ACADEMY OF NATUKAL SCIENCES. 293 



Our apparatus for measuring the heights consisted of two barometers, (ane- 

 roid) a thermometer, a tin cup, and a spirit lamp. Both barometers failed us, 

 the index ceasing to turn after something more thau a complete revolution on 

 the dial. They were not made for such heights. But we made good use of our 

 thermometer. 



The ascent was exceedingly difficult, and not without danger. The long 

 summer heat had undermined the snows, causing their surface to conform more 

 to the ruggedness of the mountains, and the slides had opened chasms of invisible 

 depths across our path. "We looked down into several of these chasms and 

 saw that the massive walls below consisted of solid, blue ice, and terminated at 

 length in the blackness of darkness. We could hear the noise of running 

 water, apparently in torrents. One of these chasms was unavoidable — and must 

 be crossed. Its transverse length was nearly a mile, and its width from ten to one 

 hundred feel. By the aid of a rope, forty-five yards in length, and five pike- 

 poles, each eight feet, we crossed, (of course at the narrowest place) and after- 

 ward by rope and poles, tugging, panting, dizzy, we dragged ourselves up to 

 the terrific crest of this Mountain Monarch. 



The summit area is of very limited dimensions — a crescent in shape, half a 

 mile in length, and three to forty or fifty feet in width. It is a fearful place, as 

 it is the imminent brow of a precipice on the north, sheer down not less than a 

 vertical mile of bare columnar rock ! 



This height is lifted so far above all other heights (except the four distant 

 snow-clad peaks to the north and Mount Jefferson on the south) that the 

 country beneath seemed depressed to a uniform level, and the horizon recreated 

 to the distance of more than two hundred miles, including nearly all Oregon 

 and Washington Territory. The sublimity and grandeur of that view I must 

 leave to the imagination of the reader. A canon of enormous depth plunges 

 down along the southeast flank, and is filled in part by a glacier evidently in 

 motion, and having below a very abrupt termination. Terminal and lateral 

 moraines mark its course, and a torrent of water issues from beneath. While 

 we delayed here, an avalanche of rocks, an immense mass, started by the wind, 

 thundered down the left wall of this canon several thousand feet, and its track 

 was marked by a trail of white smoke. 



On the west side of the ancient crater, at the base of a vast craggy pinnacle 

 of rocks, (a portion of the ancient rim of the crater) is still an open abyss, 

 whence issue constantly volumes of a strongly sulphurous smoke. That there 

 is also heat there is evident from the immense depression of the snow about this 

 place — depressed not less than a thousand feet below the snows which fill to 

 the brim other portions of the aucient crater. 



As I have already stated, we found our barometers useless in these vast 

 heights, and were reduced to the use of the thermometer alone. By this we 

 learned the boiling point of water at four several stations, as follows : At the 

 camp, the summit of the Cascade Range, it stood in boiling water at 204° Fah. 

 At the upper verge of the forest, it indicated 195k'°. At the highest reach of 

 all apparent vegetation, 192° ; and fiually at the summit, where, after the most 



