char taking about 600 kilos, the wholesale price in Besançon being 5
francs the hundred kilos. Since the quintal contains 50 kilos, it will
be seen that this account does not agree with the statement of Renaud as
to the amount of ice each char could take. No doubt, a char at S.
Georges may mean one thing, and a char in the village of Chaux another;
but the difference between 12 quintaux and 50 or 60 is too great to be
thus explained, and probably Madame Briot made some mistake. Her
husband, Louis Briot, works alone in the cave, and has twelve men and a
donkey to carry the ice he quarries to the village of Chaux, a mile from
the glacière, where it is loaded for conveyance to Besançon. He uses
gunpowder for the flooring of ice, and expects the eighth part of a
pound to blow out a cubic metre; and if, by ill luck, the ice thus
procured has stones on the lower side, he has to saw off the bottom
layer. Madame Briot said I was right in supposing March to be the great
time for the formation of ice, as she had heard her husband say that the
columns were higher then than at any other time of the year: she also
confirmed my views as to the disastrous effects of heavy rain. As with
every other glacière of which I could obtain any account, excepting the
Lower Glacière of the Pré de S. Livres, she complained that the ice had
not been so beautiful and so abundant this year as last, although the
winter had been exceptionally severe.


FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 26: Jean Bontemps, Conseiller au bailliage d'Arbois.]

[Footnote 27: 'Allez vous en reposer, rafraischir et boire un coup au
chasteau, car vous en avez bon besoin; j'ay du vin d'Arbois en mes
offices, dont je vous envoyeray deux bouteilles, car je scay bien que