i 
BEN NEVIS IN MID-WINTER. 87 
leave him to recruit on a snow bank and to follow on at leisure. The 
snow indeed was now wholly continuous, about four feet deep, and 
very slippery. As we continued the ascent, the views of old Winter 
in his lofty solitude became finer and finer, and the weather 
was beautiful. A solitary dark cairn in sharp outline against 
the deep - blue sky, the dark, gloomy mountains in the distance, 
the vastnesses of snow gleaming in the sunlight, the lights and 
shadows of the cold grey rocks overhanging the precipices, and 
the majestic crown of the ancient Ben, now bathed in an exqui¬ 
site orange flush from the sinking sun, together with “glories of 
light ” like circular rainbows cast on the loose fog over the precipice 
corries, all formed one grand picture in Nature that no artist could with 
truth portray. At length the dim contours of the Ordnance cairn 
and brink of the great precipice piled up with snow hove in siglit 
through the films of mist covering the summit, and at a quarter past 
three we reached the top—once mors on Ben Nevis and in mid-winter. 
The snow in the centre of the main plateau was but three feet deep, and 
the notice board and upper parts of the Ordnance and barometer cairns 
and thermometer cage were showing w^ell, covered with grotesque ice- 
encrustations, and surrounded by trenches of drift formed by the 
whirling winds. On the south-east side of the plateau, however, the 
snow was over six feet in depth, and the roof of my hut, formed of 
ship’s canvas, was level with the surface. Whyte set to work to kindle 
a fire, and was soon endeavouring to boil water in a pannikin, while 
Warburton cleared away the snow from the cage, and at 3 30 p.m. I 
had access to the thermometers. The temperature was 25'6°, or 6J° 
below freezing (I have often had it far colder than this in June) ; 
aneroid •24;-700. Thin cloud-fog at times covered the summit, and a 
moderate south-easterly breeze was blowing. The lowest temperature 
recorded by the self-registering instrument since November 1st last 
was y-5°, or 22of frost, which undoubtedly occurred during the 
great frost of December, and the highest value for the period was 35-0°. 
I may mention that looking sunwards with the spectroscope, about 
lldeg. above the horizon, Fraunhofer’s C line in the “red” end was 
intense, more so than I have ever before observed; the line D and a 
ram-band shading immediately to the left of it* were faint, but a very 
strong telluric band appeared on the right of D. The E and “ b ” sun 
lines in the “green” were moderately defined, but the F line in the 
“ blue ” was not detected. 
My first care after taking observations, especially as the shades of 
night were fast falling, was to remove the thermometers that I 
intended to bring away (those that I had in use when at Farley), and 
to substitute others having metal scales to record the extremes of heat 
and cold during the remainder of the winter. 
Havi;ig successfully accomplished my wmrk, and leaving the 
mercurial barometer all snug in its icy cairn, I proceeded to the hut, 
and found that Warburton had digged down six feet, and that the door 
was clear. Indeed, it was part of my business to reach the hut, for 
