Page:Scott's Last Expedition, Volume 2.djvu/534

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