ies of the artificial ice-houses fail; and then the hotel-keepers
have recourse to the stores laid up for them by nature in the Glacieres
of S. Georges and S. Livres. Hence the importance of protecting the
ice; the necessity for so doing arising in this case from the fact that
the entrance to the cave is by a hole in the roof, which exposes the ice
to direct radiation, unlike all other glacieres, excepting perhaps the
_Cueva del Hielo_ on the Peak of Teneriffe.[14]

Autumn appears to be the usual time for cutting the ice, when it is
carried from the cave on men's backs as far as the commencement of the
rough mountain-road, and is there packed on chars, and so conveyed to
the nearest railway station. Renaud had worked in the cave for two
years, and asserted that they did not choose the night for carrying
the ice down to the station, and did not even care to choose a cool
day. He believed that, in the autumn of 1863, they loaded two chars a
day for fifteen days, and each char took from 40 to 50 quintaux; the
quintal containing 50 kilos, or 100 livres.[15] In Professor Pictet's
time (1822) this glaciere supplied the Hospital of Geneva, whose
income depended in part on its privilege of _revente_ of all ice sold
in the town, with 25 quintaux every other day during the summer. In my
anxiety to learn the exact amount of ice now supplied by the glaciere,
I determined to find out the _fermier_; but Renaud could tell nothing
of him beyond the fact that he lived in Geneva, which some promiscuous
person supplemented by the information that his name was Boucqueville,
and that he had something to do with comestibles. On entering upon a
hunt for M. Boucqueville a fortnight later, it turned out that no one
had heard of such a person, and the Directory professed equal
ignorance; but, under the head of 'Comestibles,' there appeared a
Gignoux-Bocquet, No. 34, Marche. Thirty-four, Marche, said, yes--M.
Bocquet--it was quite true: nevertheless, it was clear that monsieur
meant Sebastian aine, on the Molard. The Molard knew only a younger
Sebastian, but suggested that the right man was probably M.
Gignoux-Chavaz, over the way; and when it was objected that
Gignoux-Bocquet, and not Gignoux-Chavaz, was the name, the Molard
replied that it made no matter,--Chavaz or Bocquet, it was all the
same. When M. Gignoux-Chavaz was found, he said that he certainly was
a man who had something to do with a glaciere, but, instead of farming
the Glaciere of