NA TURE 



[May 



1900 



•minds of younger men, many of whom ihey trusted might at 

 some future time emulate his distinguished example. On behalf 

 the committee he begged to tender his Royal Highness 

 their thanks for having come to give a final sanction to their 

 proceedings, and for having undertaken the duty of unveiling 

 the statue that day. 



The Prince of Wales then withdrew the covering from the 

 statue, and brought the proceedings to a close with the following 

 words : — 



My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen,— I consider it a very 

 high compliment to have been asked by the Huxley Memorial 

 Committee to unveil and receive this statue, and to do so in the 

 name of the trustees of the British Museum, of whom I have the 

 honour to be one. I have not forgotten that fifteen years ago I 

 performed a similar duty in connection with the fine statue of 

 the celebrated Charles Darwin, which is at the top of the stairs, 

 when it was similarly handed over to the British Museum. We 

 have heard to-day most eloquent and interesting speeches with 

 reference to that illustrious man of science and the great thinker, 

 the late Prof Huxley. It would, therefore, be both superfluous 

 of me, I may even say unbecoming in me, to sound his praises here 

 in the presence of so many men of science, who know more about 

 all his work than I do. I can only, on my own loehalf, endorse 

 everything that has fallen from the lips of those gentlemen whc 

 have spoken, and I beg to repeat the expression of the great 

 pleasure it has given me for the second time to have performed 

 the interesting ceremony of taking over the statue of another great 

 and illustrious man of science. 



The statue is a colossal seated one of white marble, the 

 figure being represented in a doctor's gown, with the right 

 hand clasping one arm of the chair, and the left lying 

 across the other with the fist clenched. The pedestal is 

 of Verona marble on a black base, and bears upon its 

 face the name and dates of birth and death in simple 

 bronze letters. 



The statue is a thoroughly successful work of art, 

 and stands out in bold relief to the dim mystery of 

 the recess in which it is placed. Though the expres- 

 sion of the face is perhaps a little severe, the features 

 are true to nature ; and when it is considered that the 

 artist was never privileged with a sitting in life, and that 

 the only material available to him were the death mask 

 and an assem.blage of none too favourable photographs, 

 it must be admitted he has done well. Great praise must 

 be given to the modelling of the hands, in which those 

 who knew the great philosopher intimately will recognise 

 a faithful portrayal of well-defined characteristics. 



The first and main object of the Memorial has thus 

 been successfully achieved. As for those which re- 

 main, the award at the Royal College of Science is 

 to ^be known as the " Huxley Gold Medal," for the 

 "promotion of science in the directions in which Huxley 

 was distinguished," and especially for research to be 

 carried on in the laboratory which bears his name. It 

 has been further arranged that the use of the obverse 

 die shall be granted to the Anthropological Institute (of 

 which Huxley was practically the founder), in connection 

 with the establishment by that body of a Huxley Lecture- 

 ship, and a medal, for which they will furnish the re- 

 verse. Huxley's labours as an anthropologist are among 

 the most important of his scientific career, and it may 

 be questioned whether his " Man's Place in Nature," 

 published against the advice of some of his friends, who 

 feared his " ruin " did it appear, does not now rank 

 among the best and most enduring of his works. His 

 influence as an anthropologist was great, and devotees 

 to that branch of science will hail with satisfaction this 

 decision to perpetuate his memory. 



PRELIMINARY NOTES ON THE RESULTS 

 OF THE MOUNT KENYA EXPEDITION, 1899. 

 nPHE Mount Kenya Expedition left Nairobi, the then 



^ head of the Uganda Railway, on July 26, 1899, and 

 returned to Naivasha, a station on the Uganda Road, on 

 September 29. Considerable difficulties were experienced 

 in the matter of commissariat, on account of the drought 



NO. 1592, VOL. 62] 



and famine prevalent throughout East Africa. For this 

 reason a longer sojourn on the mountain would have 

 been impracticable, even if other circumstances had 

 permitted of it. 



Previous accurate knowledge of Mount Kenya rested 

 chiefly on the work of Captain G. E. Smith, R.E., who 

 had fixed the position of the peak, by triangulation along 

 the Uganda Road, and of Dr. J. W. Gregory, who, in 

 1893, ascended the south-western slope to a height which 

 appears to have been nearly 16,000 feet. An account of 

 the 1899 journey is given in the May number of the 

 Geos;raphical Journal. 



Mount Kenya is a vast flattened dome, seered with 

 radiating valleys. It rises from a plateau, the level of 

 which is 5000 to 7000 feet above the sea. Upon the 

 crown of the dome is a precipitous pyramid, the cleft 

 peak of which has an altitude of 17,200 feet. The entire 

 ;«ai-^7/ measures about fifty miles from east to west and 

 forty miles from north to south. Its northern slopes are 

 crossed by the equator. 



We made a plane table survey of the central portion 

 of the mountain, and connected it by route surveys with 

 Nairobi and Naivasha. The altitude of the central 

 peak was determined by boiling point and theodolite, 

 combined in four different ways, with an average result 

 practically the same as that obtained by Captain Smith 

 at a distance of ninety miles. 



The central pyramid is the core of the denuded and 

 dissected volcano, a fact first suggested by the late 

 Joseph Thomson, who saw the mountain from the 

 Laikipian plateau. Although not yet examined in section, 

 the holocrystalline rock on the summit may probably 

 be identified with the nepheline syenite obtained 

 by Gregory at a lower level. The core must, therefore, 

 have risen considerably above the present peak, and if 

 allowance be made for still loftier crater-walls, the 

 original height of Kenya may have equalled that of the 

 still complete Kibo summit of Kilimanjaro. 



The most significant point in the structure of the 

 mountain is the fact that, while the major axis of the 

 peak strikes west-north-westward and throws the glaciers 

 down northern and southern slopes, the chief water- 

 parting runs in a direction at right angles to this, past 

 the eastern foot of the central peak, with the effect that 

 the valleys are thrown off eastward and westward, and 

 that all the existing glaciers belong to the westward 

 drainage. From a series of rock specimens obtained at 

 widely separated spots on the summit of the craggy 

 ridge constituting the divide, it appears that the lie of 

 the water-parting has been determined by a system of 

 great dykes, which must almost have split the mountain 

 in two. 



There are fifteen existing glaciers, of which two are 

 a mile in length, and the remainder are small. Their 

 lower ends descend to about 14,800 feet. Everywhere 

 and at all hours at the time of our visit the surfaces 

 were dry and crisp. Comparatively little water flowed 

 from them, and the' stream banks below gave small in- 

 dication of floods. The ice was intensely hard, and fed 

 by fine hail rather than snow. These facts may be ex- 

 plained by the meteorological conditions. Although the 

 air-temperatures were not very low at night, there was 

 then great radiation into the cloudless sky. In the after- 

 noon, on the other hand, a cloud cap regularly \varded 

 off the sunshine. The air was usually dry, the relative 

 humidity falling on more than one occasion to 54 per cent. 



Evidence of past glaciation was frequent down to 

 1 2,000 feet both in the eastern and western valleys, and 

 there were occasional traces down to about 9000 feet. The 

 whole of the central part of the mountain, with the ex- 

 ception of the peak and the dividing ridge, must have 

 been buried under a sheet of glacier, more than compar- 

 able to that of Kilimanjaro, at a time later than the 

 erosion of the existing valleys. 



