"What is it that causes this phenomenon? Scientific men are said to have visited the cave within the last day or two who have declared that it had in some manner a subterranean connection with the polar regions, and that the cold air from the North coming in contact with the warm moist atmosphere from outside converted the vapor into water on the walls of the cavern where it straightway congealed. * * * It seems to me possible after thinking the matter over carefully, that in some mysterious manner the same influences that work the changes in climate in the Arctic and Antarctic regions are operating in this cave. It is a well-known fact that in the regions referred to the seasons are the reverse of what they are here." Mr. W. S. Auchincloss writes in 1897: "We also notice the working of the same principle during summer days. The hottest part does not occur at the noon hour--when the sun is on the meridian--but several hours later in the afternoon. In this case the accessions of heat arrive more rapidly than radiation is able to carry off. Radiation, however, keeps on apace, and, at last attaining the mastery, temperature falls. Ice caves furnish another example of the gradual procession in the seasons." Mr. Alois F. Kovarik writes about Decorah in 1898 that "the length of duration of the ice in the cave during the spring and summer depends upon the quantity of cold stored up in the walls and this again upon the coldness and the length of coldness of the previous winter. If the winter be severe and long, the walls will store up a great supply of cold for the gradual dissipation in the spring and summer and consequently the phenomenon of the ice in the ice chambers will last longer. Last winter, with an exception of the fore part of December, was quite mild. As a result, the ice began to disappear with the latter part of June, and totally disappeared by the end of July. * * * The time of the lowest temperature in the cave depends upon how soon the cold spells of the winter begin; for the sooner the walls begin to freeze to a greater depth, the sooner have they stored up the greatest amount of cold. * * * February 28th, 1898, when the walls contained the greatest amount of cold, there was no ice in the cave, for the reason that no water made appearance. Could water have appeared, no doubt a great amount of ice would have formed; but as the conditions are, the water has to come from the ground outside, and this being frozen at the time, water could not in any natural way appear. If in early spring, sufficiently warm days should come to melt the snow and open the ground, the water not taken up by the ground would flow and seep through crevices into the cave and ice consequently would appear early. Somewhat such conditions prevailed this year, for warm days appeared quite early in the spring. If _per contra_ the ground does not open until in April, as was the case in 1895 and 1896, the appearance of the ice is consequently delayed.