chap, v CAIRN CAMP 71 



set forward alone with the plane-table and begin the sketch 

 survey. Gregory walked a little way with me, full of regrets 

 that he could not at once come farther, but he was not yet 

 cured of the effects of his chill. He sat on Vogelgesang's 

 beer-trophy, while I set up the instrument for the first time. 



The theory of plane-tabling is so simple, the instrument 

 so devoid of complication, whilst in practice at home the 

 working seems so easy, that the actual difficulties encountered 

 when a new country comes to be surveyed are not readily 

 imagined by one who has no actual experience. " I suppose," 

 said Trevor- Battye to me, " the plane-table work is very 

 easy." As a matter of fact it is often very difficult, but nowhere 

 more so than in Spitsbergen, where it is heart-breaking. 

 There, in the broad valleys and featureless slopes, it is practi- 

 cally impossible to decide from one station what shall be 

 the position of the next, or from that to identify the preced- 

 ing. The compass moreover does not enable you to orient 

 the table properly, for the hills are full of iron-ore, which 

 deflects the needle in the most changeful manner. If one 

 could carry a theodolite, and take occasional true-bearings, 

 this source of error would be removed, but for this observa- 

 tion the sun must be visible. In Spitsbergen one seldom sees 

 the sun. Again, the hill-tops are for days together covered 

 with clouds, so that it is the exception to gain a second sight 

 of the whole series of points observed from previous stations. 

 Frequent showers wet the paper and wrinkle its even surface, 

 and then it will not dry for hours, so that you cannot ink 

 in your sketch while details are fresh in your memory. 

 Thus estimates have often to take the place of observations, 

 unless you can afford to wait upon the weather, as an 

 explorer never can. The inaccuracies introduced one day 

 can seldom be corrected on another, and thus perplexities 

 multiply. The quality of the work finally produced depends 

 upon the alertness of the traveller, upon his keeping his 



