There are several unimportant holes in the immediate neighborhood of
the two main caves. The latter lie side by side. The rock formation is
the same as that of the Snow Hole, a dark gray slate with a few veins
of quartz, and they are due also evidently to the same geological
causes. It would seem as though the mountain had tended to open or
crack at these spots and fallen apart. This seems probable, because
wherever there is a projection on one side of the cracks, there is a
corresponding hollow in the opposite side. After this, water action has
come, and erosion and corrosion have worn out and carried away earthy
matter, and slowly deepened and widened the fissures. The remarkable
point in connection with the main caves, however, is that one is a
normal cave and the other a periodic glacière.
I went with Mr. Williams to these caves on the 6th of October, 1899,
and partially explored the glacière. On the way up, just as we left the
carriage road, a fine, three-year-old buck, in his winter coat, came
bounding out of the forest; on seeing us he stopped, and after taking a
good look, quietly trotted off into the bushes.
The glacière is rather peculiar in shape and may be described as two
storied. A long slope, set at an angle of some forty degrees, and
covered with mud and dead leaves, leads down into the crack, which
is from one to three meters in width. The first half of the slope is
open to the sky; the last half is covered by the rock roof, and is a
real cave. In this the floor is horizontal, the place forming a little
chamber in which the daylight has almost vanished. At the exact summit
of the slope a big tree grew most conveniently; and we tied to this one
end of a twenty-meter Austrian Alpine Club rope, and by holding fast
to it, and kneeling or sitting down in the mud in two or three places,
the descent was easy enough. It was rather difficult to scramble up the
slope again, however.
[Illustration: Fig. 10. Vertical Section of Freezing Cave near
Williamstown.]
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