2 7 2 SCOTT'S LAST EXPEDITION [August 



a certain amount of loose rubble they came on solid rock, kenyte, 

 having two or three irregular cracks traversing the exposed sur- 

 face. It was only with great trouble they removed one or two 

 of the smallest fragments severed by these cracks. There was 

 no sign of ice. This gives a great ' leg up ' to the ' debris ' cone 

 theory. 



Demetri and Clissold took two small teams of dogs to Cape 

 Royds to-day. They found some dog footprints near the hut, 

 but think these were not made by Julick. Demetri points far 

 to the west as the scene of that animal's adventures. Parties 

 from C. Royds always bring a number of illustrated papers which 

 must have been brought down by the Nimrod on her last visit. 

 The ostensible object is to provide amusement for our Russian 

 companions, but as a matter of fact everyone finds them 

 interesting. 



Tuesday, August 29. I find that the card of the sunshine 

 recorder showed an hour and a half's burn yesterday and was 

 very faintly marked on Saturday; already, therefore, the sun 

 has given us warmth, even if it can only be measured instru- 

 mentally. 



Last night Meares told us of his adventures in and about 

 Lolo land, a wild Central Asian country nominally tributary 

 to Lhassa. He had no pictures and very makeshift maps, yet 

 he held us really entranced for nearly two hours by the sheer 

 interest of his adventures. The spirit of the wanderer is in 

 Meares' blood: he has no happiness but in the wild places of 

 the earth. I have never met so extreme a type. Even now he 

 is looking forward to getting away by himself to Hut Point, 

 tired already of our scant measure of civilisation. 



He has keen natural powers of observation for all practical 

 facts and a quite prodigious memory for such things, but a 

 lack of scientific training causes the acceptance of exaggerated 

 appearances, which so often present themselves to travellers 

 when unfamiliar objects are first seen. For instance, when the 

 spoor of some unknown beast is described as 6 inches across, 

 one shrewdly guesses that a cold scientific measurement would 

 have reduced this figure by nearly a half; so it is with mountains, 

 cliffs, waterfalls, &c. With all deduction on this account the lec- 

 ture was extraordinarily interesting. Meares lost his companion 

 and leader, poor Brook, on the expedition which he described 



