BY R. VON LENDENFELD, PH.D. 



41 



according to the height. There is no spot however, where the fall 

 of snow in winter and spring exceeds the amount melted during 

 summer and autumn. Consequently, the snow lies only there, 

 where it has been piled up by wind in snowdrifts. The 

 remnants of such drifts last through the summer. They appear as 

 bands often interrupted, following the ridges about 20 feet below 

 the summit, and 30 to 50 feet broad on the southern and eastern 

 slopes, as stripes and patches in a line parallel to the summit line, 

 fringing the upper margin of the south-eastern slopes. Such little 

 snowdrift patches are met with in all suitable places above 6,500 

 feet. 



Similar snow patches formed in a homologous manner are 

 formed everywhere, where the mountains attain a sufficient height. 

 They form the most striking peculiarity of those mountains in 

 the European Alps, which attain a height of about 9,000 feet. 

 There such eternal snow patches are, however, not found below 

 8000 feet. These alps lie in lat. 47° N. If we compare this with 

 the fact that on Kosciusco homologous snow patches are found in 

 37° S. and 1,500 feet lower, we must come to the conclusion that 

 also in Australia, as in New Zealand and Patagonia, it is either 

 colder or damper or both than in the noi-thern hemisphere at 

 corresponding latitudes. The snow patches come down to 

 about 6500 feet in Europe in lat. 52°, that is 15 degrees further 



