"The icy nature of the cave lasts through the whole summer, and what
is most remarkable, it increases with the increasing heat of the sun.
In the beginning of the spring the soft winter's warmth begins to give
way soon thereafter, and when spring is more advanced, the cold sets
in, and in such a manner, that the warmer does the (outside) air
grow, the more does the cave cool off. And when the summer has begun
and the dog days glow, everything within goes into icy winter. Then do
the drops of water pouring from the roof of the cave change into ice,
and with such rapidity that where to-day delicate icicles are visible,
to-morrow masses and lumps, which fall to the ground, appear. Here
and there, where the water drips down the walls of the cave, one sees
wonderful incrustations, like an artificial carpeting. The rest of the
water remains hanging on the ice, according to the warmth of the day.
For when for a longer time it is warmer, the ice of the stalactites,
of the walls and of the floor increases; but when the ruling heat, as
sometimes happens, is diminished through north winds or rainstorm,
the waters freeze more slowly, the ice drips more fully and begins to
form little brooklets. When however the temperature gets warmer, the
icy nature of the cave begins once more. Some have observed, that the
nature of the grotto receives the changes of temperature ahead, like a
barometer. For, when a warmer temperature sets in outside, the waters
change into ice, several hours before the heat sets in, while the
opposite takes place, when by day the temperature is colder; for then
even by the warmest sky the ice begins to melt noticeably.
"When the dog days have passed and the summer has already changed
into fall, the cave with its own nature follows the conditions of the
external air. In the early months and while the nights are growing
colder, the ice diminishes visibly; then when the air cools off more
and more and when the brooks and side are rigid with frost, it begins
to melt as though there was a fire built underneath, until, when winter
reigns, it is entirely dry in the cave, without a sign of ice being
left behind. Then gentle warmth spreads into the entire cave, and this
icy grave becomes a safety resort for insects and other small animals,
which bear the winter with difficulty. But besides swarms of flies and
gnats, troops of bats and scores of owls, hares and foxes take up their
abode here, until with the beginning of spring, the cave once more
assumes its icy appearance."
These assertions of Bel are the most inaccurate ones made about
glacières. Yet, strange to say, they have colored the literature of
the subject down to our own times; and have been repeated many times,
sometimes with, sometimes without, the hares and foxes; the latest
repetition seeming to occur in 1883.
Cave near the Village of Borzova, Torna County, Carpathians. (Fugger,
_Eishöhlen_, page 52.)--Reported to contain ice, but nothing certainly
known.
CRIMEA.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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