ACADEMY OF SCIENCES] CALIFORNIA 257 



hardened mountaineers, but all of whom therefore enjoyed the more delightful novelty of well- 

 ordered camp life in the superb scenery of the mountains during a season of assured fine weather. 



One of the party has recalled its pleasures. The days were long, as early starts were made, 

 but not strenuous, for the distances covered were moderate and the halts were deliberate. The 

 campers were roused by a shout from the leader in the dawn and breakfast was eaten at or before 

 sunrise; then the horses, driven in from a near-by meadow by one of the centaurlike packers, 

 were lined up along a rope stretched from tree to tree, as if they were a class of children, toeing 

 the mark and waiting for their tasks. The arduous work of saddling and packing over, the party 

 would set out on the morning's ride till a halt was made by a spring or stream for lunch and 

 prolonged while a chapter was read aloud from some book, perhaps one of John Muir's. Then 

 on again to overtake the pack train which had preceded the leisurely riders to a well-selected 

 camping ground for the night, where a hot supper was ready for hearty appetites and the evening 

 camp fire brought all members of the party together for readings and stories, till the hour came 

 to "turn in" for the refreshing sleep of a quiet night in the open; or if perchance a waking half 

 hour intervened, it would permit a drowsy glance upward at the branches of the trees, lighted 

 by flickering flames of the dying fire against the black mountain-arching sky whence the stars 

 shine down with a brightness hardly known to dwellers on lowlands ; and then another morning 

 came. Sometimes the waking shout was unusually early, so that all might see in the pale eastern 

 sky a comet that seemed to have been summoned to add to the glory of the dawns in that 

 wonderful August. 



Day by day the party would set out through grassy meadows tinted with wild flowers, 

 across hurrying streams or around the shore of a placid mountain lake, past glades of aspen on 

 moist ground near the waterways, up through the forests of pines, spruce, and firs, some of them 

 giants 200 or 300 feet in height, and over the rock-floored highlands where broad views were 

 gained of a chaos of peaks, barren and snow-patched; for such is the course of the Tioga Road, 

 originally constructed to reach a mine near the mountain crest, christened with a name far 

 away from its aboriginal habitat, and much appreciated by mountain parties long after the mine 

 to which it led ceased to be worked; and thus Mono Pass was reached, where a marvelous pros- 

 pect over the desert country far below to the east was disclosed. Some of the easier mountains 

 were ascended to enjoy their views of the higher and more difficult summits; and there, as 

 everywhere, the leader who loved every aspect of nature served as its interpreter. He knew all 

 the rocks, mountains, and canyons, all the flowers and trees, all the birds and beasts of the high- 

 land country; and yet in spite of the many rough experiences of his outdoor western life, he still 

 retained so refined a sympathy and so undulled an imagination that he cared for neither hunting 

 nor fishing, because of the pain that such sports inflict upon their victims. The month was 

 spent in ideal companionship, the memories of which are prized by the invited members of the 

 party, all of whom still survive; but their most treasured memory is of the happiness felt and 

 shown by " Charlemagne," their host. 



SCIENTIFIC HOSPITALITY IN THE SIERRA, 1908 



Hardly less remarkable was another Sierra excursion the following year, 1908, when Gilbert 

 had for his guests his old topographic associate, W. D. Johnson, and the geologist, E. C. 

 Andrews, of Sydney, Australia. The two excursions were alike in being holiday outings, but 

 otherwise they were very different. The party of 1907 consisted of intimate friends, among 

 whom scientific problems ranked lower than personal relations. The party of 1908 was 

 essentially scientific, and the Australian member had never been seen by the two Americans. 

 Their coming together was a fine illustration of the world-wide comradeship that is developed 

 among men of similar pursuits; the bond that united the three in this case being a common 

 interest in "the magnificent illustrations of deep glacial erosion" which the High Sierra affords. 

 It seems that Andrews had a few years before published a brief but forcible account of the 

 mountainous coast of southwestern New Zealand, the deep fiord troughs of which he ascribed 

 to glacial erosion, not because he had previously studied the action of glaciers, but because 

 the forms of the fiord troughs were so unlike those of the valleys of normal erosion that he had 



