This book was intended for the general public, and must not be judged as an academic production. Nevertheless the first and shorter section of the book is of some interest to glaciologists, for the author describes there the adventures of himself and his family in a series of caves containing accumulations of ice, in the Marboré massif of the Pyrenees. These ice masses resemble mineral formations such as stalactites, flowstone, etc. In one of a group of caves known collectively as Les Grottes des Isards, the floor is covered by a smooth carpet of transparent ice, with “frozen cascades” over the pitches. This appears to be fed by a thin film of melt water flowing into the cave from the snow patch near the cave entrance, supplemented from water percolating through the rocks above the cave. As the cave slopes into the mountain, and its lower reaches are choked, cold air accumulates in it and is little affected by summer heating so that air temperatures at or near freezing point occur throughout the year. The author describes all these features very superficially and attempts no explanations, except in the case of a collection of ice crystals said to be 8–10 inches in diameter, which are attributed to sublimation. These crystals are described as being “perfectly transparent, roughly octagonal and reminiscent of certain spider-webs”. Another ice formation is referred to as a “bush of ice more than a foot high”.

The second part of the book consists of a classified collection of cave accidents and disasters, including certain British incidents which are not always very accurately described, e.g. the description of the Wookey Hole fatality, which contains at least twenty errors in two pages of text.

The translation (which is anonymous) is not up to the high standard achieved with previous books by Norbert Casteret, and occasionally one encounters incomprehensible phrases such as “The great square corridor of the diaclase …” (p.29).