The question as to whether the use of oxygen will otherwise help or hinder climbers is one about which opinions may be expected to disagree. Anyone who thinks that it is impossible to get up without oxygen can claim that nothing has shown it to be impossible to get up with its aid. For my part, I don’t think it impossible to get up without oxygen. The difference of atmospheric pressure between 27,000 feet and the summit is small, and it is safe to conclude that men who have exerted themselves at 27,000 feet could live without difficulty for a number of hours on the summit. As to whether their power of progress would give out before reaching 29,000 feet, it is impossible to dogmatise. I can only say that nothing in the experience of the first attempt has led me to suppose that those last 2,000 feet cannot be climbed in a day. I am not competent to sift and weigh all the evidence as to whether, how much, and with what consumption of gas it was easier to proceed up the slopes of Mount Everest with oxygen so far as Finch and Bruce went on that memorable day. But I do venture to combat the suggestion that it is necessarily easier to reach the top in that manner. I think no one will dispute the statement that the final camp for the second attempt was too low, as it had been for the first, to enable the oxygen party to reach the summit. With the same apparatus it will be necessary in this case also to provide a second camp above the North Col. And the question for the moment will ultimately be, is it possible to add to that immense burden of transport to 27,000 feet the weight of the oxygen cylinders required?