MOUNTAIN OBSERVATORIES IN AMERICA AND EUROPE. 23 



as it would go and kept two turns of the forward line wound round its handle. 

 When necessary the other line was kept tight also. The remaining guides pulled 

 on the rope ladders front and back, or, when possible, supported the sled at the 

 sides. In this way, foot by foot, the sled was moved. It was necessary for the 

 guides to cut steps in the steep slopes for their feet to rest in. All that the pas- 

 senger was required to do was to sit still and keep perfectly cool. This was all — 

 but in the face of the frightful precipices with which the route is surrounded, 

 it was enough. 



There are few men whose nerves are steady enough to contemplate dangers of 

 the sort when they ai*e themselves precluded from some sort of physical action. 

 I pass by all the incidents of the route ; the passage of the well-known obstacles ; 

 the two days and a half spent in a small cabin at the station des Bosses during the 

 prevalence of a hurricane ; the ascent of the final slope ; and simply recite that 

 the summit was reached during weather exceedingly suited to the observations, 

 and that the descent (which was more dangerous than the ascent) was safely ac- 

 complished. The party had been five days on the mountain. 



M. Janssen says that he is perhaps the only person who has stood on the summit 

 of Mt. Blanc without having made severe exertions to reach it, and who, there- 

 fore, was completely possessed of his intellectual vigor, which is always diminished 

 after bodily toil. He makes no account of the nervous strain of the ascent, or of 

 the anticipation of the far more dangerous descent, and this strain would be a 

 more severe tax on the faculties of most persons than even violent and continued 

 exertions. Those who remember M. Janssen's cool ride on horseback over the 

 crater-floor of Kilauea, in 1883,* can understand that the danger of Mt. Blanc might 

 seem a little thing to him ; but it is difiicult to think that his plan for a physical 

 observatory among tliose perils is a practical one. It is permissible to admire his 

 courage and devotion, and yet, in the name of Science, to suggest that tlie dan- 

 gerous summit of Mt. Blanc be abandoned for such a purpose, and that the pro- 

 posed observatory be established on Pike's Peak, only a few hundreds of feet 

 lower, at the end of a railway and telegraph line already in operation, and in a 

 situation where it is perfectly practicable to maintain observers during the entire 

 year, with few difficulties and with no peril ; or, if not at Pike's Peak, then at 

 some station less dangerous than Mt. Blanc. Of M. Janssen's expedition and of 

 his project we may be permitted to say, with the fullest admiration for his 

 courage and for his successes, but with a recollection of the limitations of ordi- 

 nary men — 



" C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est jaas la guerre." 



M. Vallot's observatory is primarily devoted to meteorology and 

 to observations of a physiological nature upon mountain- sickness 

 and the effect of great heights upon the human frame. Vallot sums 

 up his own experiences as follows: "Life at very high altitudes is 

 not, like the living of a diseased person, the result of a disordered 

 circulation, but it is rather a diminished-living, due to insufficient 

 supply of oxygen." 



The inhalation of pure oxygen appears to be, in some slight 

 measure, a remedy for the effects of exertion at high altitudes. 



* Very likely this particular escapade of the venerable astronomer is unknown 

 in Europe, though it is well remembered in Hawaii, and serves as a companion- 

 piece to his escape from Paris in a balloon, during the Franco-Prussian war, in 

 order that he might go to India to observe the eclipse of 1871. 



