626 REPORT—1904. 
comfort that manifested themselves at about 14,000 to 16,000 feet tended to 
diminish as we climbed to 20,000 or 21,000 feet. I shall always regret that when 
I was travelling in 1899 on the shoulders of Kaugchenjunga the exceptional snow- 
fall altogether prevented me from testing the point at which any of our ascents 
were stopped by discomforts due to the atmosphere. Owing to the nature of the 
footing, soft snow lying on hard, it was more difficult to walk uphill than on a 
shingly beach ; and it was impossible for us to discriminate between the causes of 
exhaustion. 
Here I must bring this, I fear, desultory Address to an end. I might easily 
have made it more purely geographical, if it is geography to furnish a mass of 
statistics that are better and more intelligibly given by a map. I might have 
dwelt on my own explorations in greater detail, or have summarised those of my 
friends of the Alpine Club. But I have done all this elsewhere in books or 
reviews, and I was unwilling to inflict it for a second time on any of my hearers 
who may have done me the honour to read what I have written. Looking back, I 
find I have been able to communicate very little of value, yet I trust I may have 
suggested to some of my audience what opportunities mountains offer for scientific 
observations to mountaineers better qualified in science than the present speaker, 
and how far we scouts or pioneers are from having exhausted even our Alpine 
playground as a field for intelligent and systematic research. 
And even if the value to others of his travels may be doubtful, the Alpine 
explorer is sure of his reward. What has heen said of books is true also of 
mountains—they are the best of friends. Poets and geologists may proclaim— 
‘The hills are shadows, and they flow 
From form to form, and nothing stands !’ 
But for us creatures of a day the great mountains stand fast, the Jungfrau and 
Mont Blanc do not change. Through all the vicissitudes of life we find them 
sure and sympathetic companions, Let me conclude with two lines which I found 
engraved on a tomb in Santa Croce at Florence: 
‘Huc properate, viri, salebrosum scandite montem, 
Pulchra laboris erunt przemia, palma, quies.’ 
The following Papers were read :— 
1. Cyrene: an Illustration of the Bearing of Geography on History. 
By D. G. Hocarru, M.A. 
This paper arose out of a brief visit paid to the Cyrenaica in April 1904 by 
a party, of which the author was one, conveyed by Mr. Allison Armour’s yacht 
‘Utowana’ to Derna, Ras Hilal, Marsa Susa (Apollonia), and Cyrene itself. 
‘Though barely a week in the country, the party was able to note certain geogra- 
phical facts, which seem to explain the peculiarities of Cyrenaic history, and to 
illustrate the bearing of geography on history in general. The individual 
character of the Cyrenaica in ancient and modern times needs explanation, and 
the author called attention to the fact that the district is to all intents 
and purposes an island, without an island’s usual ease of access. He described, 
first, the character of the coast on three sides of it, and then of the low-lying 
desert on the fourth side. In illustration of the coastal difficulties he narrated 
the experiences of the yacht last April at Marsa Susa and Ras Hilal. The 
existing society of the region derives its character from its isolation. The settled 
elements are few and recent, consisting of (1) Senusi immigrants, who selected the 
Cyrenaica as the home of the Order about 1850 on account of its imaccessibility ; 
(2) Cretan Moslem refugees planted at various points in the past two years by the 
Ottoman Government. These have yet to prove that they can maintain them- 
selyes against the large unsettled Arab element, which emerges from and retires 
into the southern waste like pirates at sea. The author showed how the action 
