Opposite the entrance of the glacière, there is a little restaurant where the peasants come to dance and picnic, and where the few travellers who get to these parts, can obtain a tolerable _déjeuner_. They keep a fair _vin du pays_ there, and we had some trouble on the way home in consequence. Our driver, a talkative specimen of the genus and an old soldier of Bourbaki's, told us, on the way out, many things about Besançon during the Franco-German war and of the retreat of the French army into Switzerland; but on the way home, he showed that he evidently was not a member of the blue ribbon army. He first seemed desirous of not taking us back to Besançon, preferring to go in the other direction towards Bale; and afterwards he evinced a violent inclination to go to sleep. We thought we should have to request him to change seats with us, and drive back ourselves, but we obviated the difficulty by plying him with questions as soon as he began to nod on his box. Eventually, we reached Besançon all right, only once bumping a passing cart, and only once nearly capsizing into a ditch. If Americans can learn some points from Europeans about forestry, I think the latter might get some equally valuable information from us concerning the use of water, externally and internally. The good lady at the restaurant acts the part of the old-fashioned cave dragon, and we had to appease her by handing over four _sous_ as a preliminary to exploration. She also had a sign up, saying that no one is allowed to break off or take away any ice, which must sadly interfere with the tourists' privilege of bringing away specimens. The entrance of the glacière was surrounded by woods, which formed a natural rampart to anything like wind. As we stood facing the glacière a great pit opened before us, with a slope about one hundred and thirty-five meters long leading to the bottom. This slope is at first gentle in its gradient, but lower down it steepens to an angle of some thirty degrees so that we were glad to resort to the trail which descends in regular Alpine zigzags. In one place, on the right hand, there were the remains of a stone wall with a door, and local tradition relates that in former times there was a sort of fortified habitation there, which was used in war times as a place of retreat. The lower part of the slope is covered by a protecting roof of rock which, thin at the rim where it is edged with forest, gradually slopes downward overhead so that at the mouth of the glacière we looked back and up what might be described as an immense tunnel. The lower part of the slope was a mixture of broken rocks, mud and ice: the last, however, seemed to be all on the surface, although it was impossible to determine whether it went to any depth. [Illustration: ICE STALAGMITES, CHAUX-LES-PASSAVANT. From a Photograph by E. Mauvillier. ]