[Illustration: ENTRANCE OF THE CAVE OF DECORAH. From a Photograph by Mr. A. F. Kovarik. ] I looked in vain for _tubular fissures_, or indeed any fissures, through which _water might freeze by pressure in its descent_, as the believers in the capillary theory say it does. Nothing of the kind existed, and I wrote in my note-book: "Writing on the very spot about which this theory was started, I feel justified in asserting that the theory amounts to absolutely nothing and is entirely incorrect." Mr. Hill told me that there were two wells in the southern portion of Decorah Township, where ice was found in summer. I visited them both, but found no ice, and the temperatures normal. Mr. Hill said that one of the wells was dug about thirty years ago, and that the workman told him that the ground which he went through was frozen; and that at one place he struck an opening, from which came so strong a current of icy air, that it was hard to keep at work. I talked to several persons afterwards. _Inter alia_, they told me that the bluff was a great place for rattlesnakes, sometimes big ones. They admitted also generally that they were puzzled about the formation of ice in the cave. Some claimed that the ice formed in summer--the old story once more. I met, however, Mr. Alois F. Kovarik of the Decorah Institute, who had made a series of regular observations for over a year and found that the ice begins to form about the end of March and beginning of April, and is at its maximum towards the beginning of June. Mr. Kovarik also told me, that he had found ice in one of the wells in the beginning of August. This was an especially satisfactory trip to me, for it did away, once for all, with any possible belief that there was any basis of fact for the capillary theory. It also seems to me important to find that the ice of these freezing wells melts in summer. For it shows that their ice is due to the same causes as those which form the ice in the cave, and is another proof against the validity of the glacial period theory. FREEZING ROCK TALUS ON SPRUCE CREEK. On Spruce Creek, Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania, about four kilometers north of the Pennsylvania Railroad depot, is an ice bearing talus, known locally as the Ice Holes or Ice Caves. I visited this spot, on October the 5th, 1898, with Mr. Benner, of Spruce Creek. We walked up the pretty valley along the old Pittsburgh turnpike, at one place finding some papaw trees, whose fruit had a horrible sickening taste; then we crossed Spruce Creek by a footbridge and followed the other bank back for some five hundred meters, until we were nearly opposite the old Colerain Forge, which is located in a piece of land called by the curious name of Africa. About half way from the bridge we smelt a strange odor, which my companion thought came from a copperhead or rattlesnake: we did not investigate. [Illustration: LOCUS GLACIALIS--CAVE OF DECORAH. From a Photograph by Mr. A. F. Kovarik. ]