more stove. How we wished we had brought the other
stove from the launch, also! Every bow on an undertaking of this kind
should have two strings. But when Karstens came back he went to work at
once, and this was one of the many occasions when his resourcefulness
was of the utmost service. With a file, and his usual ingenuity, he
constructed, out of the spoon-bowl of a pipe cleaner the writer had in
his pocket, the special tool necessary to grip that little burner, and
soon the burner was unscrewed and the broken wire taken out and the
primus was purring away merrily again, melting the water for supper. We
feel sure that we would have pushed on even had we been without fire.
The pemmican was cooked already, and could be eaten as it was, and one
does not die of thirst in the midst of snow; but calm reflection will
hardly allow that we could have reached the summit had we been deprived
of all means of cooking and heating.

[Sidenote: Germless Air]

On this ridge the dough refused to sour, and since our baking-powder was
consumed in the fire we were henceforth without bread. A cold night
killed the germ in the sour dough, and we were never again able to set
up a fermentation in it. Doubtless the air at this altitude is free from
the necessary spores or germs of ferment. Pasteur's and Tyndall's
experiments on the Alps, which resulted in the overthrow of the theory
of spontaneous generation, and the rehabilitation of the old dogma that
life comes only from life, were recalled with interest, but without much
satisfaction. We tried all sorts of ways of cooking the flour, but none
with any success. Next to the loss of sugar we felt the loss of bread,
and in the food longings that overtook us bread played a large part.

On Friday, 30th May, the way had been prospected right up to the pass
which gives entrance to the Grand Basin; a camping-place had been dug
out there and a first load of stuff carried through and cached. So on
that morning we broke camp, and the four of us, roped together, began
the most important advance we had made yet. With stiff packs on our
backs we toiled up the steps that had been cut with so much pains and
stopped at the cache just below the cleavage to add yet further burdens.
All day nothing was visible beyond our immediate environment. Again and
again one would have liked to photograph the sensational-looking
traverse of some particularly difficult ice obstacle, but the mist
enveloped everything.

J