mid-summer among the rocks of the talus.
Mr. Lamb told me of two other places in the Adirondacks, where he
found ice in similar boulder formations. One was in the talus of Mount
Wallface in Indian Pass, between Mounts Wallface and McIntyre. The
other was in the talus of Mount McIntyre in Avalanche Pass, between
Mounts McIntyre and Colden. At the latter place, he found it near the
trail going round the lake in the pass.
THE ICE GULCH, RANDOLPH.
The Randolph Ice Gulch is situated in Randolph Township, New Hampshire,
about eight kilometers from Randolph Station, on the Boston and Maine
Railroad.[8] I visited it on August 11th, 1898. At the Mount Crescent
House, I found a guide in the person of Mr. Charles E. Lowe, Jr. The
excursion took us about six hours. The trail was a rough bush path,
cut by the Appalachian Mountain Club, and which had not been cleaned
out that year. It was a cloudy but hot day and this, combined with the
badness of the road, made the walk fatiguing.
[8] I first heard of the Ice Gulch from Mr. John Ritchie, Jr., of
Boston. Some years ago in the middle of July, he found ice plentiful in
the second chamber. He thought the Gulch only a refrigerator.
The Gulch lies between Crescent and Black Mountains. The altitude of
the upper end of the Gulch is something over eight hundred meters,
that of the lower end about six hundred meters. It is some fifteen
hundred meters long, and averages perhaps one hundred meters in width
at the top, and only a few meters at the bottom. The depth may be about
seventy-five meters and the sides are steep, in some places sheer.
The bottom is a mass of broken, fallen rocks, with a good many trees
growing among them. There are several steps, so to speak, in the Gulch,
which are called chambers, although the term seems rather meaningless.
Promenading through the bottom of the Gulch was fraught with
difficulty, because the rocks were placed in most unsuitable positions
for human progression, and my hands were certainly as useful to me as
my feet in preserving equilibrium. We found ice in one or two places,
but not in any great quantity. In one spot it was overlaid by water. My
guide said that there was less ice than the year before. A large piece
which we broke off, and which furnished us with a cooling morsel of
frozen fluid, was full of air bubbles. It was not prismatic ice, and
was certainly unusual in formation. It crunched up under the teeth and,
although it did not look like solidified snow, yet, judging from its
position among the boulders, it was doubtless formed from the melting
and refreezing of snow.[9] My guide said he had heard that fresh ice
began to form sometimes in September. The Gulch is well protected
against wind, and I detected no draughts among the rocks. Except in the
immediate vicinity of the ice, the temperature was not abnormally low.
[9] On the 17th of February, 1899, four days after the greatest snow
storm in Philadelphia in many years, I noticed that the snow on my
roof solidified slowly into a mass of ice which contained a good
many air-bubbles. It strikingly resembled the ice of the Ice Gulch,
only that it was more solid and did not have more than half as many
air-bubbles.
On returning to the Mount Crescent House, I had a talk with Mr. Charles
E. Lowe, Sr., who told me that Alpine plants, like those which grow on
Mount Washington and Mount Adams, are found in the Gulch; but that they
do not exist on the neighboring Black and Crescent Mountains. He said
also that ice was present in more than one place in King's Ravine, and
that it was always there.
FREEZING BOULDER TALUS AT RUMNEY.
About three kilometers south of Rumney, New Hampshire, there is a hill
called Bald Mountain, which, about three hundred meters west of the
carriage road from Rumney to Plymouth, descends as a big cliff, with
an exposure facing nearly southeast. At the base of this cliff, there
is a talus[10] which I visited on the 27th of August, 1898, with the
Sheriff of Rumney, Mr. Learned. He said he had found plenty of ice
there on the 18th of August, 1897, but he doubted whether there would
be any left this year, on account of the hot weather. Effectively a
careful hunt failed to reveal any ice, although the talus was just
the kind of place where it might have been expected, as the boulders
were piled one over the other and in one or two places there were
considerable hollows. The temperatures were normal, and there were
no draughts. The talus is exposed to the sun, and only moderately
sheltered against wind by a scrub forest. But there can be no doubt,
that ice lingers there long after it has disappeared from every other
spot in the neighborhood, and it seems as if our not finding any, is
another proof that it is the heat of summer which melts it away.
[10] Mr. John Ritchie, Jr., wrote me about this place, where he had
found ice plentiful some years ago in August, within two or three
meters from the outside: he considered it only a refrigerator.
ICE FORMATIONS AND WINDHOLES AT WATERTOWN.
At Watertown, New York, on the south side of the Black River, in the
town itself, are some natural cracks or crevices in the limestone
rocks. They are only a short distance from the New York Central
Railroad station. The cracks enter the northern side of the railroad
embankment, pass under the railroad tracks, and extend some distance
back. In front of them are four cellars, used for storing beer kegs.
The lessor, Mr. Ehrlicher, obligingly had the cellars opened for me, on
the 12th of September, 1898. There was neither ice nor draughts in the
cellars, and the temperature was normal. Mr. Ehrlicher said that in the
spring there was ice in the cracks, but that it had all melted away as
the result of the hot summer.
[Illustration: THE BLUFF AT DECORAH.
From a Photograph by Mr. A. F. Kovarik.
]
About four kilometers west of Watertown, on the south bank of the Black
River, is the picnic ground of Glen Park, which is reached by trolley.
The manager of the restaurant walked around the park with me. In one
spot is a hollow or glen at the base of a small, much cracked limestone
cliff, which has a northern exposure. The manager said that snow and
ice usually lies in this place until June, not only among the broken
rocks, but even in the open. Sometimes ice remains among the boulders
all summer, but only near the front of the boulders, and by pushing
in, one soon gets beyond it: we found none, a fact showing once more
the effect of the unusually warm summer. On hot days, draughts issue
from between the boulders, but as the day was cool, we did not notice
any. The spot is well sheltered against the wind by a number of trees;
and the shape of the hollow reminded me of the glen in front of the
Eishöhle bei Roth.