Miscellaneous Intelligence. 79 



robed penitents. Uhlig remarks that those he saw much more 

 resembled trains of white poodles, rabbits and the snow men 

 made by children than penitents. He ascribes their formation to 

 the ablation from insolation and the dryness of the air, though 

 other factors must be sought to explain their regularity of arrange- 

 ment, as they appear in two distinct lines, one up and down the 

 slope, the other at right angles, i. e. along contour lines. The 

 mention of this arrangement by Uhlig suggests that perhaps 

 cracking of the hardened snow into such systems, combined with 

 the agencies mentioned above, may explain the phenomenon. 



He also made a second ascent of Kibo from the south into the 

 glacier zone and discovered a new one, not previously mapped, 

 to which the name of Richter glacier is given. A fine photo- 

 graph of Kibo from the south shows a great snow-covered dome 

 with long glacial tongues reaching down from it. 



After this work on Kilimandjaro, Uhlig turned his attention to 

 Mem, a great volcano which rises to the westward. Its height 

 is about 15,200 feet. His first ascent was made from upper 

 Aruscha on the south flank, at an elevation of about 4,500 feet. 

 At 7,000 feet a girdle composed of dense masses of bamboos was 

 encountered, which lasted to about 8,800 feet, and which required 

 the greatest efforts to penetrate. It appears quite similar to the 

 bamboo zone which Gregory encountered on Mt. Kenia, and 

 which he found so difficult to surmount. Above this the moun- 

 tain offered no especial difficulties aside from the extraordinary 

 steepness of its slopes. Towards its upper limit the flora assumes 

 the distinctly alpine character noted on the other great volcanoes 

 of equatorial Africa. Some forms of vegetation, grasses, com- 

 posite and Arabis albida, persist even to the top. No snow was 

 found on Meru, its summit falling over 2,000 feet short of the 

 snow-line on the neighboring Kilimandjaro. Nor were any marks 

 of a former period of glaciation visible, although on Kilimandjaro, 

 according to Meyer, the glaciation once extended some 3,000 feet 

 lower than at present, and Gregory found evidences of much 

 more extended glaciation on Kenia than it now shows. It is pos- 

 sible, however, that Meru may have had small hanging glaciers. 



At the summit Uhlig found himself on the edge of a vast crater, 

 whose precipitous walls fell beneath him, over 4,000 feet to the 

 bottom. The highest point, on the opposite wall, he attempted 

 in a second ascent from the northeast, but was unable to attain. 



Meru is a concentric crater which shows several periods of vol- 

 canic activity. There is an outward somma with broad opening 

 to the east. Within this and close to it is an inner somma with 

 a narrow opening to the west through it and the outer one. 

 Within these is the deep caldera mentioned above with relatively 

 level surface, on the south side of which and near the encircling 

 wall, rises an ash cone which Uhlig believes to have very recently 

 been in an active condition. The caldera is about one and a half 

 miles broad. 



Miigge, who studied the rock specimens brought back by 

 Fischer* from his journeys in equatorial Africa, found the sam- 



* Neues Jahrb. fur Min., Beil. Bd. iv. 



