Small stalactites hung from round fissures in the roof, formed of the
same sort of ice, and broken off short, much as the end of a leaden pipe
is sometimes seen to project from a wall. With this exception, there was
no ice hanging from the roof, though there were abundant signs of very
fine columns which had already yielded to the advancing warmth: one of
these still remained, in the form of broken blocks of ice, in the
neighbourhood of the open hole in the roof, immediately below which hole
the stones of the floor were completely bare, and the thermometer stood
at 50 deg.. At the far end of the cave, the thermometer gave something less
than 32 deg.; a difference so remarkable, at the same horizontal level, that
I am inclined to doubt the accuracy of the figures, though they were
registered on the spot with due care. The uncovered hole, it must be
remembered, is so large, and so completely open, that the rain falls
freely on to the stones on the floor below.
By far the most striking part of this glaciere is the north-west
wall, which is covered with a sheet of ice 70 feet long, and 22 feet
high at the highest part: in the neighbourhood of the ladders, this
turns the corner of the cave, and passes up for about 9 feet under the
second ladder.
Pages:
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54