In a wood, about five leagues from Besançon, in the province of France called Franche Comte, an opening, formed by two masses of rock, leads to a cavern more than nine hundred feet beneath the level of the country. It is in width sixty feet, and eighty feet high at the entrance, and exhibits inside an oval cavity of one hundred and thirty-five feet in breadth, and one hundred and sixty-eight in length. To the right of the entrance is a deep and narrow opening, bordered with festoons of ice, which, distilling in successive drops on the bottom of the cavern, form a mass of about thirty feet in diameter. A similar one, but somewhat smaller, produced by the water which drips in less abundance from the imperceptible fissures in the roof, is seen on the left. The ground of the cavern is perfectly smooth, and covered with ice eighteen inches thick; but the top, on the outside, is a dry and stony soil, covered with trees, and on a level with the rest of the wood. The cold within this cavern is so great, that, however warm the external atmosphere may be when it is visited, it is impossible to remain in it for any length of time. These natural ice-houses are not unfrequent in France and Italy, and supply this agreeable luxury at a very cheap rate. Thus, in the same province, in the vicinity of Vesoul, is a cavern which, in the hot season, when it is eagerly sought, produces more ice in one day, than can be carried away in eight. It measures thirty-five feet in length, and in width sixty. The large masses of ice which hang pendent from the roof, have a very pleasing effect. When mists are observed in this cavern, they are regarded by the neighboring peasantry as infallible prognostics of rain; and it is worthy of observation, that although the water in the interior is always frozen in the summer, it becomes liquid in the winter season. A grotto near Douse, also in Franche Comte, forms a similar ice-house, and is remarkable on account of the various forms of its congelations, which represent a series of columns, sustaining a curious vault, which appears to be carved with figures of men, animals, trees, &c.