Greenland and the Antarctic Continent. 359 
Wilkes estimated the snowfall of the Antarctic regions to be 
about 30 feet per annum; and Sir John Ross says that during 
a whole month they had only three days free from snow. But 
there is one circumstance which must tend to make the snow- 
fall near the South Pole considerable, and that is the inflow of 
moist winds in all directions towards it ; and as the area on 
which these currents deposit their snow becomes less and less 
as the Pole is reached, this must, to a corresponding extent, 
increase the quantity of snow falling on a given area. Let us 
assume, for example, that the clouds in passing from lat. 60° 
to lat. 80° deposit moisture sufficient to produce, say, 30 feet 
of snow per annum, and supposing that by the time they 
reach lat. 80° they are in possession of only one tenth part of 
their original store of moisture, still, as the area between lat. 
80° and the Pole is but one eighth of that between lat. 60° 
and 80°, this would notwithstanding give 24 feet as the annual 
amount of snowfall between lat. 80° and the Pole. 
However small may be the snowfall, and consequent amount 
of ice formed annually around the South Pole, unless it all 
melted it must of necessity accumulate year by year till the 
sheet becomes thickest there ; for the ice could not move out 
of its position till this were the case. But supposing there 
were no snow whatever falling at the Pole and no ice being 
formed there, still this would not alter this state of matters ; 
for in this case the ice forming at some distance from the Pole 
all around would flow back towards the centre, and continue 
to accumulate there till the resistance to the inward flow 
became greater than the resistance to the outward; but this 
state would not be reached till the ice became at least as 
thick on the poleward as on the outward side. There is no 
evading of this conclusion unless we assume, what is certainly 
very improbable, if not impossible, viz. that the ice flowing 
polewards should melt as rapidly as it advances. We know, 
however, that in respect to the ice which flows outwards 
towards the sea little, if any, of it is melted ; and it is only 
after it breaks off in the form of bergs and floats to warmer 
latitudes that it disappears, and that even with difficulty. It 
is therefore not likely that the ice flowing inwards towards the 
Pole, and without the advantage of escape in the form of bergs, 
should all happen to melt. If little or none of the ice flowing 
toward the Equator melts, it is physically impossible that all 
the ice flowing polewards should manage to do so ; and if it 
did not ail melt, it would accumulate year by year around the 
Pole till it acquired a thickness sufficient to prevent any further 
flow in that direction, or, in other words, till its thickness at 
the Pole became as great as it is all around. 
