There were in all four columns of ice in the cave, only two of which were of any considerable size.  One of these was peculiarly striking from the very large grain which its structure displayed; it measured 19 feet across the base, being flat towards the extremity of the cave, and round towards the entrance.  Three thermometers in various parts of the glaciere gave all the same temperature, namely, a fraction under 33 deg.  F.:  a rough French thermometer gave 1/2 deg.  C. The extreme wall of the cavern was completely covered by a layer of stalagmitic material, and some of the forms the substance assumed were sufficiently striking.  In contact with the wall, though standing clear of it in parts where the wall fell inwards, stood a thick round column of the same material, shaped like the ordinary ice-columns of the glacieres, with a cavity near the base, and in all ways following the usual laws of such columns.  Considering that I had observed a layer of limestone-paste collecting on one of the ice-columns of the Glaciere of La Genolliere, I could not help imagining that this stalagmitic column had been originally moulded on a norm of that description.  It had a girth of 12 feet in the part where we were able to pass the tape round it.  Its surface was smooth; but when we drove a hole through this, with much damage to the pic of my axe, we found that the interior was in a crystalline form.

There was, on the whole, very little to be seen in the glaciere.  Had it been my first experience of an ice-cave, it would doubtless have seemed very remarkable, as it did to Liotir, who, by the way, had steadily disbelieved the possibility of natural ice in summer except in the glaciers; but as I had now seen so many, several of them much more wonderful than this, I did not care to stay longer than was absolutely necessary for measurements and investigation.  Besides, the food of Dauphine rather takes the energy and love of adventure out of an unaccustomed visitor.

Without long delay, then, we bade farewell to the patron, not returning to the inhospitable chalet, and started on our way for Die, each carrying a large block of ice slung in a network of string.  Liotir’s purpose was to convince some mysterious female friend that he really had seen ice in summer, within five or six hours of Die; and mine, to apply the ice to the butter which I had specially ordered the landlady to have ready for me, that so I might be able to get through the night, and leave Die by the diligence the first thing next morning.  It was remarkable how well the ice bore the great heat.  For long the bulk of the masses we carried seemed scarcely to diminish; and if it had not been for a course of heavy falls as we descended through the brushwood, we should have succeeded in getting a large proportion of it safely to Die.  The precision of the prismatic structure also showed itself in a very marked manner; and when we came to a crisis of thirst, which happened at shorter and shorter intervals as the afternoon wore on, we separated the prisms with our fingers from the edges of the ice without any difficulty, and made ourselves more hot and thirsty by eating them.