"Few of us, I think, who stop to ponder for a brief second, will deny that our very existence in this enlightened twentieth century, with all its amenities of modern civilization is ... 'artificial.' Most of us have learned to respect progress, and to appreciate the meaning and advantages of adaptability. For instance, it is a fairly firmly established fact that warmth is necessary to life. The mountaineer, acting on this knowledge, conserves, as far as possible, his animal heat by wearing especially warm clothing. No one demurs; it is the commonsense thing to do. He pours his hot tea from a thermos bottle--and never blushes! Nonchalantly, without fear of adverse criticism, he doctors up his insides with special heat- and energy-giving foods and stimulants! From the sun's ultra-violet rays and the wind's bitter cold he boldly dares to protect his eyes with Crookes' anti-glare glasses. Further, he wears boots that to the average layman look ridiculous! The use of caffeine, to supply just a little more buck to an almost worn-out frame, is not cavilled at, despite its being a synthetic drug, the manufacture of which involves the employment of complicated plant and methods. If science could prepare oxygen in tabloid form, or supply it to us in thermos flasks that we might imbibe it like our hot tea, the stigma of 'artificiality' would, perhaps, be effectually removed. But when it has to be carried in special containers, its whole essence is held to be altered, and, by using it, the mountaineer is taking a sneaking, unfair advantage of the mountain! In answer to this grave charge, I would remind the accuser that, by the inhalation of a little life-giving gas, the climber does not smooth away the rough rocks of the mountain, or still the storm; nor is he an Aladdin who, by a rub on a magic ring, is wafted by invisible agents to his goal. Oxygen renders available more of his store of energy, and so hastens his steps, but it does not, alas! fit the wings of Mercury to his feet. The logic of the anti-oxygenist is surely faulty." On 20th May, Mr. Finch and Captain Geoffrey Bruce arrived at Camp 3, accompanied by Tejbir, one of the four Gurkha non-commissioned officers lent to the expedition. There they found the oxygen apparatus in bad condition, and had to tinker at it for four days. During this period they made a trial trip to Camp 4 on the North Col, using oxygen. A good deal of new step-cutting had to be done, for fresh snow had fallen, but in spite of that, the oxygen enabled them to get to the col in three hours and to return in fifty minutes, with halts to take three dozen photographs.