McCLURE'S ACHIEVEMENT AND TRAGIC DEATH, 1897 



and seeing to it that the vacuum was exceptionally 

 perfect. That the barometer was most carefully 

 handled at the time of observation will fully appear 

 from the record below. It was suspended by a ring 

 and allowed to hang until it had assumed the tempera- 

 ture of the surrounding air before being read. Not 

 only this, but all the subsidiary phenomena which 

 could have the slightest bearing on the result were 

 laboriously determined. Concurrent observations were 

 made at all salient surrounding stations, while for a 

 week before the date of actual observation Professor 

 McClure himself had made numerous observations both 

 of pressure and of temperature at various sub-stations 

 in the vicinity of Mount Rainier, and his collaborates 

 has secured simultaneous observations from Seattle and 

 Portland. Uniting as he did the fervor of the pioneer 

 explorer with the accuracy of the laboratory chemist, 

 Professor McClure was peculiarly fitted to obtain a 

 result which bids fair to become historic. 



The broken barometer will appeal powerfully to 

 every lover of science. If, as has been suggested, a 

 monument be reared to mark the spot where the young 

 scientist gave up his life, no fitter design could be 

 adopted than a stone shaft bearing on its face a bas- 

 relief of the historic instrument which he bore on his 

 back with sacred care. It is entirely probable that 

 this barometer, coupled with his unselfish solicitude for 

 the safety of other members of the expedition, was the 

 immediate cause of his death. He carried it in a double 

 case ; a wooden one which his own hands had con- 

 structed, and outside of this a strong leather tube. 

 From the latter stout thongs enabled him to strap the 

 instrument on his back, much as a pioneer huntsman 

 would wear his trusty rifle. While standing on the 

 perilous ledge whence he took the fatal plunge, he 

 turned to sound warning to his companions whom he 

 was leading in a search for the lost pathway down the 

 mountain. "Don't come down here ; it is too steep," 



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