MOUNT RAINIER 



he called, turning so as to make his voice more audible. 

 These were his last words. He vanished in the night 

 and the abyss. It is likely that the tube, three and a 

 half feet in length, caught as he turned and helped to 

 hurl him from his precarious footing. Like his own 

 high strung frame, the delicate instrument was 

 shattered ; but neither of the twain went away from 

 the world without leaving an imperishable record. 



It is interesting to note the close correspondence of 

 his independent observations with those made by 

 others. The height of the mountain had been meas- 

 ured many times before he essayed to measure it. 

 Some observers had measured it by triangulation, and 

 others, notably Major E. S. Ingraham, of Seattle, had 

 given its altitude from the readings of mercurial barom- 

 eters. Major Ingraham gave the height at 14,524 

 feet. It will be noticed that the result obtained by 

 Professor McClure was just four feet greater, a re- 

 markable coincidence at that vast altitude and among 

 conditions of hardship, exposure and uncertainty. 

 Prior to Professor McClure's record, the latest measure- 

 ment of Rainier had been made by George F. Hyde, 

 of the United States Geological Survey, in 1896. He 

 pursued the method of triangulation, and, taking as his 

 base a line at Ellensburg, in connection with the sea 

 level gauge at Tacoma, he figured out the extreme 

 height of Rainier at 14,519 feet. 



The value of Professor McClure's determination 

 will be heightened rather than lessened by the peculiar 

 difficulty and rareness of scientific work in an unex- 

 plored territory and from a base which has not all the 

 appurtenances and advantages of the older scientific 

 stations of the East and of Europe. In this respect 

 his work is like that of Agassiz and of Audubon. Not 

 unlike those great masters was he in his intense and 

 lofty devotion to science. Not unlike them he wrought 

 with rigid accuracy where others had worked almost 

 at random. Not unlike them he aroused among his 



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