E. LOSS/DAMAGE TO EQUIPMENT

The only trouble we had was with the antifreeze dispenser on our drilling equipment. Despite the care taken with draining the water from the system before entering the field, when we started operating at Portal Mt., the pipes and hand gun were frozen. We thawed the system out with the motor exhaust and primus and flushed through with pure antifreeze. The piston seals on one handpiece were damaged, but after replacement the equipment gave little further trouble.

The calf-length boots with green soles issued to Stephen were very slippery and the soles cracked, so that another pair had to be sent in. The stitching also failed on his used muklaks, requiring replacement.

Our glove combination proved more successful than on VUWAE 23. We used woollen finger gloves with an outer lightweight industrial mesh glove woven from a very tough synthetic thread. They stood up very well to handling the samples, and our hands although becoming a little damp from the antifreeze mixture kept reasonably warm by donning overmitts whenever possible.

We had the customary small amount of trouble with primus seals, but one has learned to be wary of this problem.