75 F. The
cellars in which the famous cheese of Roquefort is ripened are not
subterranean, but are buildings joined on to the rock at the mouths of
the fissures whence the currents proceed. They are so valuable, that
one, which cost 12,000 francs in construction, sold for 215,000 francs.
The cheese of this district has had a great reputation from very early
times. Pliny (_Hist. Nat_. xi. 97) mentions, with commendation, the
cheeses of Lesura (_M. Lozere_ or _Losere_) and Gabalum (_Gevaudan,
Javoux_). The idolaters of Gevaudan offered cheeses to demons by
throwing them into a lake on the Mons Helanus _(Laz des Helles?_) and it
was not till the year 550 that S. Hilary, Bishop of Mende, succeeded in
putting a stop to this practice.]
[Footnote 140: It would seem from his own account of the Sauberg, and
from the description given above of the presence of ice among the rocky
_debris_, as well as from the account on this page of ice in Virginia,
that a formation of loose stones is favourable to the existence of a low
degree of temperature. See also the note on p.
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