30 MOUNTAIN OBSERVATORIES IN AMERICA AND EUROPE. 



was perfect. (See the plates.) With this we may leave Mr. Serviss' 

 graphic recital. I have quoted it to show briefly the perils and diffi- 

 culties of the ascent. Almost any one of a hundred other accounts 

 would have served to show that the scientific achievements of the 

 Mont Blanc observatory will have to be of the first order in order to 

 compensate for the risks to human life which its establishment in- 

 volves. Men have already died in its service, and more lives will be 

 exacted by the inexorable conditions of this giant mountain. 



When one considers that, in all probability, no scientific result will 

 be reached on Mont Blanc which could not be attained on dozens of 

 other peaks each accessible by railway or by entirely safe trails and at 

 far less cost, it becomes a serious question whether the establishment 

 of an observatory in this verj^ unfavorable site is to be praised oi 

 blamed. In my own view there is no doubt that the same expenditure 

 of energy and money would have accomplished a greater scientific 

 benefit if a difiierent site had been selected. 



Atmospheric Conditions on the Eiffel (8000 feet). 



In the year 1886 Captain Abney made a short series of observations 

 on the transmission of sunlight through the atmosphere, using the Eif- 

 fel, Zermatt, as a high-level station. 



His remarks on the atmospheric conditions at this station {Phil. 

 Trans. E. S., 1887, p. 255), while interesting, are in entire disaccord 

 with similar observations made at similar altitudes at other stations 

 distributed all over the globe. He found little or no dust in the 

 atmosphere, though we know that it is generally present at altitudes 

 far greater than 8000 feet. The sky-spectrum was barely visible in a 

 pocket-spectroscope. The sky was "blue-black." At this altitude in 

 the Eocky Mountains, in the Sierras of California, in the Andes, on 

 Etna, on Teneriff e, and on Mauna Loa, the two latter peaks being closely 

 surrounded by the sea, the dust haze is almost always to be seen. 

 The sky does not become "blue-black " until an altitude considerably 

 greater than 8000 feet is reached. In the Eockies during three visits 

 aggregating eight weeks or so, I have never seen the sky "blue-black" 

 under 12,000 to 13,000 feet. It would appear that Captain Abney 's 

 observation was made under unusual circumstances. 



The Eiffel was occupied in 1884 by Mr. Eay Woods, but the cir- 

 cumstances were then specially unfavorable, and the sun was always 

 surrounded by a "red haze." 



Mountain Meteorological Stations of Europe. 



Under this title and in the year 1886 Mr. A. Lawrence Eotch, 

 Director of the Blue Hill (Meteorological) Observatory reprinted a num- 



