A NIGHT ALONE ON CHOCORUA. 
The 10th of August ranked, by the family 
thermometer, as next to the hottest day of the 
summer. It was a marked day in my calendar, 
— marked long in advance for a night alone on 
the narrow rock which forms the tip of Choco- 
rua’s peak. It was chosen on account of the 
display of meteors which, in case of a clear sky, 
always makes that night attractive for a vigil. 
On August 10, 1891, I counted two hundred 
and fifty meteors between sunset and eleven 
o’clock p. M. As I watched the sky, and saw 
the great rock of the peak rising sharply into 
it, I determined that another year I would 
count my meteors from its summit, and not from 
the common level of a field. 
By four o’clock in the afternoon a breeze had 
drifted down to us from the mountains, and be¬ 
hind them cloud-heads were rising in the north¬ 
west. Fanned by the breeze and undaunted by 
clouds, I began the ascent of Chocorua by the 
Hammond path. In the woods the breeze was 
stifled by the trees, and I was stifled by the still 
heat which oppressed all nature. For three 
