It will hardly be doubtful from the whole tendency of my preceding remarks about weather and conditions that my opinion inclines decisively to the earlier rather than the later season as offering the best chances of climbing Mount Everest. We cannot of course assume that because September was a bad month this year it will always be a bad month. But supposing the monsoon were to end punctually and a fair spell to have set in by the first day of September--even then it appears to me improbable that the fresh snow fallen during the monsoon would sufficiently melt near the top of the mountain two and a half months after midsummer. As to the prospects of wind, we can only be content with the statement that in this particular year the wind after the end of the monsoon would alone have defeated even the most determined attempt to reach the summit. A wind strong enough to blow up the snow must always, I believe, prevent an ascent. A superman might perhaps be found, but never a party of men whose endurance at high altitudes would warrant the risk of exhaustion in struggling for long hours against such adverse circumstances. For the earlier season it may be said again, as a simple observation upon which little enough can be built, that the appearance of the clouds before the monsoon did not suggest wind, but rather a calm air on the summit. What precisely the conditions may be, for instance, in May and June, 1922, or what we ought normally to expect, cannot be determined with certainty. Will the whole of the snow fallen during the monsoon of 1921 have melted before the next monsoon, and if so by what date? Will the amount of snow on the mountain be the same in June, 1922, as twelve months before? Or will black and white appear in altered proportions? And if the snow has melted, where will ice be found? It might well be that under the North Col all the steeper slopes will have lost their snow. And what of the final arete? One conjecture seems as good as another, and the experience of more travelled mountaineers will suggest the most probable answer to these questions with an instinct less fallible than mine. Nevertheless, I think it may be said that the chances are all in favour of the earlier season. We know, for instance, about this year that snow must have melted since the last monsoon and actually was melting fast in June, but the summer's snow does not always melt before the winter--not this year, for instance: the chances, therefore, of finding it melted in June are better than those of finding it melted in September. It may be contended that it might then have melted too much so that a party would find ice where they would wish to find snow. But one must prefer the lesser of two evils. Ice is far from an insuperable obstacle on Mount Everest; almost anywhere above Chang La crampons would overcome it: but powdery snow, in case the snow has melted too little, is a deadly handicap.