Untitled

THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CAUCASUS 55
I am told that this is a modei'ate estimate. I may be excused,
therefore, if I tell the truth about that vague old abstraction, '
snow-level.' The figure given for it in an extensive range may
serve as a useful mean, but in most places must be locally inexact.
For 'the Caucasus' it is impossible to lay down any limit wliicl]
shall be even approximately accurate for the whole chain and both
sides of it. The chain extends over five degrees of latitude ; moi"e
than that, its rainfall is at least four times greater at the Black Sea
end than it is at the Caspian end. Naturally, at one extremity
snow lies permanently down to about 9000 feet, at the other ceases
at about 12,000 feet. In the central part of the chain nothing
like a continuous snow-bed, not due to avalanches, is found under
9500 feet, and on the northern spurs, where there is less fall,
and black rock-slopes facing southwards are exposed to a sun
which i-aises the steppe shade-temperature to over 90" F., the
snow-limit will rise in places to over 11,000
the
feet. For the snow-
level in the central chain 10,000 feet may be taken as a fair figure.
But as I have said before, this limit should be represented l)y a
zigzag line going up and down, according to accidents of exposure,
soil, and vicinity to large glaciers. Let us get rid altogether of a
statement frequently repeated, that Dr. Radde found the snow-
level 8400 feet at the Rion sources. What he wrote was, that
in September he found patches of fresh-fallen snow at that height.
This is how error may be created by inaccui'ate copyists !
I have given elsewhere a catalogue of '
Peaks and Passes.' It
may be enough to mention here a few of the most conspicuous.
Before 1870 the Russian surveyors had triangulated only a few
of the snowy peaks — those which are most conspicuous from the
northern steppe — Elbruz, 18,470 feet; Koshtantau, 16,880; Dykhtau,
17,054; Adai Khokh, 15,244: Gimarai Khokh, 15,672; and
Kasbek, 16,546. Between the Marukh Pass and the Mamison
Pass the five-verst map does not give a single height on the
watershed. It was left to the new and still unpublished survey
to find
figures for Dongusorun, 14,605 ; Ushba, north peak
' The figures given are those of the new survey, which differ in many
the five-verst map.
*
cases from those of