554 BALCH— THE COUDERSPORT ICE MINE. 



glacieres by the peasants of various European countries for at least 

 two hundred years. Of late, however, these untenable theories are 

 gradually losing currency, although the conversation of the natives 

 and the little booklet sold at the Mine show that the true principles 

 of the formation and disappearance of the ice have not yet been 

 thoroughly grasped. 



This is clearly shown in " The Automobile Blue Book " for Penn- 

 sylvania, 1921, p. 336, which says: 



Coudersport, Pa. (Population 3,100 — altitude 1,650 feet). Several years 

 ago an Ice Mine was discovered here, which has been a puzzle to geologists, 

 as the ice which melts in winter congeals in the summer time. 



The truth, however, is that the formation of the ice is not a puzzle. 

 And this paper is intended as missionary work to dispel illusion and 

 advance knowledge in accordance with the traditions of the American 

 Philosophical Society. 



The Ice Mine is located in the side of a hill, now sometimes spoken 

 of as the Ice Mountain, and its surroundings are true glaciere coun- 

 try, damp, shady, and free from draughts or sunlight. The exposure 

 of the Ice Mine is north and the sides of the hill are covered with 

 thick second-growth forest which completely shelters the Mine from 

 sun and wind. If this forest were ever cut down, it is almost certain 

 that the ice would largely stop forming. 



The Ice Mine is surrounded by a tall wooden fence with a locked 

 door, which the female guardian of a little restaurant immediately 

 adjacent to the Mine opens for 50 cents a person. After you have 

 put on your overcoat, paid your fee, and passed through the guarded 

 portal, you find yourself on a level space, with the rocks rising some 

 fifteen feet in front of you surmounted by the wooden fence, and 

 with the shaft, a big, nearly square hole, some ten feet in length by 

 eight in breadth and thirty in depth, going straight down into the 

 rock. The top of the shaft is covered with a wooden floor with a 

 large trap door, which is usually kept shut, as people frequently 

 climb over the fence (Fig. i). The floor of the shaft is reached by 

 a long ladder, and when I visited the Mine, on the 12th of August, 

 192 1, was covered by a layer, perhaps two or three feet thick, of 

 dirty ice. On three of the sides rather thin ice curtains were stream- 



