Although the cave had since fallen in, they still
kept up a part of the ceremony, marching solemnly round the base of
the hill once a year, and bathing in the neighbouring water. In
earlier times, a man had descended through the fissure by means of
cords, and found the cold within insupportable, having very probably
reached the present ice-cave.
Pallas describes many caves in various parts of Russia, but never
seems to hint at the existence of ice in them, though he specially
mentions their extreme cold. Some of these occurred in gypsum, and
some in limestone; and the gypseous caves showed universally a very
low temperature, though still far above the freezing-point.[116] Thus
in the dark cavern of Barnoukova,[117] on the Piana, in a rock of
gypsum, while the thermometer in the shade stood at 75 deg..2, the
temperatures at various points in the cave were,--at the entrance
59 deg..36, 25 feet from the entrance 46 deg..4, and in the coldest part
42 deg..8. This cold he describes as insupportable. The temperature of the
water which had accumulated in the coldest parts of the cave was
48 deg.
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