When this column was looked at from the side removed from the entrance to the cave, so that it stood in the centre of the light which poured down the long slope from the outer world, the transparency of the ice brought it to pass that the whole seemed set in a narrow frame of impalpable liquid blue, the effect of light penetrating through the mass at its extreme edges.

The only means of determining the height of this column was by tying a stone to the end of a string, and lodging it on the highest head; but this was not an easy process, as I was naturally anxious not to injure the delicate beauty which made that head one of the loveliest things conceivable; and each careful essay with the stone seemed to involve as much responsibility as taking a shot at a hostile wicket, in a crisis of the game, instead of returning the ball in the conventional manner.

When at last it was safely lodged, the height proved to be 27 feet.

I had hoped to find it much more than this, from the grandeur of the effect of the whole mass, and I took the trouble to measure the knotted string again with a tape, to make sure that there was no mistake.

The column formed upon the fir-tree was 3 or 4 feet lower.
I have since found many notices of this glaciere in the Memoirs of the French Academy and elsewhere, extracts from which will be found in a later chapter.