80 DISCUSSIONS IN CLIMATOLOGY. 



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 now 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 out- 

 wards 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 all melt, it would 

 accumulate year by year around the Pole till it 



