The Abode of Snow: Observations on a Tour from Chinese Tibet to the Indian Caucasus, Through the Upper Valleys of the Himalaya

Excerpt:


IN the sixth chapter of this work, I have fully explained how the phrase "Abode of Snow" is a literal translation of the Sanscrit compound " Himalaya," and therefore forms an appropriate title for a work treating of those giant mountains. The Abode of Snow par excellence is not in the Himalaya, or even in the Arctic region, but (setting Saturn aside) in the Antarctic region. Owing to the greater preponderance of ocean in the southern hemisphere, the greatest accumulation of ice is round the South Pole; and hence the not improbable theory that, when the accumulation has reached a certain point, the balance of the earth must be suddenly destroyed, and this orb shall almost instantaneously turn transversely to its axis, moving the great oceans, and so producing one of those cyclical catastrophes which, there is some reason to believe, have before now interfered with the development and the civilisation of the human race.