I 3 4 SCOTT'S LAST EXPEDITION [FEBRUARY 



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 yth 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. 



