Clarence King. 227 



Continent, Upon reaching St. Joe, Missouri, then the western 

 limit of railroad communications, they were invited to join the 

 partv of a well-to-do emigrant family, whose favor King had 

 unconsciously gained by his characteristically tender care for 

 their children during the latter part of the railroad journey. 

 Their line of march followed, in general, what was known as the 

 Old Fremont route, up the North Platte river and down the 

 Humboldt river in Nevada. The rate of travel of such a party 

 was necessarily very slow, and the young explorers, being 

 mounted on good horses of their own, were able to make excur- 

 sions into the neighboring mountains for the purposes of 

 exploration and study, which, owing to the hostility of the 

 Indians, were not always without danger. 



After having crossed the deserts of Nevada, they left the 

 party to visit the then famous Comstock Lode. On the night 

 of their arrival in Virginia City, the house in which they were 

 staying caught fire and all their belongings were lost. Nothing 

 daunted, King went to work at days' wages in a quartz mill to 

 earn sufficient funds to enable them to continue their journey. 

 In a few weeks they started again, crossing the Sierra Nevada 

 on foot, and proceeding by boat from Sacramento to San 

 Francisco. On this trip an incident which led to their making 

 the acquaintance of Prof. William M. Brewer, then assistant 

 on the Geological Survey of California, proved to be the 

 turning point in their careers. 



King's professional work as a geologist may be said to have 

 commenced with his acceptance of the position of volunteer 

 assistant geologist on the Geological Survey of California 

 under Prof. J. D. Whitney. During the three years that this 

 connection lasted the work was largely exploratory, for as yet 

 even- the geography of the country was but imperfectly known. 

 It thus gave full scope to the enterprise, energy and powers of 

 endurance that characterized him during his whole life. In 

 spite of his youth, he soon became a leader, especially in the 

 exploration of the high mountain mass of the southern Sierras 

 discovered by him, whose highest peak, Mt. Whitney, still 

 holds the palm as the highest point within the United States 

 (excluding Alaska). During the winter of 1865-6 he also 

 made an exploration of the desert regions of southern Cali- 

 fornia and Arizona as scientific aide to General McDowell, 

 which involved much hardship and no little danger. 



Of even more importance for his future work was the 

 familiar knowledge of the different varieties of volcanic rocks, 

 acquired during field studies around the extinct volcanoes of 

 the northern Sierras and in association with his friend Baron 

 von Richthofen, and in which for many years he stood preem- 

 inent among geologists of his time. 



