Oudot. The two magnificent capitals which this column
possessed, as well as the numerous smaller capitals which sprang from
its sides, will thus be completely accounted for.
One more account may be mentioned, before I proceed to the theory which
has found most favour in Switzerland of late years. M. Cadet published
some _Conjectures_ on the formation of the ice in this cavern, in the
_Annales de Chimie,_ Nivose, an XI.[188] He saw the cave in the end of
September 1791, and found very little ice--not a third of what there had
been a month before, according to the account of his guide. The
_limonadier_ of a public garden in Besancon informed him that the people
of that town resorted to the glaciere for ice when the supplies of the
artificial ice-houses failed, and that they chose a hot day for this
purpose, because on such days there was more ice in the cave. Ten
_chars_ would have been sufficient to remove all the ice M. Cadet found,
and the air inside the cave seemed to be not colder than the external
air; but, nevertheless, M. Cadet believed the old story of the greater
abundance of ice in summer than in winter, and he attempted to account
for the phenomenon.
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