Chapter 4 THE UPPER GLACIèRE OF THE PRé DE S. LIVRES.

We now put ourselves under the guidance of the accomplice, Louis, who began to express doubts of his ability to find the upper glacière, administering consolation by reminding us that if he could not find it no one else could.

As we walked on through the mist and rain, it became necessary to circumvent a fierce-looking bull, and Mignot and the accomplice told rival tales of the dangers to which pedestrians are exposed from the violence of the cattle on some montagnes, where the bulls are allowed to grow to full size and fierceness. Mignot was quite motherly in his advice and his cautions, recommending as the surest safeguard a pocket-pistol, loaded with powder only, to be flashed in the bull's face as he makes his charge. When informed that in England an umbrella or a parasol is found to answer this purpose, he shook his head negatively, evidently having no confidence in his own umbrella, and doubting its obeying his wishes at the critical moment; indeed, it would require a considerable time, and much care and labour, to unfurl a lumbering instrument of that description. He had the best of the tale-contest with Renaud in the end, for he had himself been grazed by a bull which came up with him at the moment when he sprang into a tree.

Before very long we reached a little kennel-like hut of boughs, which no decent dog would have lived in, and no large dog could have entered, and from this we drew a charcoal-burner. No, he said, he did not know the glacière; he had heard that one had been discovered near there, and he had spent hours in searching for it without success. A herdsman on his way from one pasturage to another could give no better help, and we began to despair, till at length Louis desired us to halt in a place sheltered from the rain, while he prosecuted the search alone. We had abundant time for observing that, like other leafy places sheltered from the rain, our resting-place was commanded by huge and frequent drops of water; but at last a joyful Jodel announced the success of the accomplice, and we ran off to join him.

At first sight there was very little to see. Louis had lately been enunciating an opinion that the cave was not worth visiting, and I now felt inclined to agree with him. The general plan appeared to be much the same as in the one we had just left, but the scale was considerably smaller. The pit was not nearly so deep or so large, and, owing to the falling-in of rock and earth at one side, the snow was approached by a winding path with a gradual fall. As soon as the snow was reached, the slope became very steep, and led promptly to an arch in the rock, where the stream of ice began. The cave being shallow, the stream soon came to an end, and, unlike that in the lower glacière, it filled the cave down to the terminal wall, and did not fill it up to the left wall. Here the ground of the cave was visible, strewn with the remains of columns, and showing the thickness of the bottom of the stream to be about 6 feet only. The arch of entrance had evidently been almost closed by a succession of large columns, but these had succumbed to the rain and heat to which they had been exposed by their position.

The left side of the cave, in descending, that is the west side, was comparatively light, being in the line from the arch; but the other side was quite dark, and after a time we found that the ice-stream, instead of terminating as we had supposed with the wall of rock at the end of the cavern, turned off to the right, and was lost in the darkness. Of course candles were brought out, though Louis assured us that he had explored this part of the cave on his previous visit, and had found that the right wall of the cave very soon stopped the stream: we, on the contrary, by tying a candle to a long stick, and thrusting it down the slope of ice, found that the stream passed down extremely steeply, and poured under a narrow and low arch in the wall of the cave, beyond which nothing could be seen. We despatched pieces of ice along the slope, and could hear them whizzing on after they had passed the arch, and landing apparently on stones far below; so I called for the cords, and told Louis that we must cut our way down. But, alas! the cords had been left at the other glacière! One long bag, with a hole in the middle like an old-fashioned purse, had carried the luncheon at one end and the ropes at the other; and when the luncheon was finished, the bag had been stowed away under safe trees till our return. This was of course immensely annoying, and I rang the changes on the few words of abuse which invention or knowledge supplied, as we sat damp and shivering on the verge of the slope, idly sending down pieces of broken columns which brought forth tantalising sounds from the subterranean regions. At length Renaud was moved to shame, and declared that he would cut his way down, rope or no rope; but this seemed so horribly hazardous a proceeding under all the circumstances, that I forbad his attempting it. Seeing, however, that he was determined to do something, we arranged ourselves into an apparatus something like a sliding telescope. Louis cut a first step down the slope, and there took his stand till such time as Mignot got a firm grasp of the tail of his blouse with both hands, I meanwhile holding Mignot's tail with one hand, and the long stick with the candle attached to it with the other; thus professedly supporting the whole apparatus, and giving the necessary light for the work. Even so, we tried again to persuade Renaud to give it up, but he was warmed to his work, and really the arrangement answered remarkably well: when he wished to descend to a new step, Mignot let out a little blouse, and, being himself similarly relieved, descended likewise a step, and then the remaining link of the chain followed. The leader slipped once, but fortunately grasped a projecting piece of rock, for the stream was here confined within narrow walls, and so the strength of the apparatus was not tested; it could scarcely have stood any serious call upon its powers.

After a considerable period of very slow progress, Renaud asked for the candlestick, never more literally a stick than now, and thrust it under the arch, stooping down so as to see what the farther darkness might contain. We above could see nothing, but, after an anxious pause, he cried On peut aller! with a lively satisfaction so completely shared by Mignot, that that worthy person was on the point of letting Renaud's blouse go, in order to indulge in gestures of delight. The step-cutting went on merrily after this announcement, and one by one we came to the arch and passed through, finding it rather a trough than an arch; the breadth was about 4 feet, and the height from 1-1/4 to 1-1/2 feet, and, as we pushed through, our breasts were pressed on to the ice, while our backs scraped against the rock which formed the roof.

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.

SECOND CAVE OF THE UPPER GLACIèRE OF THE PRé DE S. LIVRES.

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 glacières, 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.

Between the base of the circular column and the wall, we found a rare instance of clear jelly-like ice, without any lines external or internal, such as is formed in the open air under very favourable circumstances.

VERTICAL SECTIONS OF THE UPPER GLACIèRE OF THE PRé DE S. LIVRES.

[21][marker is in illustration] The ordinary number of undergraduate May Terms had 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 decorating unknown cavities, beyond the general physical law to which all the glacières would seem to be exceptions.

Mignot now became communicative as to the amount of ice supplied by his glacière, the lower of the two we had seen; and his statistics were so utterly confused, that I gave him ten centimes and an address, and charged him to write it all down from his account-book, and send it by post. The letter was accordingly written on July 24, and after trying many unsuccessful addresses in various parts of Switzerland, it finally reached England in the middle of September. It tells its own tale sufficiently well, and is therefore given here with all the mistakes of the original.

'Mon cher Monsieur Browne,--J'ai beaucoup tardé a vous écrire les détails promis, sans doute je ne voulait pas vous oublier; nous sommes affligés dans n?tre maison ma femme et gravement malade ce qui me donne beaucoup de tourment jour et nuit, enfin ce n'est pas ce qui doit faire n?tre entretient.

En 1863. Nous avons exploité comme suit. (Dépenses.)

Aoust 27 10 journées pour confectionner les Echelles et les poser.

" 29 3 journées pour couper la glasse.

" 31 11 journées pour sortir la glasse avec les h?tes.

" 31 4 chars a deux chevaux pour ammener

Menés la charge a deux: dès St. Georges a

Septembre 1 Gland plusieurs autres journées pour accompagner

les chars. 70 pots de vin bu

en faisant ces chargements, pour trois

cordes pour se tenir.

Septembre 2 Trois journées pour couper.

le 3 12 journées pour sortir.

'Cher Monsieur.--Je ne vous ait pas mis le prix de chaque articles; ni tout-a fait tous les traveaux mais pour vous donner une idée, je veux vous donner connaissance du co?t général des dépences pour deux chargements s'élève a 535 francs. Je vous donne aussi connaissance de la quantité de glasse rendue 235 quinteaux a 3 francs, qui produit 705 francs reste net sur ces deux chargements 175 francs: par conséquent mon cher Monsieur je n'ai pas besoin de vous donner des détails des chargements suivants c'est a peu près les mêmes frais, et la quantité de glasse aussi.

'Nous en avons refait trois chargements:--

Un le 15 Septembre.

2 le 13 Octobre.

3 le 14 Novembre

'Cela comprend toute l'exploitation de 1863.

'Vous m'excuserez beaucoup de mon retard.

'Je termine en vous présentant mes respectueuses salutations. Vous noublierez pas ce que vous mavez promis' [22]St. Georges, le 24 Juillet, 1864. Dimanche.

'JULES MIGNOT.'

Instead of three francs the quintal, Mignot had previously told me that he got four francs, delivered at Gland, and five at Geneva. His ordinary staff during the time of the exploitation was ten men to carry and load, and two to cut the ice in the cave.

It was a matter of considerable importance to catch the Poste at Gimel, and the two Swiss groaned loudly on the consequent pace, unnecessary, as far as they were concerned, for the Poste was nothing to them. As a general rule, the Swiss of this district cannot walk so fast as their Burgundian or French neighbours, unless it is very much to their interest to do so, and then they can go fast enough. A legend is still preserved in the valleys of Joux and Les Rousses, to the following effect. While the Franche Comté was still Spanish, in 1648, commissioners were appointed to fix the boundaries between Berne and Burgundy, on the other side of the range of hill we were now descending, and they decided that one of the boundary stones must be placed at the distance of a common league from the Lake of Les Rousses. Unfortunately, no one could say what a common league was, beyond the vague definition of 'an hour's walk;' so two men were started from the shore of the lake, the one a Burgundian and the other a Swiss, with directions to walk for an hour down the Orbe towards Chenit, the stone to be placed half-way between the points they should respectively reach at the end of the hour. It was for the interest of the Franche Comté that the stone should be as near the lake as possible, and accordingly the Swiss champion made such walking as had never been seen before, and gained for Berne a considerable amount of territory. There was no such tragic result in this case as that which induced the Carthaginians to pay divine honours to the brothers whose speed, on a like occasion, had added an appreciable amount to the possessions of the republic.

At length we reached the point where the roads for Gimel and S. Georges separate, and there, under a glorious sapin, we said our adieux, and wished our au revoirs, and settled those little matters which the best friends must settle, when one is of the nature of a monsieur, and the others are guides. They burdened their souls with many politenesses, and so we parted. The inclemency of the weather was such, that the people in the lower country asked, as they passed, whether snow had fallen in the mountains, and the cold rain continued unceasingly down to the large plain on which the Federal Camp of Bière[23] is placed. Here for a few moments the sun showed itself, lighting up the white tents, and displaying to great advantage the masses of scented orchises, and the feathery reine-des-prés, which hemmed the road in on either side. All through the earlier part of the day, flowers had forced themselves upon our notice as mere vehicles for collected rain, when we came in contact with them; but now, for a short time, they resumed their proper place,--only for a short time, for the rain soon returned, and did not cease till midnight. Not all the garden scenery about Aubonne and Allaman (ad Lemannum), nor all the vineyards which yield the choice white wine of the C?te, could counterbalance the united discomfort of the rain, and the cold which had got into the system in the two glacières; and matters were not mended by the discovery that Bradshaw was treacherous, and that a junction with dry baggage at Neufchatel could not be effected before eleven at night.

There are some curious natural phenomena in this neighbourhood, due to the subterranean courses which the fissured limestone of the Jura affords to the meteoric waters. Not far from Bière, the river Aubonne springs out at the bottom of an amphitheatre of rock, receiving additions soon after from a group of twenty natural pits, which the peasants call unfathomable--an epithet freely applied to the strange holes found in the Jura. It is remarkable that the way seems to stand at different levels in the various pits.[24] The plain of Champagne, in which they occur, is unlike the surrounding soil in being formed of calcareous detritus, evidently brought down by some means or other from the Jura, and is dry and parched up to the very edges of the pits. The Toleure, a tributary of the Aubonne, frequently large enough to be called a confluent, flows out from the foot of a wall of rock composed of regular parallelopipeds, and in the spring, when the snows are melting freely, its sources burst out at various levels of the rock. Farther to the west, the Versoie, famous for its trout, pours forth a full-sized stream near the Chateau of Divonne, which is said to take its name (Divorum unda) from this phenomenon. Passing to the northern slope of this range of the Jura, the Orbe is a remarkable example of the same sort of thing, flowing out peacefully in very considerable bulk from an arch at the bottom of a perpendicular rock of great height. This river no doubt owes its origin to the superfluous waters of the Lake of Brenets, which have no visible outlet, and sink into fissures and entonnoirs in the rock at the edge of the lake. Notwithstanding that the lake is three-quarters of a league distant, horizontally, and nearly 700 feet higher, the belief had always been that it was the source of the stream, and in 1776 this was proved to be the fact. For some years before that date, the waters of the Lake of Joux had been inconveniently high, and the people determined to clean out the entonnoirs and fissures of the Lake of Brenets, which is only separated from the Lake of Joux by a narrow tongue of land, in the expectation that the water would then pass away more freely. In order to reach the fissures, they dammed up the outlet of the upper into the lower lake; but the pressure on the embankment became too great, and the waters burst through with much violence, creating an immense disturbance in the lake; and the Orbe, which had always been perfectly clear, was troubled and muddy for some little time. The source of the Loue, near Pontarlier, is more striking than even that of the Orbe.[25]

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