332 Notice of an Ice Mountain in Wallingford, Vt. 



the burning rays of a summer's sun, and the exercise of ascend- 

 ing and descending the White Rocks, two thick coats were hard- 

 ly sufficient to render me comfortable, as I sat upon a rock just 

 above the spot where the ice is found, and received the cold air 

 as it came up from the icy caverns beneath. 



Various attempts have been made by ingenious philosophers to 

 account for the formation and preservation of such a vast amount 

 of ice, and in such a place. But no reasoning appears more sat- 

 isfactory and conclusive than that offered in the account of the 

 " Ice Mountain" in Virginia. That it is owing mainly to the 

 fact, that rocks are poor conductors of caloric, must be evident to 

 every one at all familiar with the well established laws of heat, 

 and the many striking instances, which science has brought to 

 light, of the non-conduction of heat by various substances. 



The Ice Bed and the White Rocks are well worthy of being 

 visited by the lovers of science, and those who are pleased with 

 the grand and wonderful in the operations of nature. In a letter 

 just received from Dr. Ives, who has long resided in Wallingford, 

 and often visited the Ice Bed and White Rocks, he says : 



" Standing in the ravine near the Ice Bed, those who have a 

 taste for the sublime scenes of nature, cannot fail to be gratified in 

 contemplating one of the most wild and awfully grand views that 

 are to be found in the whole range of the Green Mountains. If 

 surpassed by any scene in the Union, I have failed to notice it ; 

 and I have crossed this range at various points, and examined it 

 with some attention, from the northern part of this State to its 

 termination at West Rock, near New Haven, Conn. My eye has 

 rested upon a large portion of the Alleghany and Cumberland 

 mountains, and surveyed with thrilling interest the Highlands 

 above New York, East and West Rock near New Haven, and 

 the far-famed elevations of the Blue Ridge at Harper's Ferry, 

 Virginia. But these justly celebrated scenes, though highly in- 

 teresting, failed to impress me with that deep sense of the sub- 

 lime, that I have never failed to experience while wandering 

 among the vast moss-covered fragments of rock that are confu- 

 sedly piled over the large space between the head of the glen 

 and the foot of the riven cliffs." 



At the bottom of the ravine described above, a small stream of 

 water is formed, which varies but little during the year, and the 

 temperature of which is very low. 



Middlebury, Vt. } Nov. 25, 1843. 



