The wall of ice was plainly marked with horizontal bands,
corresponding, no doubt, to a number of years of successive deposits;
sometimes a few leaves, but more generally a strip of minuter debris,
signified the divisions between the annual layers. There had been many
columns of ice from fissures in the rock, but all had fallen except
one large ice-cascade, which flowed from a hole in the side of the
cave on to the main stream, about two-thirds of the distance down from
the snow. One particularly grand column had stood on the very edge of
the ice-wall, and its remains now lay below.
The flooring of mingled ice and snow, on which we stood, sloped through
about five vertical feet from the foot of the wall, and came to an end
on broken rocks, from which the terminal wall of the cave sprang up. The
effect of the view from this point, as we looked up the long slope of
ice to where the ladders and a small piece of sky were visible, was most
striking. The accompanying engraving is from a sketch which attempts to
represent it; the reality is much less prim, and much more full of
beautiful detail, but still the engraving gives a fair idea of the
general appearance of the cave.
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