THE SWEDEN VALLEY ICE MINE 



285 



Tyrolese Alps, and Carpathians: and also occasionally in the United States. 

 Peasants and guides tell you with absolute confidence : ' ' The hotter the summer 

 the more ice there is. ' ' The strange thing is that any number of writers — 

 sometimes scientific men — have accepted the ideas and statements of the peasants 

 about the formation of ice in summer, and have tried to account for it. 



The belief of the peasants is founded on the fact that they scarcely ever 

 go to any cave except when some tourist takes them with him, and, therefore, 

 they rarely see one in winter, and their faith is not based on observation. It is, 

 however, founded on an appearance of truth: and that is on the fact that the 

 temperature of glaciere caves, like that of other caves or that of cellars, is 

 colder in summer than the outside air, and warmer in winter than the outside 



Another View of the Inside. 



air. Possessing neither reasoning powers nor thermometers, the peasants simply 

 go a step further and say that glaciere caves are cold in summer and hot 

 in winter. 



Professor Thury tells a story to the point. He visited the Grand Cave de 

 Montarquis in midwinter. All the peasants told him there would be no use 

 going, as there would be no ice in the cave. He tried to find even one peasant 

 who had been to the cave in winter, but could not. He then visited it himself 

 and found it full of hard ice. 



While the writer does not claim, as these peasants, that the heat of 

 summer is the direct and only cause of the formation of ice, he does 

 hold that it is an indirect cause and that the ice to be seen in the Sweden 

 Valley Ice Mine is formed after the temperature outside the mine is far 

 above the freezing point, and it is when the temperature outside is the 

 highest that the ice is formed the most rapidly. The cause of this will 

 be explained shortly. 



