Account of a subterranean Glacier at iFondeurh. '81 
gulfs, and large alpine meadows overturned and deposited in 
one mass of desolation. 
One of the caverns of this singular place is called the Glacier 
of Fondeurle. It has two large openings, one to the east and 
the other to the west.‘ It slopes gently to tlie north, and pro- 
bably communicates with other subterranean cavities on a low^er 
level. The cavern of the glacier is nearly SOO feet deep, with 
great irregularity in its width. A rock more than 66 feet thick 
forms its roof. The interior is decorated with beautiful calca- 
reous stalactites, which in some places descend from the roof to 
the ground, while the floor is variegated with cones of calca- 
reous alabastrite, which sometimes overtop and shoot out from 
a sheet of ice of the most perfect transparency. From the 
vault of the cavern are suspended a great number of stalactites 
of limpid ice, several of which reach the floor, and lose them- 
selves in the icy pavement. The frozen stalactites are insulat- 
ed in the middle of the cavern, while those of alabaster are sus- 
tained upon its flanks, and form, by the union of their surfaces, 
the finest folds of a rich drapery. One of the travellers who 
accompanied M. Hericart de Thury to this cavern, having cut 
a pillar of ice, placed in the inside of it the light which he car- 
ried. The cavern was instantly illuminated with various brilliant 
tints of yellow, blue, green, and red, and the eyes of the specta- 
tors were dazzled with the magical effects of the reflected rays 
playing upon the floor of* ice, upon the pillars of alabaster, and 
upon the great stalagmites which lined the walls of the cavern. 
Their admiration, however, was still greater, when, having de- 
tached some of the stalactitical pillars of ice, they found them 
hollow, and forming geodes or drusy cavities, the interior of 
which was studded with the finest crystals of ice. This un- 
expected appearance induced them to examine more narrowly 
the pavement of ice upon which they trod, and they were sur- 
prised to find it composed entirely of crystallized portions, of 
the most perfect transparency, presenting, for the most part, 
hexahedral prisms, whose terminal surface was covered with 
strim parallel to the faces of the prism ; while the crystals in the 
interior of the stalactites were sometimes triangular prisms, and 
sometimes hexahedral prisms, occasionally striated hke those 
in the floor. Some of these crystals, which had a diameter of 
VOL. II. NO. S. JAN UAH Y 18.^0. F 
