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276 THE KXl'LOKATION OF THE CAUCASUS
I might have been boiling thermometers, or
feeling my own
pulse, or securing accurate bearings. But I would put in a plea
for the makers of 'first ascents.'' They open the way, and make
it easy for others to follow them. We mountaineers are not the
camp-followers, as some critic has impertinently suggested,
but the
cili y I have no
pioneers of science. Flat experimentum in corpore
objection to the application of the proverb. Where our bodies have
let the Scientific Bodies follow at their
opened a new observatory,
ease and their leisure. Had I tried to measure precisely I should
not have succeeded. As it was, I estimated Tetnuld as
'
slightly
over 16,000 feet.' The new survey makes it 82 feet under
16,000 feet. The survey makes Gestola 14 feet higher than
its sister peak. But I should like to be certain both peaks were
measured from the same side of the chain. There have been very
considerable discrepancies in some of the heights from time to
time communicated to me by the Surveyors, as results of the new
measurements. Undoubtedly they are, as a whole and approximately,
accurate, but I feel confident that— as has been the case in the
Austrian Alps — further corrections will in several cases have to be
made in the oflicial figures.
We had time to study in detail the vast panorama commanded
by our space-searching
summit. The broad snow-fields of the
Zanner, over which next day we hoped to force a pass, called for
particular attention. What a superb ice-gorge led up to the gap
between us and Gestola ! The green valley over its shoulder should
be Chegem. Dykhtau was a surprise ; the southern face was this
year all white, while Donkin's photograph had prepared us for
a bare clifi"; Koshtantau, all but the pyramidal top, was masked by
the cKffs of Mishirgitau ; Shkara dominated everything on the
watershed ; Janga was a little higher between
than ourselves :
them
of the horizon
they cut ofi" the view of the eastern snows. The part
was narrower than in most Swiss and
occupied by snowy peaks
I am fortified in my plea by tlie fact that I have my old friend, Professor Tyndall, with
me. His famous description of the first ascent of the Weisshorn concludes as follows :
opened my notebook to make a few observations, but I soon relinquished the attempt. There
was something incongruous, if not profane, in allowing the scientific faculty to interfere where
silent worship was the "reasonable service. ''
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