a commentary on Christian's
assertion that no one had ever been beyond the head of the fall, I
called his attention to some initials smoked on the wall by means of a
torch. There was an abrupt piece of rock-floor between this end and the
termination of the ice. The western wall was ornamented with a long
arcade of lofty columns of very white ice, looking strangely ghostlike
by the light of two candles, crystallised, and with the porcelain
appearance I have described before. We could not measure the height of
these columns, but we found that they extended continuously, so as to be
in fact one sheet of columns, connected by shapes of ice now graceful
and now grotesque, for 27 yards. The ice from their feet flowed down to
join the terminal lake, which formed a weird sea 28 yards by 14. My
notes, written on the spot, tell me that between this lake, which I have
called terminal, and the end of the cave, there is a sheet of ice 48
yards long, but it has entirely vanished from my recollection.

I now sent Christian back with a ball of string, up the steps we had cut
for the descent, with directions to get as near as he could to the top
of the main fall, and then send down a stone tied to the string, as I
wished to determine the length of the fall. While he was making his way
up, I amused myself by chopping and carving at the ice at various
points to examine its structure, until at length a _Jodel_ from above
announced that Christian had reached his post; and a vast amount of
hammering ensued, of which I could not understand the meaning. Presently
he called out that 'it' was coming, and assuredly it did come. There was
a loud crash on the upper part of the fall, and a shower of fragments of
ice came whizzing past, and almost dislodged me; while the sound of
pieces of ice bounding and gliding down the slope seemed as if it never
would cease. It turned out to mean that my friend had not been able to
find a stone; so he had smashed a block of ice from the column which
presided over the fall, and having attached the string to this, had
hurled the whole apparatus in my direction, fortunately not doing as
much damage as he might have done. My end of the string was not to be
seen, so he repeated the experiment, with a piece of wood in place of
the block of ice, and this time it succeeded. We found that from top to
bottom of the fall was 45 yards. There was all the appearance of immense
thickness, especially towards the upper part.