Ice-Caves of France and SwitzerlandBrowne, G. F. (George Forrest)
Science
Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland
Browne, G. F. (George Forrest)
Ice caves
In vol. xlvi. (p. 331) an ice mountain in Wallingford, Rutland County
(Vt.), is described, which is ordinarily known in the neighbourhood as
the ice-bed. An area of thirty or fifty acres of ground is covered with
massive _débris_ of grey quartz from the mountains which overhang it;
and here--especially in a deep ravine into which many of the falling
blocks of stone have penetrated--ice is found in large quantities. It
appears to be formed during the melting of the snow in February, March,
and April, and vanishes in the course of the summer, in hot years as
early as the last days of June.
These descriptions call to mind the Glacière of Arc-sous-Cicon, in which
many of the features of the American ice-caves are reproduced. An
American photograph is current in this country, in the form of a
stereoscopic slide, representing an ice-cave in the White Mountains, New
Hampshire; but it is only a winter cave, and in no way resembles any of
the glacières I have seen. It is merely a collection of long and slender
icicles, with beds of ice formed upon stones and trunks of trees on the
ground; nothing more, in fact, than is to be seen in any tolerably
severe winter in the neighbourhood of a cascade in a sheltered Scotch
burn.
The 'American Journal of Science' (xxxvi. 184) gives a curious instance
of a freezing-well near the village of Owego, three-quarters of a mile
from the Susquehanna river. The depth of the well is 77 feet, and for
four or five months in the year the surface of the water is frozen so
hard as to render the well useless. Large masses of ice have been found
in it late in July. A thermometer, which stood at 68° in the sun, fell
to 30° in fifteen minutes at the bottom of the well; and the men who
made the well were forced to put on thick clothing in June, and even so
could not work for more than two hours at a time. No other well in that
neighbourhood presents the same phenomenon. A lighted candle was let
down, and the flame became agitated and thrown in one direction at a
depth of 30 feet, but was quite still at the bottom; where, however, it
soon died out. The water is hard or limestone water.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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