GLACIER IN A CAVE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19221, 9 January 1926, Page 12

GLACIER IN A CAVE.

THE TYROLESE ALPS.

GREAT SUBTERRANEAN LAKE. A wonderful glacier—-the only one of its kind in the world—has been discovered by Alpinists inside the Hochkonig Mountain, 9619 ft. in altitude, in the Tyrolese Alps about, 30 miles south of Salzburg. Glaciers usually arc found on the surface of a mountain, but this glacier, which is a mile long and about 10ft. thick, is entirely underground, snd' covers 20.000 yards in area under ab/upt walls of rock. The difficult entrance of a grotto near the summit of the mountain was discovered on the outbreak of war by an Austrian. Colonel Alexander von Moerk who failed, however, to find the glacier lower down. The officer was killed in the war. and, in accordance with this request, his body was buried in the grotto, which Alpinists have now explored with surprising results. It is the largest "cave" yet known in Europe, for, with its galleries, it extends for 30 miles under the mountain. The Alpinists have found in it a subterranean lake, a cascade which disappears in an abyss, a great hall with a floor CO yards long covered with thick ice, and many other curiosities. Researches arc being continued to find out where and how the glacier empties itself through the earth into the valleys below.