Abstract
The results of an unbiased survey of CO emission at high Galactic latitudes (/b/ greater than or equal to 25 deg) are presented. The value for epsilon, the fractional completeness of the Blitz, Magnani, and Mundy (1984) high-latitude cloud survey, is obtained and found to be 0.55 + or - 0.15. Using this value, the following properties of the molecular component of the local interstellar medium are determined: the number of individual clouds within 100 pc of the sun is about 120; the surface filling fraction is about 0.0045; the total mass is of the order 5000 solar masses; and the mass surface density is 0.2 solar mass/sq pc. The north-south asymmetry reported by Magnani, Blitz, and Mundy (1985) is confirmed by the unbiased survey. If the distribution of high-latitude clouds mimics the overall CO emissivity for the inner Galaxy, then they would contribute almost 100 million solar masses, about 10 percent of the total molecular mass of the Galaxy.
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