attained is entirely due to their strenuous and ceaseless efforts, and I can only express my gratitude to them for the unselfish way in which they helped and assisted me on every occasion. The Expedition of 1921 is over; many problems have been solved, much new country has been brought within our ken, and many new beauties have been revealed, but the soul of man is never content with what has been attained. The solution of one problem only brings forward fresh problems to be solved, so this Expedition into unknown country brings within the realms of possibility further travels and further problems to be solved. There is much that yet remains to be done, much that remains to be discovered; and though we may not be privileged to discover a new race of hairy snow men, yet there is a wild and uncharted country full of beauty and interest that awaits those who dare face the discomfort and hardships of travelling in Tibet--discomforts which are soon forgotten and leave behind them only the memories of very wonderful scenes and places which the passing of time can never efface. Let us probe the silent places, let us seek what luck betide us, Let us journey to a lonely land I know; There's a whisper in the night wind, there's a star, a gleam to guide us, And the wild is calling, calling, let us go. R. W. S. THE RECONNAISSANCE OF THE MOUNTAIN By GEORGE H. LEIGH-MALLORY CHAPTER XII THE NORTHERN APPROACH As a matter of history it has been stated already in an earlier chapter of this book that the highest mountain in the world attracted attention so early as 1850. When we started our travels in 1921, something was already known about it from a surveyor's point of view; it was a triangulated peak with a position on the map; but from the mountaineer's point of view almost nothing was known. Mount Everest had been seen and photographed from various points on the Singalila ridge as well as from Kampa Dzong; from these photographs it may dimly be made out that snow lies on the upper part of the Eastern face at no very steep angle, while the arete bounding this face on the North comes down gently for a considerable distance. But the whole angle subtended at the great summit by the distance between the two of these view-points which are farthest apart is only 54 deg.. The North-west sides of the mountain had never been photographed and nothing was known of its lower parts anywhere. Perhaps the distant view most valuable to a mountaineer is that from Sandakphu, because it suggests gigantic precipices on the South side of the mountain so that he need have no regrets that access is barred in that direction for political reasons.