In the search for coal, the mountains of the Appalachian Chain between
the little town of Summit, and the neighboring village of Coaldale,
Carbon County, Pennsylvania, were mined and tunneled in every
direction. Owing to the caving in of some of these mines, depressions
formed in certain places along the ridge in the upper surface of the
ground, and in two of these hollows natural refrigerators occur. These
were brought to my notice by Mr. C. J. Nicholson of Philadelphia, and I
visited them on May the 5th, 1899, in company with two coal miners of
Summit.
Starting from Summit, we passed across some rough ground under which
there was a mine on fire; and the miners showed me the tops of two
pipes sticking out of the ground, from which issued a smoke or steam,
too hot to hold the hand in more than a few seconds. Going beyond
through brushwood, for a couple of hundred meters, we came to the
first glacière, which was also the nearest to Summit. It faced almost
due north and looked as if it was formerly the entrance to a mine. It
was fairly big, and my companions assured me that, until within about
a year, ice was always found in it. Recently, however, part, of the
rock roof fell in, blocking up the entrance with a mass of débris and
making it unsafe to venture in. Formerly parties of tourists constantly
visited this place, after coming over the Switchback, but this is no
longer done and there has been some talk of cleaning away the broken
rocks and making the glacière accessible. The men also said that
occasionally people living in the neighborhood had dug out the ice for
their own use.
The other glacière was a short distance further, in the direction of
Coaldale. It is in a pit, which may have been the mouth of a disused
shaft or only a depression resulting from a cave-in. A scrubby forest,
which surrounds the hollow, acts as a windbrake. A rather steep slope
leads down into the pit, and at the end passes under the wall of rock
of the opposite side for a short distance, forming a small cave, which
faces almost due south and whose floor is choked up with broken rock
fragments. At the bottom of the slope we found some snow, and among
the boulders a good deal of snow-ice as well as several long icicles
hanging from the rocks. All the ice and snow lay on the north side of
the rocks, or underneath them, so that it was in shady places where the
sun could not reach it. The temperature was not at all uncomfortable,
although somewhat cool and damp.
[Illustration: Fig. 9. Vertical Section of Pit near Summit.]
There was nothing in either glacière, to show that the ice was formed
from any other cause than the drifting in, and melting and refreezing
of the winter's snow; and my impression is that the ice in the second
glacière could not last through the summer.
THE SNOW HOLE NEAR WILLIAMSTOWN.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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