SKETCH OF RUDOLF CLAUSIUS. 117 



could see it through a break iu the mountains, rising up straight, 

 bold, and solitary, covered from foot to summit with perpetual 

 snow. The upper part, for perhaps five thousand feet, was a per- 

 fect cone, and seems to be composed entirely of ice and snow, the 

 accumulation of ages. The lower part was more precipitous, but 

 steep enough to throw off the snow altogether, while at the base was 

 a great glacier formed by the masses of snow which fell from its 

 sides. It was a magnificent sight, and I could scarcely tear myself 

 away from it." The name K2 has been given to this mountain 

 by the Trigonometrical Survey, waiting the discovery of a native 

 name for it, for this enlightened corps always prefers native names 

 when they can be found. Probably, however, like Mount Ever- 

 est,* it has no name, not being familiar enough to the people to 

 receive one, for both summits can be seen only from almost inac- 

 cessible places. The name Peak Godwin- Austen, after the officer 

 who first surveyed the Mustagh Kange and glaciers, was proposed 

 for it at this meeting of the Royal Geographical Society. 



The thrilling description of the crossing of the Mustagh Pass, 

 where the party reached the height of nineteen thousand feet 

 above the sea, is too long to be quoted here. It simply includes 

 the usual adventures of icy Alpine climbing intensified, and adds 

 no new facts. General Strachey, President of the Geographical 

 Society, remarked, in the discussion of Lieutenant Younghus- 

 band's paper, that this pass appeared to be the center of the most 

 wonderful accumulation of glaciers on the face of the earth. Some 

 of them, which Colonel Godwin - Austen described, and which 

 Lieutenant Younghusband must have passed over, were from 

 thirty to forty miles in length, and probably, by passing from 

 one to another, the traveler should be able to go over a glacier 

 surface of seventy or eighty miles. 



■4»* 



SKETCH OF RUDOLF CLAUSIUS. 



THE name of Prof. Clausius — " one of the most brilliant lights 

 of the nineteenth century/' as he is called by one of the Vice- 

 Presidents of the British Association — is conspicuously associated, 

 along with those of Rankine and Prof. William Thomson, in the 

 development of the science of thermodynamics, or the demonstra- 

 tion of the mechanical theory of heat ; and to him is credited the 

 first placing of the kinetic theory of gases on a secure scientific basis. 

 England and France mourned, almost equally with Germany in his 

 death — England, because of his association with the great British 



* The name commonly given as the native name of Mount Everest is not the name of 

 the pinnacle itself, but of one of the satellite peaks by which it is surrounded, and which 

 shut it off from ordinary view. 



