the last few feet, of course cutting
the remaining steps before attempting to reascend. We found him
strutting about the floor of the cave, tossing his wet cap in the air,
and crying _No one! No one! I the first!_, declining to take any part in
measurements until the full of his delight and pride had been poured
out. He shouted so loud that I was obliged to stop him, lest by some
chance the unwonted disturbance of the air should bring down an unstable
block from the roof of the arch, and seal us up for ever. There was no
sign of incipient thaw in the cave, and the air was very dry, so much so
as at once to call attention to the fact. At the farthest end, a lofty
dome opened up in the roof; and possibly at some time or other the rock
may here fall through, and afford another means of entrance. Beneath
this dome a very lovely cluster of columns had grouped itself, formed of
the clear porcelain-like ice, and fretted and festooned with the utmost
delicacy, as if Andersen's Ice Maiden had been there in one of her
amiable moods, and had built herself a palace. This dome in the roof was
similar to many which I afterwards observed in other glacieres, being a
vertical fissure with flutings from top to bottom--not a spherical dome,
but of that more elegant shape which the female dress of modern times
assumes on a tall person.

[Illustration: VERTICAL SECTIONS OF THE UPPER GLACIERE OF THE PRE DE S.
LIVRES. [21]]

Between the base of the circular column and the wall, we found a rare
instance of clear jelly-like ice, without any lines external or
internal, such as is formed in the open air under very favourable
circumstances. The ordinary number of undergraduate May Terms had
afforded various opportunities for studying the comparative clearness of
different pieces of ice, but certainly no one ever saw a lemon pippin
through an inch and a half of that material so clearly as we now saw the
white rock through 1-1/2 feet. Mignot, indeed, said 2 feet; but it was
his way to make a large estimate of dimensions, and he constantly
interrupted my record of measurements by the assertion that I had made
them _moins que plus_. We were all disappointed by the actual size of
the ice-fall which it had cost us so much time and trouble to descend,
the distance from the first step to the last being only 26 feet: as
this, however, was given by a string stretched from the one point to the
other, and not following the concave surface of the ice, the rea