Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 82.djvu/286

282

was nearly free from the summer's product. This phenomenon has regularly been repeated each year since its discovery.

Mr. Dodd, who owns the land; had a small building erected around the mine, leaving the roof, directly over the shaft, open so as to allow the rays of the sun to beat in upon the ice formation. The beautiful woods surrounding this spot make an ideal place for picnics and it has become a favorite place for visitors to spend an afternoon, and incidentally cool off.

Two years ago (1910) the bottom of the shaft settled eighteen inches, leading to an experiment by Mr. Dodd. He says that two sticks of dynamite were placed about eight feet back into a crevice at the bottom of the shaft and fired without turning a stone or dislodging any earth in the shaft. A possible conclusion is that there is a cave underneath the mine large enough to absorb the shock of the explosion. Nothing more has been done in the way of investigation.

The Dingman Run Ice Mine is a more recent discovery, being found on June 15, 1905, on Dingman Run on the farm of Mr. Pelchy. Mr. Pelchy, with the help of another man, was clearing up some brush-land for farming when, in order to get a better foothold on the steep hillside, he tore away a little of the moss, which was several inches deep at that place, and found pieces of ice.

Having heard of the ice mine at Sweden Valley he began to dig in the hope of discovering a similar phenomenon on his own farm. He made an opening in the hillside ten feet deep by twenty across,