portion of the reflected heat would no doubt warm the vapour in the atmosphere, but this heat would be carried off to other parts of the earth, while a considerable portion of the whole would be lost in space. It must also be remembered that an enormous quantity of heat is used up in melting snow and ice, without raising its temperature; each cubic foot of ice requiring as much heat to melt it as would raise nearly six cubic feet of water 30° F. It has, however, been argued that because when water is frozen it evolves just as much heat as it requires to melt it again, there is no loss of heat on the whole; and as this is adduced over and over again as a valid argument in every criticism of Dr. Croll's theory, it may be well to consider it a little more closely. In the act of freezing no doubt water gives up some of its heat to the surrounding air; but that air still remains below the freezing point or freezing would not take place. The heat liberated by freezing is, therefore, what may be termed low-grade heat—heat incapable of melting snow or ice; while the heat absorbed while ice or snow is melting is high-grade heat, such as is capable of melting snow and supporting vegetable growth. Moreover, the low-grade heat liberated in the formation of snow is usually liberated high up in the atmosphere, where it may be carried off by winds to more southern latitudes, while the heat absorbed in melting the surface of snow and ice is absorbed close to the earth and is thus prevented from warming the lower atmosphere, which is in contact with vegetation. The two phenomena, therefore, by no means counterbalance or counteract each other, as it is so constantly and superficially asserted that they do.
Effect of Clouds and Fog in cutting off the Sun's Heat.—Another very important cause of diminution of heat during summer in a glaciated country would be the intervention of clouds and fogs, which would reflect or absorb a large proportion of the sun-heat and prevent it reaching the surface of the earth; and such a cloudy atmosphere would be a necessary result of large areas of high land covered with snow and ice. That such a prevalence of fogs and cloud is an actual fact in all ice-clad countries has been shown by Dr. Croll most conclusively, and he has further
shown that the existence of perpetual snow often depends upon it. South Georgia in the latitude of Yorkshire is almost, and Sandwich Land in the latitude of the north of Scotland, is entirely covered with perpetual snow; yet in their summer the sun is three million miles nearer the earth than it is in our summer, and the heat actually received from the sun must be sufficient to raise the temperature 20° F. higher than in the same latitudes in the northern hemisphere, were the conditions equal—instead of which their summer temperature is probably full 20° lower. The chief cause of this can only be that the heat of the sun does not reach the surface of the earth; and that this is the fact is testified by all Antarctic voyagers. Darwin notes the cloudy sky and constant moisture of the southern part of Chile, and in his remarks on the climate and productions of the Antarctic islands he says: "In the Southern Ocean the winter is not so excessively cold, but the summer is far less hot (than in the north), for the clouded sky seldom allows the sun to warm the ocean, itself a bad absorbent of heat; and hence the mean temperature of the year, which regulates the zone of perpetually congealed under-soil, is low." Sir James Ross, Lieutenant Wilkes, and other Antarctic voyagers speak of the snow-storms, the absence of sunshine, and the freezing temperature in the height of summer; and Dr. Croll shows that this is a constant phenomenon accompanying the presence of large masses of ice in every part of the world.[[52]]
In reply to the objections of a recent critic Dr. Croll has given a new proof of this important fact by comparing the known amount of snow-fall with the equally well-known melting power of direct sun-heat in different latitudes. He says: "The annual precipitation on Greenland in the form of snow and rain, according to Dr. Rink, amounts to only twelve inches, and two inches of this he considers is never melted, but is carried away in the form of icebergs. The quantity of heat received at the
equator from sunrise to sunset, if none were cut off by the atmosphere, would melt 3⅓ inches of ice, or 100 feet in a year. The quantity received between latitude 60° and 80°, which is that of Greenland, is, according to Meech, one-half that received at the equator. The heat received by Greenland from the sun, if none were cut off by the atmosphere, would therefore melt fifty feet of ice per annum, or fifty times the amount of snow which falls on that continent. What then cuts off the ninety-eight per cent of the sun's heat?" The only possible answer is, that it is the clouds and fog during a great part of the summer, and reflection from the surface of the snow and ice when these are absent.
South Temperate America as Illustrating the Influence of Astronomical Causes on Climate.—Those persons who still doubt the effect of winter in aphelion with a high degree of excentricity in producing glaciation, should consider how the condition of south temperate America at the present day is explicable if they reject this agency. The line of perpetual snow in the Southern Andes is so low as 6,000 feet in the same latitude as the Pyrenees; in the latitude of the Swiss Alps mountains only 6,200 feet high produce immense glaciers which descend to the sea-level; while in the latitude of Cumberland mountains only from 3,000 to 4,000 feet high have every valley filled with streams of ice descending to the sea-coast and giving off abundance of huge icebergs.[[53]] Here we have exactly the condition of things to which England and Western Europe were subjected during the latter portion of the glacial epoch, when every valley in Wales, Cumberland, and Scotland had its glacier; and to what can this state of things be imputed if not to the fact that there is now a moderate amount of excentricity, and the winter of the southern hemisphere is in aphelion? The mere geographical position of the southern extremity of America does not seem especially favourable to the production of such a state of glaciation. The land narrows from the tropics southwards and terminates altogether in about the latitude of Edinburgh; the
mountains are of moderate height; while during summer the sun is three millions of miles nearer, and the heat received from it is equivalent to a rise of 20° F. as compared with the same season in the northern hemisphere. The only important differences are: the open southern ocean, the longer and colder winter, and the general low temperature caused by the south polar ice. But the great accumulation of south polar ice is itself due to the great extent of high land within the Antarctic circle acted upon by the long cold winter and furnished with moisture by the surrounding wide ocean. These conditions of high land and open ocean we know did not prevail to so great an extent in the northern hemisphere during the glacial epoch, as they do in the southern hemisphere at the present time; but the other acting cause—the long cold winter—existed in a far higher degree, owing to the excentricity being about three times as much as it is now. It is, so far as we know or are justified in believing, the only efficient cause of glaciation which was undoubtedly much more powerful at that time; and we are therefore compelled to accept it as the most probable cause of the much greater glaciation which then prevailed.
Geographical Changes, how far a Cause of Glaciation.—Messrs. Croll and Geikie have both objected to the views of Sir Charles Lyell as to the preponderating influence of the distribution of land and sea on climate; and they maintain that if the land were accumulated almost wholly in the equatorial regions, the temperature of the earth's surface as a whole would be lowered, not raised, as Sir Charles Lyell maintained. The reason given is, that the land being heated heats the air, which rises and thus gives off much of the heat to space, while the same area covered with water would retain more of the heat, and by means of currents carry it to other parts of the earth's surface. But although the mean temperature of the whole earth might be somewhat lowered by such a disposition of the land, there can be little doubt that it would render all extremes of temperature impossible, and that even during a period of high excentricity there would be no glacial epochs, and perhaps no such thing as ice anywhere produced. This
would result from there being no land near the poles to retain snow, while the constant interchange of water by means of currents between the polar and tropical regions would most likely prevent ice from ever forming in the sea. On the other hand, were all the land accumulated in the polar and temperate regions there can be little doubt that a state of almost perpetual glaciation of much of the land would result, notwithstanding that the whole earth should theoretically be at a somewhat higher temperature. Two main causes would bring about this glaciation. A very large area of elevated land in high latitudes would act as a powerful condenser of the enormous quantity of vapour produced by the whole of the equatorial and much of the temperate regions being areas of evaporation, and thus a greater accumulation of snow and ice would take place around both poles than would be possible under any other conditions. In the second place there would be little or no check to this accumulation of ice, because, owing to the quantity of land around the polar areas, warm oceanic currents could not reach them, while the warm winds would necessarily bring so much moisture that they would help on instead of checking the process of ice-accumulation. If we suppose the continents to be of the same total area and to have the same extent and altitude of mountain ranges as the present ones, these mountains must necessarily offer an almost continuous barrier to the vapour-bearing winds from the south, and the result would probably be that three-fourths of the land would be in the ice-clad condition of Greenland, while a comparatively narrow belt of the more southern lowlands would alone afford habitable surfaces or produce any woody vegetation.
Notwithstanding, therefore, the criticism above referred to, I believe that Sir Charles Lyell was substantially right, and that the two ideal maps given in the Principles of Geology (11th ed. Vol. i. p. 270), if somewhat modified so as to allow a freer passage of currents in the tropics, do really exhibit a condition of the earth which, by geographical changes alone, would bring about a perpetual summer or an almost universal winter. But we have seen in our sixth chapter that there is the strongest cumulative evidence,