APPENDIX D 
Dr. Mearns, accompanied by Loring, spent from the middle of 
September to after the middle of October, 1909, in a biological 
survey of Mount Kenia. I take the following account from his 
notes. In them he treats the mountain proper as beginning at an 
altitude of 7,500 feet. 
Mount Kenia is the only snow-capped mountain lying exactly 
on the equator. Its altitude is about 17,200 feet. The mountain 
is supposed to support fifteen glaciers ; those that Mearns and 
Loring examined resembled vast snow-banks rather than clear 
ice-glaciers. The permanent snow-line begins at the edge of the 
glacial lakes at 15,000 feet; on October 18 there was a heavy 
snow-storm as low down as 11,000 feet. For some distance below 
the snow-line the slopes were of broken rock, bare earth, and 
gravel, with a scanty and insignificant vegetable growth in the 
crannies between the rocks. These grasses and Alpine plants, 
including giant groundsels and lobelias, cover the soil. At 
13,000 feet timber line is reached. 
The Kenia forest belt, separating this treeless Alpine region from 
the surrounding open plains, is from six to nine miles wide. The 
forest zone is only imperfectly divided into successive belts of trees 
of the same species ; for the species vary on different sides of the 
mountain. Even the bamboo zone is interrupted. On the west 
side the zones may be divided into : 
1. A cedar zone from 7,000 or 7,500 to 8,500 feet. The cedars 
are mixed with many hardwood trees. 
2. A belt composed mainly of bamboo and yellow-wood (African 
yew) from 8,500 to 10,700 feet. Here the true timber 
zone ends. 
3. A zone of giant heath, mixed with giant groundsels and 
shrubs, extending to 13,000 feet. The heaths may be 30 
feet high, and can be used as fuel. In this zone are many 
boggy meadows. 
Loring and Mearns occupied five collecting camps in the forest 
zone and one above it, at 13,700 feet. One day Mearns followed 
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