Notes and Correspondence. 79 



achievements entitle them to the world record for high ascents. 

 Their general explorations of these lofty ranges, being carried 

 on scientifically, are therefore of great value. 



The Club library is in receipt of "True Tales of Mountain 

 Adventure," by Mrs. Aubrey Le Blond, donated by Harrington 

 Putnam, New York. The book is very attractively bound and 

 printed, and the illustrations are very convincing. The author 

 states that she has gathered data and quoted extensively from 

 well-known Alpine climbers, chief among whom is Mr, Edward 

 Whymper, to whom the book is dedicated. Nevertheless, 

 being a good mountaineer herself, and long familiar with the 

 scenes and conditions she depicts, her accounts are very readable, 

 and many little details of mountaineering in the Alps are given 

 for the benefit of those who have never climbed. Her excuse for 

 repeating so many of the fatal accidents which occur there is 

 found in the warning they may convey, but the reader will also 

 confess to a creepy fascination produced by the recital of such 

 horrors. 



The Whitney Creek Gorge. 

 In my paper on the Mount Whitney Creek and the Poison 

 Meadow Trail, published in the Bulletin of the Sierra Club for 

 February, 1902, the claim was made that Mr. Hopping and 

 myself were the first to make the passage of the Whitney Gorge 

 by mule-train. We examined both sides of the gorge very care- 

 fully in the summer of 1900, and v/ere satisfied that no one 

 had preceded us; least of all could we concede the existence of 

 a trail from Mount Whitney to the bed of the Kern Canon 

 through the Whitney Gorge, Nevertheless a trail is marked 

 for the route described on the map accompanying Lieutenant 

 Clark's report to the Department of the Interior as Superintend- 

 ent of the Sequoia National Park for the year 1899, The in- 

 sertion of this trail, however, was an error, and it is a pleasure 

 to me to quote from a letter which I received from him not 

 so long since. The paragraphs quoted, however, have an interest 

 outside of the point at issue. 



In making a little sketch for the Department of the 

 Interior in 1899, I took the liberty to transfer the name 

 "Whitney" to a stream formerly known as Crabtree 

 Creek and I gave the name 'Volcano' to the old Whit- 

 ney Creek. Some Sierra travelers were calling this 

 latter stream Golden Trout Creek, but as a number of 

 nearby cj-eeks have been stocked with this species of 

 trout I thought the stream should derive its name from 



