Tradition related that, before the removal of the ice in 1727, one of the columns reached the roof, (Prévost calculated the limits of the height of the cave at 90 and 60 feet,) and this suggested to Dr. Oudot the idea of placing stakes of wood in the heads of the columns he found in the cave, in the hope that ice would thus collect in greater quantities under the fissures of the roof. Accordingly, he made holes in three of the columns, and established stakes 4, 5, and 10 feet high, returning on the 22nd of February, after an interval of six weeks, to observe the result of his experiment. He found the two shorter stakes completely masked with ice, forming columns a foot in diameter; and the longest stake, though not entirely concealed by the ice which had collected upon it, was crowned with a beautiful capital of perfectly transparent ice. The columns which had no stakes fixed upon them had also increased somewhat in size, but not nearly in the same proportion as those which were the subject of Dr. Oudot's experiment. The thermometer on this day gave 29°.5 F. and 59° F. as the temperatures. It may be remembered that I found one very beautiful column, far higher than any of those mentioned by Dr. Oudot, and higher than those which M. Billerez saw, formed upon the trunk and branches of a fir-tree. I have now no doubt that the peculiar shape of another--the largest of the three columns which were in the cave at the time of my visit--is due to the fact of its being a collection of several smaller columns, which have in course of time flowed into one as they increased separately in bulk, and that its height has been augmented by a device similar to that adopted by Dr. Oudot. The two magnificent capitals which this column possessed, as well as the numerous smaller capitals which sprang from its sides, will thus be completely accounted for. One more account may be mentioned, before I proceed to the theory which has found most favour in Switzerland of late years. M. Cadet published some _Conjectures_ on the formation of the ice in this cavern, in the _Annales de Chimie,_ Nivôse, an XI.[188] He saw the cave in the end of September 1791, and found very little ice--not a third of what there had been a month before, according to the account of his guide. The _limonadier_ of a public garden in Besançon informed him that the people of that town resorted to the glacière for ice when the supplies of the artificial ice-houses failed, and that they chose a hot day for this purpose, because on such days there was more ice in the cave. Ten _chars_ would have been sufficient to remove all the ice M. Cadet found, and the air inside the cave seemed to be not colder than the external air; but, nevertheless, M. Cadet believed the old story of the greater abundance of ice in summer than in winter, and he attempted to account for the phenomenon.