The Observatory on Mt. Whitney. 147 



We are under obligations to Dr. Campbell for his 

 unfailing courtesy throughout and his permission to use 

 various photographs ; also to the Director of the Smith- 

 sonian Institution, Dr. Walcott, for permission to use data 

 and illustrations prepared by Dr. Abbot. 



But there is a side to the story of Whitney other than 

 the purely scientific; and Sierrans, ever lovers of the 

 beautiful, hold dear some memory pictures of men and 

 hours associated with the not unkindly peak. In one of 

 these, two agile mountaineers are toiling in the deep snow, 

 battling hard to gain the summit. Theirs was the first 

 attempt to climb Whitney in winter. For the sake of the 

 adventure and also for the purpose of leaving instruments 

 at the summit whereby a record of minimum temperatures 

 might be obtained, these two risked life and limb. Thus is 

 knowledge gained that wisdom may follow and the welfare 

 of men be promoted. The story of the adventure is graph- 

 ically told in the journal not^s of one of the party.* From 

 March 2d to March loth, 1905, these two Sierrans were 

 out on the mountain side. We see them in fancy as they 

 stand on the ledge at an elevation of over 13,000 feet, 

 where one mis-step on the treacherous snow would send 

 them over the precipice. Baffled when the prize was 

 within reach, they turn backward facing the far-sweeping 

 snowfields in which they had slept and over which they 

 had plodded day and night. 



In the second of these memory pictures there moves 

 a solitary figure, strolling leisurely near the summit as 

 the summer night falls. Neither night nor fear daunt 

 him. Self-reliant and indifferent to what may befall 

 so far from human help, he wanders where his fancy 

 leads, free as the air around him. UnHke the rest of 

 us, he courts not the comforting support of comrade- 

 ship and takes the unbroken way through pass and over 

 crag. His love of the mountains and that tenderness 



* Sierra Club Bulletin, June, 1909, (Church and Marsh). 



