The glacière de La Genollière is a clear exemplification of the theory
that the cold of winter is the sole cause for the ice. The whole
glacière is rather small and is fairly well protected against wind.
Although snow cannot fall directly under the rock arch, yet I should
imagine it drifts under, or after melting, runs in and refreezes. To
the inner cave snow, as snow, could hardly reach; and the cavern is
probably filled, like most cave glacières, from frozen drip. The inner
cave is, therefore, a true cave glacière, while the outer pits and the
bridge are something between a gorge and a cave. La Genollière should,
I think, be visited about the end of June, when the ice formations are
certainly larger and more interesting than in August.
THE FRIEDRICHSTEINER OR GOTTSCHEER EISHÖHLE.
A little to the east of, and in about the same latitude as Trieste,
is the small town of Gottschee, now reached by a branch railroad from
Laibach. Gottschee is a German settlement almost in the centre of
the district known as the Duchy of Krain, Austria, which is mainly
inhabited in the north by Slavonians and in the south by Croatians.
Gottschee lies directly at the western base of the Friedrichsteiner
Gebirge, one of whose peaks is the Burgernock. On the eastern slopes of
this mountain is situated the Friedrichsteiner or Gottscheer Eishöhle,
at an altitude of about nine hundred meters.
On the 24th of June, 1897, I left Gottschee at half past six o'clock in
the morning with Stefan Klenka, a nice little man. I had asked to have
him come at six o'clock, but he did not turn up and I had to send for
him. His excuse was, that tourists always ordered him for six o'clock,
but when the time came, they were still in bed. He had taken a German
officer and his wife to the cave the year before, and after keeping
him waiting three hours, they started at nine o'clock. The result was
that they did not get to the cave until two o'clock, and returned to
Gottschee just at nightfall.
We reached the cave at half past eight o'clock. The steep and rough
path went uphill through a fine forest, which my guide said was
_Urwald_, _i. e._, primeval forest; and there were certainly some
big trees and many fallen ones, and much underbrush. He assured me
that bears were still plentiful in the neighborhood, and that Prince
Auersperg, who owns the shooting, does not allow them to be killed,
preferring to pay for any damage they may cause to the peasants'
fields or for any cattle they may dine on, rather than to have these
interesting animals exterminated from his woods. He also said that
there was a two meter snowfall in Gottschee in winter: a sufficient
quantity to account for the glacières. At one place on the road we
stopped before a small crack in the rocks, and Klenka dropped in some
small stones, which we could hear strike two or three times a long
distance below. There is surely an unexplored cavern at this spot.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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