Further details on this subject will be
given hereafter.
There was no perceptible draught of air in any part of the cave, and the
candles burned steadily through the whole time of my visit, which
occupied more than two hours. The centre was sufficiently lighted by the
day; but in the western corner, and behind the largest column,
artificial light was necessary. The ice itself did not generally show
signs of thawing, but the whole cave was in a state of wetness, which
made the process of measuring and investigating anything but pleasant.
I had placed two thermometers at different points on my first
entrance--one on a drawing-board on a large stone in the middle of the
pond of water which has been mentioned, and the other on a bundle of
pencils at the entrance of the end chapel, in a part of the cave where
the ice-floor ceased for a while, and left the stones and rock bare. The
former gave 33 deg., the latter, till I was on the point of leaving, 31
1/2 deg., when it fell suddenly to 31 deg.. It was impossible, however, to stay
any longer for the sake of watching the thermometer fall lower and lower
below the freezing point; indeed, the results of sundry incautious
fathomings of the various pools of water, and incessant contact of hands
and feet with the ice, had already become so unpleasant, that I was
obliged to desert my trusty hundred feet of string, and leave it lying
on the ice, from want of finger-power to roll it up.
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