For some distance beyond
the columns, we found neither stalactites nor stalagmites--indeed, I
forgot to look at the roof--until we came to the edge of a glorious
ice-fall, down which Christian said it was impossible to go--no one had
ever been farther than where we now stood. I have seen no subterranean
ice-fall so grand as this, round and smooth, and perfectly unbroken,
passing down, like the rapids of some river too deep for its surface to
be disturbed, into darkness against which two candles prevailed nothing.
The fall in the Upper Glaciere of the Pre de S. Livres was strange
enough, but it was very small, and led to a confined corner of the
cavern; whereas this of the Schafloch rolls down majestically, cold and
grey, into a dark gulf of which we could see neither the roof nor the
end, while the pieces of ice which we despatched down the steep slope
could be heard going on and on, as M. Soret says, _a une tres-grande
distance_. The shape, also, of the fall was very striking. Beginning at
the left wall of the cave, the edge ran out obliquely towards the
middle, when it suddenly turned and struck straight across to the
right-hand wall, so that we were able to stand on a tongue, as it were,
in the middle of the top of the fall.
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