SNOW-LEVEL. 155 



The height of the snow-level, depends, you see, 

 only in general on the mean temperature of the 

 year, and it falls lower and lower from the equa- 

 torial regions on both sides towards the poles. It 

 seems to come down to the sea-level at the north 

 of Spitzbergen beyond 80° N. L. At the north 

 of Asia and America, it reaches it at considerably 

 lower latitudes ; so that the horizontal line of inter- 

 section of the snow-limit and of the earth's surface, 

 like the isotherms, does not run parallel to the 

 circles of latitude. In the southern hemisphere, 

 the snow-level seems to descend to the surface of 

 the sea sooner than in the northern, namely, be- 

 tween 60° and 71° S.L. In Terra del Fuego 

 (55° S. L.) it comes down almost as low as in 

 Norway, under the 70th degree. Cook found the 

 creeks in the island of South Georgia, in the 

 same latitude, bordered with shores of ice, and the 

 land in many places covered with snow, in the 

 middle of the summer. He also found Sandwich 

 Land, whose latitude (60°) corresponds with that 

 of the Shetland Isles, on the 1st of February, 

 i. e. in the warmest season of the southern hemi- 

 sphere, surrounded with ice, and the whole land, 

 from the tops of the mountains to the foot of the 

 cliffs, which form the coast, covered with snow 

 many fathoms deep. 



All those influences, which determine the mean 

 temperature of the summer, affect the height of the 



