An
American photograph is current in this country, in the form of a
stereoscopic slide, representing an ice-cave in the White Mountains, New
Hampshire; but it is only a winter cave, and in no way resembles any of
the glacieres I have seen. It is merely a collection of long and slender
icicles, with beds of ice formed upon stones and trunks of trees on the
ground; nothing more, in fact, than is to be seen in any tolerably
severe winter in the neighbourhood of a cascade in a sheltered Scotch
burn.
The 'American Journal of Science' (xxxvi. 184) gives a curious instance
of a freezing-well near the village of Owego, three-quarters of a mile
from the Susquehanna river. The depth of the well is 77 feet, and for
four or five months in the year the surface of the water is frozen so
hard as to render the well useless. Large masses of ice have been found
in it late in July. A thermometer, which stood at 68 deg. in the sun, fell
to 30 deg. in fifteen minutes at the bottom of the well; and the men who
made the well were forced to put on thick clothing in June, and even so
could not work for more than two hours at a time.
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