ON MOUNTAINS AND MANKIND. 358 



was the Roesa Biaiica, or white ghicier. Monte Ilosa herself though 

 llie poet sees a reference to the rose of dawn, and the (xennan pro- 

 lessor detects " the Keltic ros, a promontory," is a simple translation 

 of the Gletscher Mons of Sinder, or rather Simler's hybrid term is 

 a translation of Monte della Roesa. Roesa, or Ruize, is the Val 

 tTAostan word for glacier, and may be found in De Saussure's 

 Voyages. 



I would urge mountain explorers to attempt in more distant lands 

 Avhat the late Messrs, Adams-Reilly and Nichols, Mr. Tuckett, and 

 Ijieutenant Payer (of Arctic fame) did forty years ago with so much 

 success in the Alps, what the members of the Swiss Alpine Club have 

 done lately, take a district, and, working from the trigonometrically 

 fixed points of a survey, where one exists, fill it in by plane tabling 

 with the help of the instruments for photographic and telephoto- 

 graphic surveying, in the use of which Mr. Reeves, the map curator 

 to the Royal Geographical Society, is happy to give instruction. -An 

 excellent piece of work of this kind has been done by Mr. Stein in 

 Central Asia. 



There are, I know, some old-fashioned persons in this country who 

 dispute the use of photography in mountain work. It can only be 

 because they have never given it a full and fair trial with proper 

 instruments. 



Lastly, I come to a matter on Avhich we may hope before long to 

 have the advantage of niedical opinion, based for the first time on a 

 large number of cases. I refer to the effects of high altitudes on the 

 human frame and the extent of the normal diminution in force as men 

 ascend. The advance to Lhasa ought to do much to throw light on 

 this interesting subject. I trust the Indian Government has taken 

 care that the subject shall be carefully investigated by experts. The 

 experience of most mountaineers (including my own) in the last few 

 years has tended to modify our previous belief that Ixnlily weakness 

 increases more or less regularly with increasing altitude. Mr. ^\Tiite, 

 the British resident in Sikhim, and my party both found on the bor- 

 ders of Tibet that the feelings of fatigue and discomfort that mani- 

 fested themselves at about 14,000 to 16,000 feet tended to diminish as 

 we climbed to 20,000 or 21,000 feet. I shall always regret that when 

 I was traveling in 1899 on the shoulders of Kangchenjunga the excep- 

 tional snowfall altogether prevented me from testing the point at 

 wdiich any of our ascents were stopped by the discomforts due to the 

 atmosphere. Owing to the nature of the footing, soft snow lying on 

 hard, it was more difficult to walk uphill than on a shingly beach; 

 and it was impossible for us to discriminate betw^een the causes of 

 exhaustion. 



Here I must bring this, I fear, desultory address to an end. I 

 SM 1904^ 23 



