Note 24 — Chapter XIII
Reading edition
In the Alps, Saussure gives 8793 feet as the mean of the lower limit of the snow-line. At Mont Blanc the glacier of Montanvert is said (Encyclo. Metropol.) to descend 12,000 feet below the summit of the mountain, and this will make its base 5160 feet lower than the line of snow. In Norway (See Von Buch) where a glacier first comes down to the water’s edge (lat. 67°), it is 3800 below the same line: in Tierra del Fuego the difference must be very nearly the same as in the last case.