6 Europe : — a popular Physical Sketch. 



The annual quantity of rain is considerable at the 

 southern foot of the Alps ; a mean number of many differ- 

 ent localities gives 54 inches, and in Friaul there are 

 places (Tolmezzo, for instance) where the quantity amounts 

 to 90 inches. The southerly and south-westerly winds 

 carry with them many vapours from the sea and from the 

 warmer districts, where the evaporation is greater, and 

 when these vapour-charged currents of air reach the cold 

 Alps, they condense into rain. At the SW. extremity of the 

 Alps the quantity of rain amounts to 23 inches only, but 

 increases considerably as one gets farther into the moun- 

 tains, for instance, at Chambery to 58^ inches. On the 

 northern terraces and promontories the quantity is 34 

 inches ; at the northern foot 25 inches ; and on the North- 

 German plain 20 inches. Smallest quantity of rain falls 

 at the eastern foot; at Ofen only 16 inches, which one 

 would expect, for as the country is far distant from the sea, 

 and the southern and south-western winds pass from the 

 cold Alps down upon the warmer Hungarian plain, no easy 

 opportunity for the necessary cooling is afforded. 



The snow line appears on the north side of the Alps 

 at an elevation of 8746 feet ; on the south side it does not 

 appear prior to a height of 10,133 feet; but towards east 

 it is as low as 8533 feet. If these facts be compared 

 to the above mean elevations, and the elevation of the 

 highest peaks, the conclusion remains that a great part of 

 the Alps is covered with perpetual snow, which also be- 

 comes visible in the north on visiting during the hottest part 

 of the summer the chain of mountains from the Lombardic 

 plain in the south, or the Bavarian table land. These 

 immense stores of snow send down into the valleys ' Glets- 

 chen' (i. e. glaciers and avalanches) which moving like those 

 in Scandinavia and Iceland, form a rampart of stones and 

 earth below (Moraines), and communicate a milky colour to 

 the rivers. Most of them, and also the largest, are found 



