At the mill, the path turns up the steep wooded hill on the right, and
leads through young plantations to a small cottage near the glacière,
where the plantations give place to a well-grown beech wood. Here my
conductor startled me by announcing that there was 20 centimes to pay
to the farmer of the cave for entrance; an announcement which seemed to
take all the pleasure out of the expedition, and invested it with the
disagreeable character of sightseeing. The poor driver thought, no
doubt, with some trepidation upon the small amount of _pour-boire_ he
could expect from a monsieur on whom a demand for two pence produced so
serious an effect, and it was difficult to make him understand that the
fact and not the amount of payment was the trouble. When I illustrated
this by saying that I would gladly give a franc to be allowed to enter
the glacière free, he seemed to think that if I would entrust him with
the franc, he might possibly arrange that little matter for me.

The immediate approach to the glacière is very impressive. The surface
of the ground slopes slightly upwards, and the entrance, from north to
south, is by a broad inclined plane, of gentle fall at first, which
rapidly becomes steep enough to require zigzags. The walls of rock on
either side are very sheer, and increase of course in height as the
plane of entrance falls. The whole length of the slope is about 420
feet, and down a considerable part of this some grasses and flowers are
to be found: the last 208 feet are covered more or less with ice;
though, at the time of my visit, the furious rains of the end of June,
1864, had washed down a considerable amount of mud, and so covered some
of the ice. There were no ready means of determining the thickness of
this layer of ice, for the descent of which ten or eleven zigzags had
been made by the farmer. In one place, within 24 feet of its upper
commencement, it was from 2-1/2 to 3 feet thick; but the prominence of