534 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



were on aretes. When exhausted from climbing and shoveling the 

 only thing to do was to lie down and often to sleep for a few minutes. 

 While resting we needed only to start boulders rolling down the snow 

 fields to behold a thrilling sight. The black masses would begin with 

 small leaps, leaving behind indentations like an unwinding white rib- 

 bon in the dazzling snow. Increasing in speed, the boulders would 

 finally dash with cannon-ball velocity and mighty springs out of view 

 thousands of feet below. An obstacle at the beginning so slight as to be 

 unnoticed would often change the path of the boulders started from 

 the same spot so that their lower lines would be a mile apart — one 

 making a path down a gully to the south perchance and another down 

 an eastern gully. Form, color and motion combined to give an as- 

 tonishing effect. Of the many mountain slopes that I have seen this 

 is the most favorable for such a sight. 



The weather had been propitious all morning. Though threaten- 

 ing, the clouds shifted constantly and disclosed one extensive view after 

 another — any one of them a complete compensation for the effort of 

 the ascent. Finally, after we had been climbing seven hours and were 

 within probably three hundred feet of the rim of the crater, a vigor- 

 ous snow storm swept around the mountain. We continued the ascent 

 for an hour. The cold and wind increased. It was impossible to see 

 fifty yards. There was nothing to do but begin the descent. We 

 had not seen the crater nor had we had a view from the summit. But our 

 rewards had been enjoyed all the way up and the wisdom of not post- 

 poning the return afterwards appeared since the snow storm continued 

 the remainder of the day. So after waiting half an hour and finding 

 the storm becoming worse, we tobogganed down the snow slope, and in 

 fifteen minutes passed over the distance which had required three hours 

 to climb. 



We reached the cave camp in two hours, and I spent the night in 

 bathing eyes to take out inflammation caused by the excessive light 

 experienced on the snow. 



The next morning we returned to Chalchicomula, and the tram 

 which runs eight miles without animal, steam, or electrical traction 

 simply with the force of gravity, carried me to San Andres, and in a 

 few hours I was taking photographs of banana groves and coffee plan- 

 tations in the city of Orizaba, having passed from frigid to tropical 

 regions in one day. 



Orizaba, ' the Star Mountain,' is the most favorable mountain in 

 the world for an American who wishes to climb higher than eighteen 

 thousand feet. Elbruz, the culminating point of Europe, is less access- 

 ible to Europeans than Orizaba to Americans. 



The starting point for the ascent of Orizaba is high, the slopes rid- 

 able up to fourteen thousand feet, and easy the entire distance to the 



