The summits of the Monte Rotondo and Monte d'Oro are capped with snow at all seasons, and beautiful are snowy peaks, piercing the blue heavens in the sunny region of the Mediterranean, and well does the glistening tiara, marking from afar their pre-eminence among the countless domes and peaks which cluster round them, or break the outline of a long chain, assist the eye in computing their relative heights. We had no opportunity of ascertaining how low perpetual snow hangs on the sides of the highest Corsican mountains. According to M. Arago, Monte Rotondo is 2762 _mètres_ (about 8976 feet) above the level of the sea; and he says that there are seven others exceeding 2000 _mètres_ (about 6500 feet). Among these must be included Monte d'Oro, which figures in Marmocchi's list at 2653 _mètres_, or about 8622 feet. The season was too late for our making an ascent with any prospect of advantage; but at that time of the year (the end of October) none of the peaks we saw, except the two named, though some of them are only from 500 to 800 feet lower than Monte d'Oro, had snow upon them.
While rounding the base of Monte d'Oro, we observed long streaks on the side of the cone, descending, perhaps, 1000 feet below the compact mass on the summit; but they had the appearance of fresh-fallen snow, and from our observing that all the other summits were free from snow, I am inclined to assign the height of about 7500 or 8000 feet above the level of the Mediterranean as the line of perpetual snow in Corsica.
In Norway, between 59°-62° N. latitude, we calculated it at about 4500 feet on the average, the line varying considerably in different seasons. In the summer of 1849 there was snow on the shores of the Miös-Vand, which are under 3000 feet, while the summer before the lakes on the table-land of the Hardanger Fjeld, 4000 feet high, were free from ice, and throughout the passage of the Fjeld the surface covered with snow was less than that which was bare. In 1849, crossing the Hardanger from Vinje to Odde, the whole of the plateau was a continued field of snow.[15] Taking the entire mountain system of central Norway, from the Gousta-Fjeld to Sneehættan and the Hörungurne, with elevations of from 5000 to near 8000 feet, the average of the snow-level may be taken, as before observed, at about 4500 feet; that of the Corsican mountains, with elevations of from 6000 to nearly 9000 feet, being, as we have seen, from 7000 to 8000 feet.