PRESENT DISTRIBUTION OF SNOW AND ICE. 269 



Sectiox II. — Present Distrihdion of Snotv and Ice throughout the World. 



In the present section a brief description will be given of the regions 

 which remain throughont the 3'ear covered by accumulations of snow or ice. 

 The aim will be to touch on those points which are of especial interest to us 

 as bearing more or less directly on the inquiry in which we are engaged. 

 To go into full details will, of course, be impossible ; but it seems necessary 

 to place before the reader a statement, if only a brief one, of certain facts 

 connected with present glaciation on the earth, to which sufficient attention 

 has not heretofore been paid by those geologists who have occupied them- 

 selves with this department of investigation. The method pursued will be, 

 first, to present the facts themselves as concisely as possible, selecting from 

 the great mass at our disposal such as seem best fitted for our purpose, and 

 then to comment on the material thus brought together, seeking to arrive 

 at a clear understanding of the climatic and topographical conditions which 

 at the present time appear to favor the formation and growth of glacial 

 accumulations. 



In making a rapid review of those portions of the earth's sin-face where 

 perpetual snow and glaciers are now found, we may begin with the southern 

 hemisphere, leaving, however, the Antarctic Polar region to be taken up a 

 little farther on, and in connection with a description of the glacial condi- 

 tions of the North Polar area. The reason for this course will, it is presumed, 

 be readily understood when the exceptional character and position of the 

 Polar reo'ions are taken into consideration. 



South America may therefore be first mentioned ; and in examining that 

 countrv it will become at once apjjarent how unimportant a part snow and 

 ice pl;iy in its physical geography'. All through the chain of the Andes, 

 from the Isthmus of Panama down nearly to the southern border of Chili, 

 there is nothing which can properly be called a glacier system. For this not 

 only is the range too narrow, but its situation within the equatorial belt, or 

 near to it, carries the line of perpetual snow .so high that it is only here and 

 there that a few of the higher points project above it. Indeed, until quite 

 recently it was hardly known or admitted that there were any glaciers in 

 the northern portion of the Andes.* 



* Humboldt ill his " Personal Niirnitive," whi-n (le:?cribing the mountain chains of the equatorial regions of 

 South America, never uses tlie word glaeier or ice, but speaks eonstantly of snow. Indeed, it may be mentioned 



