The north-west corner was very dark, and an opening in the wall of rock high above the ground suggested a tantalising cave up there: the ground in this corner was occupied by the shattered remains of numerous columns of ice, which had originally covered a circular area between 60 and 70 feet in circumference.
[Illustration: VERTICAL SECTION OF THE GLACIERE OF GRACE-DIEU, NEAR BESANCON.] The three large masses of ice which rendered this glaciere in some respects more remarkable than any of those I have seen, lay in a line from east to west, across the middle of the cave, on that part of the floor where the ice was thickest.

The central mass was extremely solid, but somewhat unmeaning in shape, being a rough irregular pyramid; its size alone, however, was sufficient to make it very striking, the girth being 66-1/2 feet at some distance from the ice-floor with which it blended.

The mass which lay to the east of this was very lovely, owing to the good taste of some one who had found that much ice was wont to accumulate on that spot, and had accordingly fixed the trunk of a small fir-tree, with the upper branches complete, to receive the water from the corresponding fissure in the roof.

The consequence was, that, while the actual tree had vanished from sight under its icy covering, excepting on one side where a slight investigation betrayed its presence, the mass of ice showed every possible fantasy of form which a mould so graceful could suggest.

At the base, it was solid, with a circumference of 37 feet.
The huge column, which had collected round the trunk of the fir-tree, branched out at the top into all varieties of eccentricity and beauty, each twig of the different boughs becoming, to all appearance, a solid bar of frosted ice, with graceful curve, affording a point of suspension for complicated groups of icicles, which streamed down side by side with emulous loveliness.