Yamasahi — Glaciation of Japan Mountains. 133 



margin of Hida Plateau and falls abruptly to the rift val- 

 leys of Matsumotodairai and Himekawa with, precipitous 

 fault scarps. The most gigantic and imposing view that 

 it presents attracts many alpinists every summer from all 

 parts of the country. Yarigataka or Spear Peak, often 

 called the Japanese Matterhorn, Shiroumadake, Hodak- 

 ayama, Kurodake, Yakushidake, and Tateyama are the 

 best known peaks. Besides them, Ontake, Norikuradake 

 and Yuodake are eminent volcanic cones and lie in the 

 southern part of this mountain. Hari-nokitoge is noted 

 as the highest mountain pass in Japan. 



Climatologically treated, there is at present no moun- 

 tain in Japan from the central chain of the Island of Sak- 

 halin on the north to the backbone of Formosa in the south 

 (nearly 4,000 meters high) which rises above the snow- 

 line. Even the beautiful snow-clad cone of Fuji, 3,778 

 meters high, loses its white cap in midsummer, leaving 

 only small patches or streaks of snow on the shaded side 

 of the crater or in the radial valleys. The same is true of 

 the northern part of the Japanese Alps. The annual pre- 

 cipitation in this region is as high as 2,500 millimeters, 

 owing to the great winter snowfall. Not on the mountain 

 itself, but on the plains or hills at the foot of its northern 

 slopes, the snow is so deep that small village houses are 

 entirely buried in it. On the ridges and flanks of the 

 mountains there are many patches of snow even in mid- 

 summer. These, however, gradually melt away before 

 the next snowfall — by the end of October at the latest. 

 But it is not infrequently observed that rather large 

 snowfields, often a few meters deep, last through the year 

 in shaded valleys or below cliffs. Most of these snow- 

 fields, consist merely of snow, but in some cases, as I have 

 observed in Shiroumadake, for example, the snow is con- 

 solidated partly to translucent ice near its base. One 

 might give the names "puny glaciers" or "miniature 

 glaciers ' ' to such ice masses. 



The climatic conditions in these mountains are not far 

 different from those of certain other regions where 

 glaciers are found at present. We have no meteorolog- 

 ical stations on any peak of the Japanese Alps, but if we 

 compare the temperatures of three meteorological sta- 

 tions in the towns of Takayama, Matsumoto, and Nagano 

 near the mountains, with that of Vienna at the foot of 



Am. Jour. Sci. — Fifth Series, Vol. Ill, No. 14.— February, 1922. 

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