356 
SCOTrS LAST EXPEDITION [December 
a loud explosion, and amongst the smoke I could see large 
blocks of pumice hurled aloft. This eruption made me 
extremely anxious for Gran's fate, especially as he did not 
appear on the farther side of the smoke cloud as soon as he 
was due, so in spite of breathing trouble I made good speed 
up the hill, and had reached within fifty feet of the top in 
record time, and without a halt, when he strolled out of the 
steam cloud all serene and looking none the worse for his 
adventure. He had had a unique opportunity of observing 
an eruption of Erebus, and that the opportunity was not 
wasted can be seen from his description, which is as 
follows : 
^ Whilst making some notes of the things I had seen, I 
heard a gurgling sound come from the crater, and before 
I had realised what was happening I was enveloped in a 
choking vapour. The steam cloud had evidently been 
much increased by the eruption, and in it I could see 
blocks of pumiceous lava, in shape like the halves of 
volcanic bombs and with bunches of long drawn-out 
hair-like shreds of glass in their interior. The snow 
around me was covered with rock dust and the smoke was 
yellow with sulphur and disagreeable in the extreme.' 
Gran was fortunate in not experiencing any worse effect 
of the eruption than a slight sickness during the next few 
days, which we both attributed to the sulphur vapour. I 
think of the two of us my own experience was the worse 
for, as he says later in his diary, ' It is no joke taking a 
mountain by storm, especially with the barometer standing 
at eleven inches.' 
The hair-like lava I had already noticed on the slopes 
