tus of revolving plates, telescope, and micrometers, was to be securely fixed in position.
Colby was generally the presiding genius of these encampments. His custom was to be up at sunrise, and stick to his work till sunset, – ready to take the instrument the moment the clouds cleared off the surrounding peaks, and between times teaching the assistant officers its adjustments, how to register the observations, the methods of computation, and so on, besides noting the names and situation of the distant stations within sighting range. Here was no make-believe superintendent, ruling from an arm-chair in a remote office, but one ever present when it was practicable, in the thick of the hardships and toils of a laborious duty, a master-workman among his subordinates. No wonder the men of the Survey detachments, and "his boys," as he familiarly named the officers employed under him, were devoted to this leader among them, whose example was better than any amount of precept!
Nor had chance visitors to Colby's look-out stations any reason to complain of want of affability on his part towards them. During his surveys in the North of Scotland, people would walk ten or fifteen miles to his camps to see his "glasses," which he was always delighted to let them look through.
Midsummer on the top of a Scotch mountain is not to be depended upon for any inconvenient amount of heat. At the Corriehabbie encampment, on the 28th of June 1819, the thermometer, we are told, went down to 45 degrees at noon, when a tremendous hailstorm came on, strewing the ground with hailstones several inches deep in a few minutes, and continuing an hour. Then for another hour snow, and then sleet and rain. "We were forced," writes Dawson, "to be out shovelling the hail and snow from the tents while the storm lasted; and when gone, the men set to snowballing one another as a means of warming themselves – a rather unusual amusement at the latter end of June." The average night temperature in camp at this time was but four or five degrees above freezing-point. The day after this storm, Colby, Robe, and a small party started off on a long "station-hunting" exploration along the east coasts of Inverness-shire, Ross-shire, Caithness, and on to the mainland of Orkney, returning to camp on the 21st July, having tramped 513 miles in the twenty-three days, or about three-and-twenty miles a day, – good stiff walking to keep up, but capped by still better, as we shall presently see.
Two days only to rest, and then off again goes Colby, this time with Dawson, and a fresh batch of soldiers, north-west towards Grantown. Away they went, starting off at top speed, down the mountain-side, regular steeplechase-fashion, across picturesque valleys, as Glenavon and the whisky-famed Glenlivet, wading water-courses, climbing ridges, and so on, to Grantown, doing 24 miles in 5½ hours. There they dined, and then on again to Aviemore, along the Spey valley route, familiar enough now to tourists, but then all undreamt of for railroad or telegraph line. This day they covered their 39 miles. No marvel that Dawson was "dreadfully stiff and tired" on the morrow; and even with the scented heather-bells and charming wooded slopes of Rothie-
