244 SCOTT'S LAST EXPEDITION [DECEMBER 



unteered to fetch this and place the real record, and as I wished 

 to collect thoroughly I continued slowly on my way down. I had 

 reached the second group of fumaroles and was beginning to 

 photograph them by the time he should have reached the top, 

 when there was a loud explosion, and amongst the smoke I could 

 see large blocks of pumice hurled aloft. This eruption made 

 me extremely anxious for Gran's fate, especially as he did not 

 appear on the farther side of the smoke cloud as soon as he was 

 due, so in spite of breathing trouble I made good speed up the 

 hill, and had reached within fifty feet of the top in record time, 

 and without a halt, when he strolled out of the steam cloud all 

 serene and looking none the worse for his adventure. He had 

 had a unique opportunity of observing an eruption of Erebus, and 

 that the opportunity was not wasted can be seen from his de- 

 scription, which is as follows: 



' Whilst making some notes of the things I had seen, I heard 

 a gurgling sound come from the crater, and before I had real- 

 ised what was happening I was enveloped in a choking vapour. 

 The steam cloud had evidently been much increased by the erup- 

 tion, and in it I could see blocks of pumiceous lava, in shape like 

 the halves of volcanic bombs and with bunches of long drawn-out 

 hair-like shreds of glass in their interior. The snow around me 

 was covered with rock dust and the smoke was yellow with 

 sulphur and disagreeable in the extreme.' 



Gran was fortunate in not experiencing any worse effect of 

 the eruption than a slight sickness during the next few days, 

 which we both attributed to the sulphur vapour. I think of the 

 two of us my own experience was the worse for, as he says later 

 in his diary, ' It is no joke taking a mountain by storm, especially 

 with the barometer standing at eleven inches.' 



The hair-like lava I had already noticed on the slopes of 

 the crater, and it is doubtless of the type known as Pele's hair. 



Gran made his escape from the steam cloud on the western 

 side of the mountain, and so was able to get a good view of the 

 Western Mountains, and believed he could see a range stretching 

 back and cutting across the plateau at about the latitude of Gran- 

 ite Harbour. 



We then returned slowly to camp, collecting as we went, and 

 arrived in about 9.30 A.M., to find that Hooper's feet had recov- 

 ered and that Abbott had collected a fine lot of specimens. 



