The Ice Bed of Wallingford is situated about three kilometers to the
east of Wallingford, Vermont. A drive of half an hour, over the Mount
Holly and Hearburrow roads, takes the visitor to the entrance of a
rough wood path, which, at a distance of three or four hundred meters,
leads to the Ice Bed. This is a huge talus, at the base of the White
Rock Mountain, whose cliffs rise steeply overhead for some three or
four hundred meters. The talus, which was doubtless formed by a great
slide at some distant date, consists of granite boulders, some of which
are big ones. The ice-bearing portion may be some thirty or forty
meters high vertically. It lies in a sort of gully or rock basin, and
at the top is about thirty meters broad, tapering to a point at the
bottom. The talus faces southward, and during a good part of the day
the sun shines full upon it. A thin forest fringes the sides and grows
round the bottom, but this can afford but little protection from the
winds, especially to those from the south.
I visited this place on the 5th of October, 1899. There was a distinct
drop in temperature as we neared the base of the talus, and a cool air
drew gently down over the rocks. I think slight draughts issued from
some of the crevices; but of this I am not sure. The temperature was
sub-normal, about 8°, but hardly low enough to prove the presence of
ice, although we could see our breaths distinctly. We looked carefully
under a number of the boulders, but neither ice nor snow was visible.
I was assured that ice was abundant there in the past July and August,
and I should think it had melted away only shortly before my visit. My
impression is, that this is a periodic glacière.
CAVES NEAR WILLIAMSTOWN.
On the eastern slope of the Petersburgh Mountain of the Taghconic Range
in Massachusetts, at a good deal lower altitude than the Williamstown
Snow Hole and about southeast of it are some caverns, which are but
little known. A five or six kilometer drive from Williamstown takes the
visitor to the base of the mountain, whence a rather steep ascent of
about a kilometer and a half brings him to the caves, which are in the
midst of a dense, scrub forest.
The caves were first entered, and possibly discovered, by Mr. W. F.
Williams, of Williamstown, when a boy. Since then, he has visited them
many times and explored them a good deal. They do not appear to have
any name as yet, and it would seem only fitting to christen them after
their explorer: the Williams Caves.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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