and sink down again oppressively around him* Is this all labor 
lost? Have the fates conspired against him, and is the Holy 
Gross a myth, an illusion that has led him on through all these 
weary days, only to deceive him? 
He sits down among the rocks to rest and ponder* Mean¬ 
time the winds rise and the dull mists are driven along the 
cliffs and torn to tatters on the sharp projections* To the 
west great billowy passage-ways are opened, and glimpses of the 
lofty mountains can be had, looking like ghosts through the thin 
mists* Suddenly the artist glances upward, and beholds a 
vision exceedingly dramatic and beautiful# He is amazed, he is 
transfixed. There, set in the dark rock, held high among the 
floating clouds, he beholds the long-sought cross, perfect, spot¬ 
less white, grand in dimensions, at once the sublimest thing in 
nature and the emblem of heaven. 
He recalls himself, and remembers his ambition, his duty, 
to transfix, by his art, an image of this vision, that can be 
carried back to the world. He sets his camera in haste, and 
invokes the aid of the floating sunlight. He turns for his 
chemicals, but they are not there. They are far down the 
mountain on the backs of weary men. In despair he sees the 
clouds gather and settle down for the night. 
At nearly the same hour our party stood on the summit of 
the mountain itself and gathered snow from the very top of the 
Holy Gross. We, too, saw the clouds break and scatter, and 
gazed with wonder upon the rolling sea, with its dark mountain 
islands, and crouched behind the great rocks to avoid the cold 
winds that battle so incessantly about those high summits. 
The utter solitude and desolation of these summit regions 
are never so deeply impressed upon one as when the rest of the 
world is shut out thus by clouds, and nothing greets the eye but 
dull granites and frozen snows. 
And, now, since no observations could be made, we de¬ 
cided to descend to timber line, and spend the night. 
In passing down the crest of the northern spur we stopped 
near the edge of a great precipice to watch the play of the- 
storm-clouds below, and to pitch great rocks into the abyss. 
While here we were favored by a most unusual phenomenal display. 
The sun at our backs broke through the clouds, and there was 
immediately projected on the mists that filled the dark gulf a 
brilliant rainbow; not the arch, as usually seen, but an entire 
circle, a spectral ring, which, as we still gazed, faded away, 
and in a minute was gone. Far beyond, on the opposite side 
