daylight through the newly-formed hole.

The total length of the floor of the inner cave, which lies north-east
and south-west, is 51 feet; and of this floor a length of about 37 feet
was more or less covered with ice, the greatest breadth of the ice being
within an inch or two of 11 feet. Excepting in the part of the cave
already mentioned as being less than 3 feet high, we found the floor not
nearly so dry, nor so completely covered with ice, as when we first saw
the glacière, three years before, in the middle of an exceptionally hot
August. Under the low roof all was very dry, though even there the ice
had not an average thickness of more than 8 inches. It may be as well to
say, once for all, that the ice in these caves is never found in a sheet
on a pool of water; it is always solid, forming the floor of the cave,
filling up the interstices of the loose stones, and rising above them,
in this case with a surface perfectly level.

[Illustration: ICE-COLUMNS IN THE GLACIÈRE OF LA GENOLLIÈRE.]

We found four principal columns of ice, three of which, in the loftiest
part of the cave, are represented in the accompanying engraving: I call
them three, and not two, because the two which unite in a common base
proceeded from different fissures. The line of light at the foot of the
rock-wall is the only entrance to the glacière. The lowest column was
11-2/3 feet high and 1-2/3 feet broad, not more than 6 inches thick in
the middle, half-way up, and flattened symmetrically so as to be
comparatively sharp at the edges, like a huge double-edged sword. It
stood clear of the rock through its whole height, but scarcely left room
between itself and the wall of the cave for a candle to be passed up and
down. The other two columns shown in the engraving poured out of
fissures in the rock, streaming down as cascades, the one being 13-1/2