ed more or less with ice;
though, at the time of my visit, the furious rains of the end of June,
1864, had washed down a considerable amount of mud, and so covered some
of the ice. There were no ready means of determining the thickness of
this layer of ice, for the descent of which ten or eleven zigzags had
been made by the farmer. In one place, within 24 feet of its upper
commencement, it was from 2-1/2 to 3 feet thick; but the prominence of
that part seemed to mark it out as of more than the average thickness.
Even where to all appearance there was nothing but mud and earth, an
unexpected fall or two showed that all was ice below. Whether the driver
had previously experienced the treacherousness of this slope of ice,
or whatever his motive might be, he left me to enter and explore alone.

The roof of the entrance is at first a mere shell, formed by the thin
crust of rock on which the surface-earth and trees rest high overhead;
but this rapidly becomes thicker, as shown in the section of the cave,
and thus a sort of outer cave is formed, the real portal of the glaciere
being reached about 60 feet above the bottom of the slope. This outer
cave presents a curious appearance, from the distinctness with which the
several strata of the limestone are marked, the lower strata weathered
and rounded off like the seats of an amphitheatre of the giants, and
all, up to the shell-like roof, arranged in horizontal semicircles of
various graduated sizes, showing their concavity; while at the bottom of
the whole is seen a patch of darkness, with two masses of ice in its
centre, looming out like grey ghosts at midnight. This darkness is of
course the inner cave, the entrance to which, though it seems so small
from above, is 78 feet broad.

The glaciere itself may be said to commence as soon as this entrance,
or perpendicular portal, is passed, and thus includes 60 feet of the
long slope of ice, from the foot of which to the farther end of the
cave is 145 feet, the greatest breadth of the cave being 148 feet.
Immediately below the portal I found a piece of the trunk of a large
column of ice, 7 feet long and 12 feet in girth, its fractured ends
giving the idea of the interior of a quickly-grown tree, in
consequence of the concentric arrangement of convergent prisms
described in the account of the Glaciere of S. Georges. The wife of
the farmer told me afterwards that there had been two glorious
columns at this portal, which the recent ra