S. Georges, he had only bought a considerable quantity
of ice two years ago from the Glaciere of S. Livres, and he did not
believe that the _fermier_ of S. Georges lived in Geneva. Part of the
confusion was due to the custom of placing a wife's maiden name after
her husband's name: thus Gignoux-Chavaz implies that a male Gignoux
has married a female Chavaz; and when a Swiss marries an English lady
with a very English name, the result in the Continental mouth is
sufficiently curious.

On arriving at the entrance to the glaciere, the end of a suggestive
ladder is seen under the protecting trunks; and after one or two steps
have been taken down the ladder, the effect of the cave below is
extremely remarkable, the main features being a long wall covered
thickly with white ice in sheets, a solid floor of darker-coloured ice,
and a high pyramid of snow reaching up towards the uncovered hole
already spoken of. The atmosphere of the cave is damp, and this causes
the ladders to fall speedily to decay, so that they are by no means to
be trusted: indeed, an early round gave way under one of my sisters,
when they visited the cave with me in 1861, and suggested a clear fall
of 60 feet on to a cascade of ice.[16] There are three ladders, one
below the other, and a hasty measurement gave their lengths as 20, 16,
and 28 feet. The rock-roof is only a few feet thick in the neighbourhood
of the hole of entrance.

[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO THE GLACIERE OF S. GEORGES.]

The total length of the cave is 110 feet, lying NE. and SW., in the line
of the main chain of the Jura. The lowest part of the floor is a sea of
ice of unknown depth, 45 feet long by 15 broad; and Renaud tried my
powers of belief by asserting that in 1834 the level of this floor was
higher by half the height of the cave than now; a statement, however,
which is fully borne out by Professor Pictet's measurements in 1822,
when the depth of the glaciere was less than 30 feet. Indeed, the floor
had sunk considerably since my previous visit, when it was all at the
same level down to the further end of the cave; whereas now, as will be
seen in the section, there was a platform of stones resting on ice at
that end. There are two large fissures passing into the rock, one only
of which can be represented in the section, and these were full of white
ice, not owing its whiteness apparently to the admixture of air in
bubbles, but firm and compact, and very hard, almost like porcelain.