206 PROF. J. W. GKEGOEY ON THE [May I9OO, 



Teleki's account of the structure of Mount Kenya differed, however, 

 from that of Thomson. The former climbed through the forest-belt 

 from Ndoro and entered a valley, which I have named the Teleki 

 Valley (see map, PI. X) ; he followed this eastward until it suddenly 

 bent northward and expanded into two great glacier-filled valleys, on 

 the southern and south-western sides of the central peak. The high 

 western wall of the Tyndall Glacier, the main western arete, the 

 ridge which crosses the Teleki Valley, and the main peak together 

 enclose a great depression, which Teleki regarded as the central crater 

 of the volcano. Accordingly his companion, L. Eitter von Hohnel, in 

 his description of the mountain, reports 1 the occurrence of a crater 

 from 4 to A\ kilometres in diameter and from 200 to 300 metres in 

 depth. 



A third explanation of the geological character of Kenya was 

 added by the next visitors to the mountain. In 1891 Mr. C. W. 

 Hobley, the geologist who accompanied the British East Africa 

 Company's expedition to Mount Kenya, climbed through the forests on 

 the southern slopes up to the height of about 8600 feet, whence the 

 peaks and spurs of the Alpine zone could be seen like a ridge along 

 the northern sky-line. Accordingly, in the report of that expedition, 

 Kenya is described 2 as ' more properly a mountain-chain, and not 

 a single mountain, the chain or range stretching from west to east, 

 commencing in the high Leikipia Plateau, and rising steadily until 

 it culminates in the great double peak. Then comes the second 

 large peak, with five or six other smaller ones ; after these again, 

 some lower mountains, all more or less connected, and finally an 

 isolated hill is seen rising in the Barra to the east/ 



As this report was published in August 1892, three months before 

 I left England, I was accordingly doubtful when visiting Kenya 

 in 1893 whether the mountain were a greatly denuded volcano, an 

 existing crater, or a mountain-range running east and west. 



Unfortunately my visit to Mount Kenya occurred in the latter part 

 of the heaviest rainy season ever recorded in British East Africa, 3 and 

 the wide extent of newly-fallen snow that covered nearly the whole 

 of the uppermost part of the mountain obscured the geology of the 

 Alpine zone. My stay on the mountain was curtailed, as it would 

 have been unjust to expose my porters to the inclement weather 

 then prevalent longer than was absolutely necessary. I had there- 

 fore to be content with the examination of such a section of the 

 mountain as was sufficient to determine its geological structure and 

 history. I examined the line from Ndoro at the western foot of 

 the mountain to the level of the upper Alpine zone, at a point 

 south-west of the summit : and then studied more in detail the 



1 ' Ostaquatorial-Afrika zwischen Pangani u. dem neuentdeckten Rudolf- 

 See' Peterm. Mittheil. Erganzbd. xxi. No. 99 (1890) pp. 7-8. 



2 E. Gedge, ' A Eecent Exploration up the River Tana to Mount Kenia ' 

 Proc. R. Geogr. Soc. vol. xiv (1892) p. 527. 



3 The rainfall at Mombasa in 1893 was 64*17 inches as against 26*83 inches 

 in 1892 and 37 96 inches in 1894 : see ' 4th Rep. Climatology Africa ' Rep. Brit. 

 Assoc. 1895 (Ipswich) p. 486. 



