this we
afterwards found to be the bottom of the larger of the two pits we had
already fathomed, the pit A of the diagram; and we eventually discovered
a similar but much smaller communication with the bottom of the pit B.
In each of these pits there was a considerable pyramid of snow, whose
base was on a level with the floor of the glaciere: the connecting
archway in the case of the pit A was 3 or 4 feet high, allowing us to
pass into the pit and round the pyramid with perfect ease, while that
leading to the pit B was less than a foot high, so that no passage could
be forced.

As we stood on the ice at the entrance and peered into the comparative
darkness, we saw by degrees that the glaciere consisted of a continuous
sea of smooth ice, sloping down very gently towards the right hand. The
rock which forms the roof of the cave seemed to be almost as even as the
floor, and was from 4 to 5 feet high in the neighbourhood in which we
now found ourselves, gradually approaching the floor towards the bottom
of the pit B, where it became about a foot high, and rising slightly in
that part of the cave where the floor fell, so as to give 9 or 10 feet
as the height there. The ice had all the appearance of great depth; but
there were no means of forming a trustworthy opinion on this point,
beyond the fact that I succeeded in lowering a stone to a considerable
depth, in the small crevice which existed between the wall and the block
of ice which formed the floor. The greatest length of the cave we found
to be 112 ft. 7 in., and its breadth 94 ft., the general shape of the
field of ice, which filled it to its utmost edges, being elliptical. The
surface was unpleasantly wet, chiefly in the line of the currents, which
were now seen to pass backwards and forwards between the pits A and C.
In the neighbourhood of the pit B the water stood in a very thin sheet
on the ice, which there was level, and rendered the style of locomotion
necessitated by the near approach of the roof extremely disagreeable, as
I was obliged to lie on my face, and push myself along the wet and
slippery ice, to explore that corner of the cave, being at length
stopped by want of sufficient height for even that method of
progression.

The circle marked D represents a column from the roof, at the foot of
which we found a small grotto in the ice, which I entered to a depth of
6 feet, the surface of the field of ice showing a very gracefully
rounded fall at the edges o