  In order to ascertain the extent of metal enrichment in the Ly alpha forest,
we have analysed a very high S/N spectrum of the z = 3.625 QSO Q1422+231. We
find that in high column density Ly alpha clouds, the power law column density
distribution function of C IV continues down to log N(C IV) = 11.7. In
addition, by analysing pixel-by-pixel optical depths we show that there are
considerably more metals in the Ly alpha forest than are currently directly
detectable.
