76 DISCUSSIONS IN CLIMATOLOGY. 



A theory of the origin of the Antarctic ice, somewhat 

 similar to that of Sir Joseph Hooker, has been advanced 

 by Professor Shaler. In his magnificent work on 

 Glaciers, p. 31, he states his views as follows: — 



"When the snow-line touches the sea-level it is 

 because the forces that take away the snow are no 

 longer sufficiently active to overcome the annual accu- 

 mulation. The existence of such an extremity of cold 

 leads necessarily to the formation, on the surface of 

 the land-locked seas of the circumpolar region, of very 

 thick ice. . . . On the surface of this ice the snows 

 of each winter accumulate and help to increase the 

 thickness of the mass. The ice-floes north of Baffin's 

 Bay, and the straits and inlets that enter the Arctic Sea 

 from the northward, contain a great deal of this ice, 

 which has a thickness of more than 100 feet. In the sea 



barrier-ice originated in pack-ice over very shallow bays, increased 

 by successive snowfalls. The quantity of snow that falls in summer 

 is enormous south of latitude 50°-60°. Certainly it fell on half the 

 days of each summer month during the three seasons we spent in 

 those seas, and I think in one month snow fell every day. There is 

 no summer melting of snow and ice in the Antarctic as there is in the 

 Arctic regions. It is the only region known to me where there is 

 perpetual snow on land at sea -level." 



Now, if the snow which falls in the Antarctic regions at the sea- 

 level does not all melt, but some of it remains year by year, then 

 permanent ice formed at the sea-level, whether it be on frozen pack 

 or on the ground, must be a necessary consequence. If this be so, it 

 cannot be true, as Mr. Wallace affirms, that there is no permanent 

 ice formed but on high land. 



Perpetual Snow at the Sea-Level in the Arctic as well as in the 

 Antarctic Regions. — Commander Julius Payer says, " Franz- Josef 

 Land appears even in summer to be buried under perpetual snow, 

 interrupted only where precipitous rock occurs." But, more than 

 this, all the smaller islands are completely covered with separate 

 ice-sheets of their own. — "Austrian Arctic Voyage," vol. ii. , pp. 83, 84. 



But supposing the snow were not perpetual, this would not 

 prevent, as will be shown in the next chapter, the formation of 

 permanent ice. 



