Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 349 pages of information about Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland.

Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 349 pages of information about Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland.

We found the maire, as was said, asleep under a bush near the mouth of the pit; and he pronounced himself completely recovered from the effects of the cold, and ready to guide us to a second glaciere.  He told us that the amount of ice he sold averaged 4,000 quintaux metriques a week, for the three months of July, August, and September; but the last winter had been so severe, that the lake had provided ice for the artificial glacieres of Annecy, and no one had as yet applied to him this year.  As only a fortnight of his usual season had passed, he may have since had plenty of applications, later in the year.  The railways have opened up more convenient sources of ice for Lyons, and for some time he has sent none to that town.

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 66:  A Yorkshire farmer unconsciously adapts the German Wolkenbruch, declaring on occasion that the rain is so heavy, it is ‘ommust as if a clood had brussen someweers.’]

[Footnote 67:  I tried the hay in this chalet one night, with such results that the next time I slept there, two years after, I preferred a combination of planks.]

[Footnote 68:  i.e. New milk, warm.]

[Footnote 69:  Otherwise graphically called battu.]

[Footnote 70:  I had no means of determining the elevation of the ground.  The fact of 12 feet of snow is of no value as a guide to the height.  Last winter (1864-5) there was 26 feet of snow on the Jura, at a height of less than 4,000 feet, and the position of some of the larger chalets was only marked by a slight boss on the plane surface.]

[Footnote 71:  In the section of the cave, I have brought out the deeper pit from the side into the middle, so as to show both in one section:  I have also slightly shaded the pits, instead of leaving them blank like shafts in the rock.]

[Footnote 72:  I have made arrangements for completing the exploration of this cave, and the one which is next described, in the course of the present summer.]

* * * * *

CHAPTER XI.

THE GLACIERE OF CHAPPET-SUR-VILLAZ, ON THE MONT PARMELAN, NEAR ANNECY.

We started southwards from the Glaciere of Grand Anu, for such they said was the proper name for the cave last described, and passed over some of the wildest walking I have seen.  All the most striking features of a glacier were here reproduced in stone:  now narrow deep crevasses which only required a slight spring; now much more formidable rents, which we were obliged to circumvent by a detour; now dark mysterious holes with vertical shell-like partitions at various depths; and now a perfect moulin, with fluted sides and every detail appertaining to those remarkable pits, the hollow plunge of falling water alone excepted.  In other parts, the smooth slab-like appearance of

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.