Page:Science vol. 5.djvu/482

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��to group as far as we can, ftnd observe wliai. happens; Ihougll, a» we are men, and not Bilies, aomethiug more may fairly be expected of our intelligence than of ihelrt.

We will not only guew, but measure aud reason; and In particular we will first, while still at Ihe bot- tom of the mountain, draw the light and heat out into a spectrum, and analyze every part of it by some method that will enabic us to explore tlie Inmible, as well as record the visible. Then we will ascend many mltea into the air, meeting the rays on the way down, before the sifting process has done its whole work, and there analyze the light all over again, so as to be able to learn the different proportions In which the <liSprent rays have been absorbed, and, by studying the action on each separate ray, to prove the state of things which must have existed before tbia sifting — this selective absorption — began.

II may seem at flrst Iliat wo cannot ascend far enough to do much good, since the surface of our aerial ocean Is hundreds of miles overhead; but we must remember that the air grows thinner as we as- cend, the lower atmosphere being so much denser that about one-half the whole substance or mass of it lies within the &rst four miles, which is a less height than the tops of some mountains. Every high uoun- tslD, however, will not do; tor ours must not only be very higli, but very steep; bo that the station we choose at the bottom may t>e almost under the station we are afterwards to occupy at the top. Besides, we are not going to climb a lofty, lonely summit, lihe tourists, to spend an hour, but to spend weeks; so that we must have lire and shelter, and, above all, we must have dry air to get clear skies, First I thought of the Peak of Teneriffe; hut afterwards some point In the territories of the United States seemed prefer- able, particularly as the government offered to give the expedition, through the signal-service, and under the direction of its head, (Jen. Kazan, material help in transportation, and a military escort, if needed, anywhere in its own dominions. No summit in the eastern part of the United States rises much over seven thousand feet, and, tbougli the great Rocky iloanlalns reach double this, their topi are the home of fog and mist ; so that the desired conditions, if met at all, could only be found on the other side of the continent, in southern California, where the sum- mits of the Sierra Nevadas rise precipitously out of the dry air of the great wastes in lonely peaks, which look eastward down from a height of nearly fifteen thousand feet upon the desert lands.

This remote region was, at the time I speak of, almost nnesplored ; and its highest peak. Mount Whlt^ oey, had been but once or twice ascended, but was represented to be all we desired, could we once climb it As there wasgreat doubt whether our apparatus, weighing several thousand pounds, could possibly be taken to the top, and we had to travel three thousand ,o get where the chief diCBcut ties would be- gin, and make a desert journey of a hundred and fifty miles after leaving the cars. It may he asked why we committed ourselves to such an Immense journey, to face such unknown risks of failure. The answer

���must l>e, that monntaius of easy ascent, and Q[t«en thousand feel high, are not to be found at our doors, and that these risks were Involved In the nature oT' our novel experiment; so that we started out from no love of mere adventure, but from necessity, muiA into the unknown. The liberality of a citisen of Pittsburgh, to whose encouragement the enterprise was due, had furnished the costly and delicate appa- ratus for llic expedition; and that of the transconti- nental railroads enabled us to take this predoua freight along In a private car, which carried a kitchen, a steward, a cook, and an ample larder besides.

In this we crossed the entire continent from oceas to ocean, stopped at San Francisco for the militarr escort, went three hundred miles south so as to get below the mountains, and then turned eastward again on to the desert, with the Sierras to the north of us, after a journey which would have been unalloyed pleasure except for the anticipation of what was com- ing as soon as we left our car. 1 do not, indeed, know that one feels the triumphs of civilization over tha opposing forces of nature anywhere more tlian In the sharp contrasts which the marvellous luxury of recent railroad accommodation gives to the life of ilia desert. When one is in the centre of one of the greU barren regions of the globe, and, after looking oat from the windows of the flying train on its scorched wastes for lonely leagues of habitlese desolation, turns to his well-furnished dinner-table, and the fruit and ices of his dessert, he need not envy the heroes of ori- •■niai slory who were carrieii across dreadful solitude* in a single night on the backs of Sying genii. Oun brought us over three thousand miles to the Mojave desert. It was growing hotter and hotter when th* train stopped In the midst of vast sand-wastes a little after midnight. Roused from our sleep, we stepped on to the brown sand, and saw our luxurious car roll away In the distance, experiencing a transition troiK the conditions of civilization to those almost of bar~ barism, as sharp as could well be imagined. W« commenced our slow toll northward with athermom- cter at 110° in the shade, if any shade there be in Ihtt shodeless desert, which seemed to be chiefly Inhabited by rattlesnakes of an ashen gray color and a pecul- iarly venomous bite. There is no water save at tho rarest intervals; and the soil at a distance seems thougii strewed with sheets of salt, which aids t delusive show of the mirage. These are, in fact, t ancient beds of dried-up salt lakes or dead seas, toi of them being below the level of the ocean; and su a one on our right, though only about twenty mllM' wide, has earned the name of ' Death Valley,' from the number of human beings who have perished In It. Formerly an emigrant'traln, when immigrants croiMd the continent in caravans, had passed through tho great Arizona deserts in safely, until, alter their half- year's journey, their eyes were gladdened by tti« snowy peaks of the Sierras looking delusively neftr. The goal of their long toil seemed before them: onlr this one more valley lay between; and Into thi* thoj descended, thinking to cross It In a day, but thay never crossed it. Afterwards tlie long line of wagoDB wa; found, with the skeletons of the animals In '

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