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Sierra Club Bulletin. 



some quiet jesting between the rest of us, concerning the 

 relative value of ourselves and our mute asinine friends. 

 Coming down from the summit a week later one of the 

 mules fell from the trail. We spent more than an hour 

 trying to get him back; but had to abandon him, even 

 after getting him back to the trail. The elevation was 

 13,700 feet, so recorded by our barograph, which for- 

 tunately was on the person of the writer. Two hours 

 later, at an elevation of about 13,000 feet, in crossing one 

 of the snow fields^ four mules and a saddle horse, loaded 

 with mirrors, photographic material, hygrograph and 

 thermograph, lost their footing and glissaded the snow 

 fields. It seemed as if the animals must surely be killed 

 and the packs smashed to kindling; but fortunately there 

 were no projecting rocks and the injuries were mostly 

 flesh wounds. Owing to good packing and careful wrap- 

 ping, the damage was not of much consequence. And 

 we could not repress a certain feeling of exultation that 

 it happened when we were coming down rather than when 

 ascending. 



Much has appeared in public prints recently concerning 

 the possibility of life on the planet Mars. Some spectro- 

 grams of Mars and the Moon obtained at the Lowell Ob- 

 servatory, near Flagstaff, Arizona, in the winter of 1908, 

 led to the conclusion that there was water vapor present 

 in the atmosphere of Mars. It should, however, be 

 pointed out that these spectrograms were made in January 

 and February, and that so far as can be ascertained in the 

 absence of instrumental records at the place of observa- 

 tion, the air columns contained much water vapor and that 

 there is therefore a valid objection to accepting these, inas- 

 much as the intensification of the band may be simply 

 due to the presence of the vapor in our own atmosphere. 

 It also appears that the photographs of the planet were 

 made soon after dark, while those of the Moon were taken 

 several hours later and at a drier period of the night. The 

 special purpose of Dr. Campbell's work therefore was to 

 get spectrograms of Mars and the Moon under the most 



