[158] The lead-mine is in limestone rock,
containing a third part of clay. The entrance to the glaciere was still
difficult at the time of his visit, and it was necessary to use a rope,
and also to cut steps, for the descent was made along a ridge of ice
with almost perpendicular sides. The spectacle presented by the
decoration of the roof was remarkably beautiful, long festoons and tufts
of ice hanging down, light and brilliant as silver gauze: this ice was
supposed to be formed from the abundant vapours of the beginning of
winter, and resembled glass blown to the utmost tenuity. It was
crystallised, too, in a wonderful manner. Patrin found long bundles of
hexahedral tubes, the walls of which were formed of transverse needles:
the diameter of these tubes was from two to six lines only, but at the
lower extremities they opened out into hollow six-sided pyramids, more
than an inch in diameter, so that the festoons, sometimes as large round
as a man, presented terminal tufts of some feet in diameter, which
glittered like diamonds under the influence of the torches.
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