United States or Serbia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Oudot, and higher than those which M. Billerez saw, formed upon the trunk and branches of a fir-tree.
He was fortunate enough to obtain by chance the notes of a neighbouring physician, who had made careful observations and experiments in the glacière at various seasons of the year, and a précis of these notes forms the most valuable part of his account. Dr. Oudot, the physician in question, found ten columns in January 1778, the largest of which was 5-1/2 feet high.
I have now no doubt that the peculiar shape of another the largest of the three columns which were in the cave at the time of my visit is due to the fact of its being a collection of several smaller columns, which have in course of time flowed into one as they increased separately in bulk, and that its height has been augmented by a device similar to that adopted by Dr. Oudot.
Oudot the idea of placing stakes of wood in the heads of the columns he found in the cave, in the hope that ice would thus collect in greater quantities under the fissures of the roof. Accordingly, he made holes in three of the columns, and established stakes 4, 5, and 10 feet high, returning on the 22nd of February, after an interval of six weeks, to observe the result of his experiment.
Oudot made the experiment, in 1779, of fixing stakes of wood in the heads of the columns, then from 4 to 5 feet high, and found that these stakes were the cause of a very large increase in the height of the columns, ice gathering round them in pillars a foot thick.
Word Of The Day