The column which still stood was much shrunken, and seemed too small for its fissure, the sides of which it scarcely touched.

The wind blew down the entrance slope so determinedly, that a candle found it difficult to live at the bottom of the first cave; and a portion of the current blew into the glaciere, and in its sweep exactly struck the fallen columns, the edges of which were already rounded by thaw.

Much of this must be attributed to the recent opening of the second shaft (p.

5), which admits a thorough draught through the first cave, and so exposes the glaciere to currents of warmer air; and I should expect to find that in future the ice will disappear from that part of the cave every summer, [7] whereas in 1861 we found it thick and dry (excepting a few small basins containing water) and evidently permanent, in the middle of a very hot August.

The low part of the cave was so completely protected from the current, that the candle burned there quite steadily for an hour and a half: still, like the others, the column at that end of the glaciere was broken down, and it therefore became necessary to attribute its fall to some other agency than the current of external air.