42 METEOROLOGY OP MOUNT KOSCIUSCO, 



away from the equator than Mount Kosciusco. This result is 

 only in so far interesting, as it shows that Australia, with its hot 

 and dry continental climate, is no exception to the rule of the 

 greater amount of cold and wet in the Southern Hemisphere. 



Perhaps the most important of the aqueous precipitation is the 

 dew. I have never in any part of the world at any height between 

 1000 and 15,000 feet experienced such dews as every night at our 

 camp on the Kosciusco plateau. The whole plateau covered by a 

 thinner layer of air than the low lands around, is of course subject 

 to very extensive radiation during the night and gets so cold 

 towards the morning that it freezes there above 5,500 feet nearly 

 every clear night in the year. During our stay in the middle of 

 January it was very warm in the day but invariably froze at night. 



The sea breeze coming up of an evening to replace the heated 

 air in the centre of the Australian continent is comparatively warm 

 and saturated with moisture. 



It blows up the eastern slopes of the plateau and encounters its 

 ice cold surface^ It can easily be understood how an exceptional 

 amount of dew is precipitated in consequence. 



This dew freezes and fresh dew is deposited on the ice. In this 

 way a coating of ice, about a sixteenth of an inch thick, was formed 

 on our tin plates which I left outside the tent over night for the 

 purpose of ascertaining the amount of dew. 



Our tent was frozen as hard as a weatherboard cottage every 

 morning and could not be packed until the rising sun had melted 

 the ice attached to it. 



It will appear from these statements that as one might a priori 

 expect, the Kosciusco plateau is blessed with a great amount o* 

 aqueous precipitation and that the abundance of crystal clear water 

 in the streams draining it can easily be accounted f oi'. 



I should like to add a few remarks concerning the exceptionally 

 wet weather we have had the last few days, namely, from January 

 the 17th to the 25th. On the morning of January 11th, when we 



