King's "Mountaineering" 



twenty-fifth year, and one gets a bet- 

 ter notion of the writer by keeping 

 this fact in mind. It is revealing to 

 remember that the intercourse of the 

 reader is with a lad but two years 

 out of the Sheffield School at Yale. 

 It is significant, too, of the reach 

 and energy of his remarkable nature 

 that he so early had sought the scene 

 of his work and study on the Pacific 

 Slope with the purpose of making 

 himself acquainted with the geog- 

 raphy and the geology of the route 

 across the continent and had trav- 

 ersed that route in an emigrant train. 

 On the journey he gathered the in- 

 formation on which was based the 

 plan, afterward carried out under his 

 guidance, for a geologic and topo- 

 graphic survey of the fortieth paral- 

 alia, a cross section of the whole 

 system of the Cordillera of Western 

 America, probably the most impor- 

 tant single contribution ever made to 



240 



