572 



NATURE 



\ April 17, 1890 



memorial has been given to Mr. C. M. Woodford, for his three 

 expeditions to the Solomon Islands, and the additions made by 

 him to our topographical kno vledge and the natural history of 

 the islands. The new honorary corresponding members are 

 Prof. Davidson, of San Francisco ; Dr. Junker, the friend of 

 Emin Pasha, and Central African explorer ; and Senhor Santa 

 Anna Nery, of Rio Janeiro. 



At the evening meeting of the Royal Geographical Society on 

 Monday, Sir M. E. Grant DufF in the chair, Dr. Hans Meyer 

 read a paper on his journey to the summit of Kilima-Njaro. 

 After giving a short account of his expedition in 1887, and the 

 discouragements to which he had been subjected on two sub- 

 sequent efforts to carry out his programme, Dr. Meyer proceeded 

 to say that, while the main portion of the caravan encamped in 

 Marangu, he ascended with Herr Purtscheller and eight picked 

 men through the primjeval forest to a stream beyond, where he had 

 encamped in the year 1887, at an altitude of 9200 feet. There 

 their large tent was pitched, straw huts were built for the men, 

 and firewood collected. Accompanied by four men they travelled 

 for two more days up the broad, grassy, southern slopes of 

 Kilima-Njaro to the fields of rapilli on the plateau between 

 Kibo and Mawenzi, and found there to the south-east of Kibo, 

 imder the protection fforded by some blocks of lava, a spot, at 

 an altitude of 14,270 feet, well suited for the erection of their 

 small tent. As soon as the instruments and apparatus bad been 

 placed under cover, three of the men returned to the camp on 

 the edge of the forest, and only one, a Pangani negro, Mwini 

 Amani by name, remained to share, uncomplainingly, their 

 sixteen days' sojourn on the cold and barren heights. With 

 regard to their maintenance, it had been arranged that every 

 third day four men should come up with provisions from the 

 lower camp in Marangu to the central station on the edge of the 

 forest, and that two of the men stationed there should thence 

 convey the necessary food to them in the upper camp, returning 

 immediately afterwards to their respective starting-places. And 

 this accordingly was done. Firewood was supplied by the roots of 

 the lowbushes still growing there in a few localities, and theirnegro 

 fetched adailysupplyof waterfrom a spring rising belowthecamp. 

 Tn that manner they were enabled, as if from an Alpine Club hut, 

 to carry out a settled programme in the ascent and surveying of the 

 upper heights of Kilima-Njaro. The ice-crowned Kibo towered 

 up steeply another 5000 feet to the west of their camp, itself at 

 an altitude of 14,300 feet. On October 3 they undertook their 

 first ascent. The previous day they had resolved to make the 

 first attempt, not in the direction chosen by him in 1887, but 

 up a large rib of lava which jutted out to the south-east, and 

 formed the southern boundary of the deepest of the eroded 

 ravines on that side of the mountain. Their simple plan of 

 operations, which they succeeded in carrying out, was to climb 

 up this lava-ridge to the snow-line, to begin from its uppermost 

 tongue the scramble over the mantle of ice, and endeavour to 

 reach by the shortest way the peak to the south of the mountain, 

 -which appeared to be the highest point. It was not till half- 

 past 7 o'clock that they reached the crown of that rib of lava 

 which had been their goal from the very first, and, panting for 

 breath, they began to pick their way over the boulders and debris 

 <;overing the steep incline of the ridge. Every ten minutes they 

 had to pause for a few moments to give their lungs and beating 

 hearts a short breathing space, for they had now for some time 

 been above the height of Mont Blanc, and the inc-easing rare- 

 faction of the atmosphere was making itself gradually felt. At 

 an altitude of 17,220 feet they rested for half an hour; appar- 

 ently they had attained an elevation superior to the highest 

 point of Mawenzi, which the rays of the morning sun were 

 painting a ruddy brown. Below them, like so many mole- 

 Tieaps, lay the hillocks rising from the middle of the saddle. A 

 few roseate cumulus clouds floated far over the plain, reflecting 

 the reddish-brown laterite soil of the steppe ; the lowlands, 

 however, were but dimly visible through the haze of rising 

 -vapour. The ice-cap of Kibo was gleaming above their heads, 

 appearing to be almost within reach. Shortly before 10 o'clock 

 they stood at its base, at an elevation of 18,270 feet above sea- 

 ■level. At that point the face of the ice did not ascend, but 

 almost immediately afterwards it rose at an angle of 35°, so that, 

 without ice-axes, it would have been absolutely impracticable. 

 The toilsome work of cutting steps in the ice began about half- 

 •past 10 ; slowly they progressed by the aid of the Alpine rope, 

 the brittle and slippery ice necessitating every precaution 

 They made their way across the crevices of one of the glaciers 



that projected downwards into the valley which they had tra- 

 versed in the early morning, and took a rest under the shadow 

 of an extremely steep protuberance of the ice-wall at an altitude 

 of 19,000 feet. On recommencing the ascent the difficulty of 

 breathing became so pronounced that every fifty paces they had 

 to halt for a few seconds, bending their bodies forward and 

 gasping for breath. The oxygen of the air amounted there, at 

 an elevation of 19,000 feet, to only 40 per cent., and the 

 humidity to 15 per cent, of what it was at sea level. No wonder 

 that their lungs had such hard work to do. The surface of the 

 ice became increasingly corroded ; more and more it took the 

 form which Giissfeldt, speaking of Aconcagua, in Chili, called 

 nieve penitent e. Honeycombed to a depth of over 6 feet, in the 

 form of rills, teeth, fissures, and pinnacles, the ice-field presented 

 the foot of the mountaineer with difficulties akin to that of a 

 " Karrenfeld." They frequently broke through as far as their 

 breasts, causing their strength to diminish with alarming rapidity. 

 And still the highest ridge of ice appeared to be as distant as 

 ever. At last, about 2 o'clock, after eleven hours' climb, they 

 drew near the summit of the ridge. A few more hasty steps in 

 the most eager anticipation, and then the secret of Kibo lay un- 

 veiled before them. Taking in the whole of Upper Kibo, the 

 precipitous walls of a gigantic crater yawned beneath them. The 

 .first glance told that the most lofty elevation of Kibo lay to their 

 left, on the southern brim of the crater, and consisted of three 

 pinnacles of rock rising a few feet above the southern slopes of 

 the mantle of ice. They first reached the summit on October 6, 

 after passing the night below the limits of the ice, in a spot 

 sheltered by overhanging rocks, at an altitude of 15,160 feet, an 

 elevation corresponding to that of the summit of Monte Rosa. 

 Wrapped up in their skin bags, they sustained with tolerable 

 comfort even the minimum temperature of 12° F., experienced 

 during the night, and were enabled, about 3 o'clock in the morn- 

 ing of October 6, to start with fresh energy on their difficult 

 enterprise of climbing the summit ; and this time Njaro, the 

 spirit of the ice-crowned mountain, was gracious to them — they 

 reached their goal. At a quarter to 9 they were already standing 

 on the upper edge of the crater, at the spot from which they had 

 retraced their steps on October 3. Their further progress, from 

 this point to the southern brim of the crater, although not easy, 

 did not present any extraordinary difficulty. An hour and a 

 half's further ascent brought them to the foot of the three highest 

 pinnacles, which they calmly and systematically climbed one 

 after another. Although the state of the atmosphere and the 

 physical strain of exertion remained the same as on the previous 

 ascent, yet this time they felt far less exhausted, because their 

 condition morally was so much more favourable. The central 

 pinnacle reached a height of about 19,700 feet, overtopping the 

 others by 50 to 60 feet. He was the first to tread, at half- 

 past 10 in the morning, the culminating peak. He planted a 

 small German flag, which he had brought with him in his knap- 

 sack, upon the rugged lava summit, and christened that — the 

 loftiest spot in Africa — Kaiser Wilhelm's Peak. After having 

 completed the necessary measurements, they were free to devote 

 their attention to the crater of Kibo, of which an especially fine 

 view was obtainable from Kaiser Wilhelm's Peak. The diameter 

 of the crater measured about 6500 feet, and it sank down some 

 600 feet in depth. In the southern portion the walls of lava 

 were either of an ash-grey or reddish-brown colour, and were 

 entirely free from ice, descending almost perpendicularly to the 

 base of the crater ; and in its northern half the ice sloped down- 

 wards from the upper brim of the crater in terraces, forming blue 

 and white galleries of varying steepness. A rounded cone of 

 eruption, composed of brown ashes and lava, rose in the northern 

 portion of the crater to a height of about 500 feet, which was partly 

 covered by the more than usually thick sheet of ice extending 

 from the northern brim of the crater. The large crater opened 

 westwards in a wide cleft, through which the melting water r^n 

 off", and the ice lying upon the western part of the crater and the 

 inner walls issued in the form of a glacier. What a wonderful 

 contrast between this icy stream and the former fiery incandes- 

 cence of its bed ! And above all this there reigned the absolute 

 silence of inanimate nature, forming in its majestic simplicity a 

 scene of the most impressive grandeur. An indelible impression 

 was created in the mind of the traveller to whom it had once been 

 granted to gaze upon a scene like that, and all the more when no 

 human eye had previously beheld it. And certainly as they sat 

 that evening in their little tent, which they finally reached at 

 nightfall, after a most arduous return march through the driving 

 mist, and carried their thoughts back to the expeditions of 1887 



