The effect of altitude 249 



of " giving it up " on Monte Rosa. Surely if Excelsior is the motto 

 of the Alps, Mariana (to-morrow) is that of Teneriife. 



What fields of research lie in front of the physiologist before he 

 can explain how the subtleties of climatic conditions affect the 

 human mind, that entity of which all human activity is a mani- 

 festation. 



How gross seem the avenues at present open to such investi- 

 gations. You are one person in one place, another in another. At 

 the Alta Vista, I became as one incapable of arithmetic I vow that I 

 would have been at the bottom of the class with the dunce's cap on 

 and that I could not have helped it. At Col d'Olen I have heard two 

 clever and distinguished physiologists pause to discuss whether or 

 no four times eight made thirty-two. At Johannesburg I have been 

 told that a cricket team representing England so lost their nerve 

 that they laughed like children with quite trivial turns in the 

 course of the game and fell an absurdly easy prey to their South 

 African opponents. At the Margherita hut I have seen one of the 

 pleasantest and most considerate of companions behave as though he 

 were suffering from alcoholic excess in a mild degree. What of the 

 surprise that comes to us when we hear of cautious and skilful 

 climbers losing their lives doing extravagantly reckless things. Such 

 incidents are caused by the little recked of cerebral changes which 

 appear from time to time as the incidents of life at high altitudes. 

 They are doubtless the effects of acid intoxication but of this later. 



The climber depends for the most part on his cerebellum, his 

 cerebrum takes its chance and is little considered. One day these 

 psychological changes, which, in my opinion, appear much earlier 

 than cerebellar ones, such as defective coordination and giddiness, or 

 medullary ones, such as vomiting, will be studied for their own sake. 



In the meantime we have got the pioneer work to do, we have got 

 to make a road into this forest wherever we can, we have got to find 

 out the changes which take place in the blood at such altitudes, and 

 in truth this is enough to tax our powers. 



It may seem that I have depicted Teneriffe, as compared to Monte 

 Rosa, in a light unfavourable to the former. Let me disabuse the 

 reader's mind of this idea. Teneriffe has many advantages as a 

 place for the study of climate. Truly it takes longer to get there, 

 more truly it takes longer to get back, and most truly it costs more 

 money. If, however, you can secure the time and the money, there is 

 much to be said in favour of Teneriffe. From England, at all events, 



