afforded various opportunities for studying the comparative clearness of
different pieces of ice, but certainly no one ever saw a lemon pippin
through an inch and a half of that material so clearly as we now saw the
white rock through 1-1/2 feet. Mignot, indeed, said 2 feet; but it was
his way to make a large estimate of dimensions, and he constantly
interrupted my record of measurements by the assertion that I had made
them _moins que plus_. We were all disappointed by the actual size of
the ice-fall which it had cost us so much time and trouble to descend,
the distance from the first step to the last being only 26 feet: as
this, however, was given by a string stretched from the one point to the
other, and not following the concave surface of the ice, the real
distance was something more than this.

It was now getting rather late, considering the journey one of us had
yet to perform, and we walked quickly away from the glacière, agreeing
that it was not improbable that in that part of the Jura there might be
many hidden caves containing more or less ice, with no entrance from the
world outside, except the fissures which afford a way for the water. The
entrance to this cave was so small, that the same physical effect might
well be produced by one or two cracks in the rock, such as every one is
well acquainted with who has walked on the fissured limestone summits
of the lower mountains; and, indeed, Renaud positively affirmed that at
the time of his former visit there was not even this entrance to the
lower cave, for the ice-stream reached then a higher point of the wall,
and completely filled and hid the arch we had discovered. It is very
difficult to see how ice can exist in a cave which has no atmospheric
communication with the colds of winter, as would apparently be the case
with this cave if the one entrance were closed; but where the cracks and
small fissures in the rock do provide such communication, there is no
reason why we should not imagine all manner of glacial beauties