134 SCOTT’S LAST EXPEDITION __[Fesavary 
fore we had the theodolite ready the gale had veered to the 
east—diametrically opposite—and continued to blow almost as 
fiercely from that quarter. Our apparent fine weather in the 
west was, I think, largely due to the fact that there was so little 
snowfall there. In fact this region would have been an arid 
desert even in more favoured climes. 
After supper I took the prospecting dish and washed for 
gold in the gravels alongside the lake. ‘There were numerous 
quartz ‘leads’ in the slates with which metamorphic and erup- 
tive rocks were associated, while water was abundant in Lake 
Chad. In spite of these favouring conditions neither Debenham 
nor myself could get a ‘colour.’ Only a ‘tail’ of magnetite in 
the dish rewarded our perseverance. So we depoted the dish on 
a boulder in the defile, for we knew that there would be no water 
available for gold-seeking in the remainder of our journey. 
On the 7th we trekked back to Alcove Camp. We lunched 
below the ‘ Matterhorn,’ one of the most striking peaks in the 
Western Mountains. It appears to be composed of a cluster 
of dolerite pinnacles surmounting a pyramid of granite. We 
took careful angles to ascertain its height, which we estimated 
at 9000 feet. Great was my astonishment when we plotted our 
results in the hut to find that our peak was a bare 5000 feet. 
In the absence of trees or houses or any standards for com- 
parison it was absolutely impossible to estimate any height or 
distance in these icy regions, and we soon learnt to profoundly 
mistrust our own guesses and to openly disbelieve any one else’s! 
The warmth of the last few days had ruined the Alcove as 
a camp site. We had much difficulty in finding another. But 
about 100 yards north in the next deep gulley was a patch of 
moraine exactly like a heap of road-metal. We levelled this as 
well as we could, and slept none the worse for what P.O. Evans 
called ‘a few feathers in the bed.’ I draw a veil over our per- 
formance at supper, the first hot meal for nearly a week! 
Before we left this region Debenham climbed 2500 feet up 
the south slope and mapped a great wall of basic lava which 
clung like a black wart on the glaciated shoulder of the valley. 
On the opposite side, still higher, we could see a beautiful little 
crater of the same dark rock which proved conclusively that the 
volcanic fires had illumined the glacier since ice had filled the 
trough to the brim. 
