[Illustration: VERTICAL SECTION OF THE GLACIERE OF GRAND ANU, NEAR
ANNECY.]
When we were sufficiently cool, we scrambled down the side of the pit
opposite to that in which the archway lies, finding the rock extremely
steep, and then came to a slope of 72 feet of snow, completely exposed
to the weather, which landed us at the mouth of the glaciere. The arch
is so large, that we could detect the change of light in the cave,
caused by the passage of clouds across the sun, and candles were not
necessary, excepting in the pits shortly to be described. We saw at once
that rapid thaw was going on somewhere or other; and when we stepped off
the snow, we found ourselves in a couple of inches of soft green
vegetable mud, like a _compote_ of dark-coloured duckweed--or, to use a
more familiar simile, like a mass of overboiled and ill-strained
spinach. To the grief of one of us, there was ice under this, of most
persuasive slipperiness. The maire said that he had never seen these
signs of thaw in his visits in previous years; and as we went farther
and farther into the cave, he was more and more surprised at each step
to find such a large quantity of running water, and so much less ice
than he had expected.
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