EXPLORATIONS AMONG THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 85 



chances to come, I concluded that, terrible as it might be, I should be 

 able to survive it ; but whether I could then walk or not, I was unable to 

 decide." The next day was clear ; but not being able to make out the Glen 

 house, as soon as he was able to walk, which he says was after about two 

 hours, he started out to make a circuit for its discovery, higher up the 

 mountain. On this day he says that he no longer felt the gnawings of 

 hunger, but was oppressed by a burning thirst. " I thought I should not 

 wish to eat, even were food at hand. But I could not remain ignorant of 

 the fact that I was becoming weaker. This I perceived by the effort I was 

 obliged to make to hold my body erect, it inclining to stoop forward like 

 a man bowed down with old age. Often I raised myself upright, but was 

 very soon in the same bent posture." He was found in the afternoon of 

 this the third day of his exposure, still in good spirits, after having en- 

 dured for sixty hours the severe cold of the mountain, without food or 

 sleep. The party by whom Dr. Ball was rescued, consisting of Francis 

 Smith, J. S. Hall, and others, had been also engaged the preceding day 

 in the search, but had given up all expectation of meeting with him alive. 



On February 22, 1872, private William Stevens, of the Signal Service, 

 U. S. A., died, after a sudden attack of paralysis. It does not appear 

 that this malady was induced by the special perils of the service, as he 

 had spent a winter in Alaska, and another at Fort Russell, though an 

 unnecessary yielding to sedentary habits may induce disease in the most 

 vigorous constitution. The body of Mr. Stevens was brought down the 

 mountain by a party of six persons, and buried at Littleton. 



During the summer of 1873, one of the section hands on the railway 

 met with a fatal accident. He was sliding down the middle rail on a 

 board, and collided with an engine which was coming up the mountain. 

 His velocity of descent (a mile per minute) prevented him from stopping, 

 and his head was split entirely open. The site of the accident was at 

 Jacob's Ladder. 



WINTER VISITS TO THE SUMMIT. 



The thrilling and melancholy recital of such events as these has not 

 failed to invest the mountains with something of tragic interest. Their 

 changeableness in atmosphere and temperature, the impenetrability of 

 their fogs, and the suddenness and merciless fury of their storms, often 



