My brother and I left Cluses, in Savoie, a railroad station on the line between Geneva and Chamonix, at two o'clock on the afternoon of the 22d of August, 1897, and drove up in two hours and a half to Pralong du Reposoir, a distance of eleven kilometers. The road is a _route nationale_, fine and broad, with parapets in many places. After passing Scionzier, it mounts gradually, passing through a tremendous wild gorge, cut by the waters and heavily clad with firs. We reached Pralong at four-thirty, and stopped at a primitive inn, still in process of construction, and tenanted only by blue-bloused peasants, who, as it was Sunday night, sat up late, drinking and making a heathenish noise they mistook for singing. I talked to some of these men, and they all insisted that there was no ice at the Grand Cave in winter, but that it came in summer. _Plus il fait chaud, plus ça gêle_, they said. One man explained the formation of the ice in an original way, and with an intelligence far above that of the average peasant. He considered that it was due to air currents, and thought that in winter the snow stopped up the holes in the rocks, through which the currents came; but that when the snow melted, the draughts could work, and that then they formed the ice. The weather was abominable next morning, the clouds lying along and dripping into the valley; but the inn was so awful that we decided to try to reach the cave. We had a nice little blue-bloused peasant for a guide, Sylvain Jean Cotterlaz by name. We went first for about an hour on foot towards Le Grand Bornant on a fair road, to an alp called La Salle. This was surrounded by a herd of cows, some of whom seemed interested in our party. It now began to rain fiercely, and except for my brother's perseverance, I should certainly have given in. A fair path led up steep grass slopes into the clouds covering the Mont Bargy. Each of us had his umbrella raised, and the ascent was slippery and uninspiring. An hour took us to two deserted huts, the Alpe Montarquis, and half an hour beyond, we came to the caves; by which time we were thoroughly soaked. The caves are on Mont Bargy, at the base of a limestone precipice, which, I think, faces nearly north. There are three caves close together. The lowest, or Petite Cave de Montarquis, Cotterlaz said is also called La Cave des Faux-Monayeurs; as according to a, probably untrue, tradition, it was once used by counterfeiters. Above this is a small rock pocket, accessible down an easy slope. We went in and found that there was no ice and indeed scarcely any water in it.