JSrO. 1886 SHELTER ON MOUNT WHITNEY — ABBOT 50I 



and it was only by the greatest economy, pluck, and perseverance 

 that Mr. Marsh succeeded in getting his trail to the top. To an 

 Easterner it is hardly a trail even now, and even Mr. Marsh said 

 to the writer on our last descent that he hardly saw how the mules 

 could go over it, unless they had hooks on their hind feet to hang 

 on by till they found a place for their fore feet. There are places 

 where, with almost precipitous descent staring them in the face, the 

 mules must step down as far as from a high desk to the floor, land- 

 ing on jagged rocks, not on dirt or sand. However, they do go over 

 the trail, and in the transportation this year of upwards of 20,000 

 pounds of material and apparatus for the Smithsonian Institution 

 not a mule was lost or seriously hurt and no material was even 

 injured, thanks to the skill of the packers, especially Mr. Horace 

 Elder. The west slope of the ridge leading to Mount Whitney is 

 extremely rough and broken throughout. Pinnacles of naked rock 

 rise often nearly vertically, and are crossed both vertically and hori- 

 zontally by seams and cracks in such a manner as to give the im- 

 pression of being a very crazy, crumbling, insecure structure, likely 

 to be shaken down if a great earthquake should come. Indeed the 

 whole slope is covered, clear to "Langley's Meadow," with rocks of 

 all sizes which have broken ofif and rolled down. It was through 

 this difficult country that the Lone Pine citizens built their trail. 

 In some places, where they could only proceed by blasting, the rock 

 was too crumbling to be drilled, so that the powder charge had to 

 be tamped into a crack between rocks, and when exploded would 

 bring down a slide from above sufficient to fill all the space cleared 

 by the blast, and all would have to be done over again and again. 

 It reflects very high credit on Mr. Marsh and his supporters that the 

 trail was ever completed. 



To Director W. W. Campbell, of the Eick Observatory, is due the 

 credit of initiating plans for a shelter on Mount Whitney. The 

 following account is from a recent note by him "On the spectrum 

 of Mars" in Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific 

 (vol. XXI, No. 128, October, 1909, pages 201-2). 



"When the spectrum of Mars was under observation extensively 

 at Mount Hamilton in 1894, for the purpose of detecting the pres- 

 ence of water vapor in that planet's atmosphere, I realized that the 

 water vapor in the earth's atmosphere was and is the great obstacle 

 in the way of success, and I then resolved to observe the spectrum 

 of Mars from the summit of Mount Whitney, the highest point of 

 land in the United States, when the planet should again come into a 

 position favorable for the purpose. This would occur in August- 



