As soon as this trough was passed, the ice spread out like a fan, and finally landed us in a subterranean cavern, 72 feet long by 36 feet broad, to which this was the only entrance.  The breadth of the fan at the bottom was 27 feet; and near the archway a very striking column poured from a vertical fissure in the wall, and joined the main stream.  The fissure was partially open to the cave, and showed the solid round column within the rock:  this column measured 18-1/2 feet in circumference, a little below the point where it became free of the fissure, and it had a stream of ice 22 feet long pouring from its base.  The colour of the column was unusual, being a dull yellowish green, and the peculiar structure of the ice gave the whole mass the appearance of coursing down very rapidly, as if the water had been frozen while thus moving, and had not therefore ceased so to move.  At the bottom of the fan, the flooring of the cave consisted of broken stones for a small space, and then came a black lake of ice, which occupied all the centre of the cave, and afforded us no opportunity of even guessing at its depth.  From the manner, however, in which it blended with the stones at its edge, I am not inclined to believe that this depth was anything very great.

Renaud, in his impetuosity, had ceased to cut steps towards the bottom of the slope, and had slipped down the last few feet, of course cutting the remaining steps before attempting to reascend.  We found him strutting about the floor of the cave, tossing his wet cap in the air, and crying No one!  No one!  I the first!, declining to take any part in measurements until the full of his delight and pride had been poured out.  He shouted so loud that I was obliged to stop him, lest by some chance the unwonted disturbance of the air should bring down an unstable block from the roof of the arch, and seal us up for ever.  There was no sign of incipient thaw in the cave, and the air was very dry, so much so as at once to call attention to the fact.  At the farthest end, a lofty dome opened up in the roof; and possibly at some time or other the rock may here fall through, and afford another means of entrance.  Beneath this dome a very lovely cluster of columns had grouped itself, formed of the clear porcelain-like ice, and fretted and festooned with the utmost delicacy, as if Andersen’s Ice Maiden had been there in one of her amiable moods, and had built herself a palace.  This dome in the roof was similar to many which I afterwards observed in other glacieres, being a vertical fissure with flutings from top to bottom—­not a spherical dome, but of that more elegant shape which the female dress of modern times assumes on a tall person.

[Illustration:  VERTICAL SECTIONS OF THE UPPER GLACIERE OF THE PRE DE S. LIVRES. [21]]