About half an hour beyond the chalet, we found the mouth of the
glaciere, on a large plateau almost bare of vegetation, and showing the
live rock at the surface. They told me that in a strong winter there
would be an average of 12 feet of snow on the ground here.[70] The
glaciere itself is approached by descending one side of a deep pit,
whose circumference is larger than that of any other of the
pit-glacieres I have seen. A few yards off there is a smaller shaft in
the rock, which we afterwards found to communicate with the glaciere.
The NW. side of the larger pit, being the side at the bottom of which is
the arch of entrance, is vertical, and we spent the time necessary for
growing cool in measuring the height of this face of rock from above.
The plummet ran out 115 feet of string, and struck the slope of snow,
down which the descent to the cave must be made, about 6 feet above the
junction of the snow with the floor of the glaciere, which was visible
from the S. side of the edge of the pit; so that the total depth from
the surface of the rock to the ice-floor was 121 feet.
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