This famous Cavern, at Ithetz Kaya-Zastchita, in the Steppes of the
Kirghis, is employed by the inhabitants as a cellar. It has the very
remarkable property of being so intensely cold during the hottest
summers as to be then filled with ice, which disappearing with cold
weather, is entirely gone in winter, when all the country is clad
in snow. The roof is hung with ever-dripping solid icicles, and the
floor may be called a stalagmite of ice and frozen earth. “If,” says
Sir R. Murchison, “as we were assured, _the cold is greatest when the
external air is hottest and driest_, that the fall of rain and a moist
atmosphere produce some diminution of the cold in the cave, and that
upon the setting-in of winter the ice disappears entirely,--then indeed
the problem is very curious.” The peasants assert that in winter they
could sleep in the cave without their sheepskins.