Evening star. [volume], August 11, 1912, Page 3, Image 43

About Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972

Image provided by: Library of Congress, Washington, DC

                
Of The United States
THEY Arc Set Aside by
the Government to Be
Preserved for Posterity?
T rees T urned to Stone?
Rock-written History?The
Largest Natural Bridge?
Caves That Are a Mile Deep
?A Live Volcano?The
Least Known Wonder?
Many Other National Monu
ments.
IT of the vastness
"' of the domain of
L' " rffigrt-iL our *-"nc'e Samuel
Mr he has been care
fully fplectinK
those things that
are roost strange
and curious, that
are most historic
ally important or
that are most stu
pe n d o u sly im
presslve, and set
ting them '.side that they may be pre
srrv' ! for science and for posterity. Ot
., 1 the aw>* inspirers beneath the flag
t:nto are s- vtntten that have been deem
? i wortuy of entering into this exclusive
classification. Having entered, they are
d.figr.ated t, it'orn.J monuments, and it Is
pit down that they are to belong for
ev? r to the public. They are the lesser
national par'.s taken care of by the fed
eral uovf rnment. Incidentaly they are
spreading their charms these hot summer
days and Inviting the wanderer in the
grea: outside to come- to see.
These seventeen wonders of the I'nited
Pt i s are s cattered quite indiscriminately
over the map. The greatest of them is
?he 'Iran i ' "any n of the Colorado, with
t: - to > res uf withdrawn land. The
miiKv-t is that little plot of ten acres
wh: i> und fie old Spanish mission
of Tur.a .icori. ,n Arizona. There are
th--1 i: ruiments created by men. such as
th- A;: ? rk-an Indians, or the cliff-dwelling
of J'.. prehistoric people which preceded
th- f > r ? are those towers of rock In
corv -i ? lions of New Mexico upon
which. : years ago, the first explorers
tut lu ? th< st 'lie the rccords of their
visits it:*.
*
* *
Among th#.se national monuments there
are frozen falls of lava and cinder cones,
ind.eating most recent volcanic activities.
There are natural bridges lost in such
wildernesses as to have remained undis
covered until half u dozen years ago. and
yet they are of such magnificence as to
overshadow anything of their kind in the
world. A valley in southern Ftah almost
unknown to men has been withdrawn by
the government as a national monument
because federal agents state that its
beduties far surpass those of Tosernite.
In these reservations the primary pur
pose jp to preserve some object of scien
tific or historic value. Such was the in
tention, for instance, when, five years
ago the government withdrew* from pri
vate acquisition the petrified fore.sts of
Arizona. Here, through the strange proc
esses of nature, have the remains of
?what were once huge forest trees slowly
turned into stone of almost inconceivable
hardness. Scattered over a territory em
bracing nearly a hundred square miles
are to be found the stone trunks of trees
that grew in ages past. Here hjLS been
left such a record of that growth of past
ages as is found no place else in the
world, und here is recorded one of the.
strangest transformations from wood to
sioiw that the world has ever known.
A quarter of a century ago private
companies sought to exploit this stone,
for. when dressed, these pillars showed
such i--j.fr, agate, amethyst and chalce
doir : - to .-urp-ss the Siberian jaspers,
the Pyrem* s marbles and Chinese jade3
th;-' had won world fame. Tracts of
?Ian.I were located as placer claims, and
thu Uul private companies attempt to
get i . ss. svioM of this great wonder. So
h d is t..e material in these stone tree
tr !:'<8 that when pulverized it forms a
powder of great commercial value for
' r all .?.->%>? purposes. Much of this
per rttied wood a as ground up into this
I-. . i before the government finally
. t. w it from entry, and in the end
CI
J>ZVIIi'S ToWE.lt
IK ?:*
"WVoniiNG
made out of it th*1 petrified forests mon
ument?a wonderland now containing for
ty-five square miles.
w
* *
Another of nature's curiosities of a dif
ferent class and located in a different
part of the country is Devil's Tower, in
Wyoming. Here, in the midst of an open
plain surrounded by grazing lands and
forest;--, is situated a magnificent pile of
rock which rises to great height, with
walls so precipitous that they have de
fied the attempts of the most daring
mountain climbers. The mountain from
which the tow-r ri??es covers a thousand
acres, and its walls are rugged and dif
ficult in the scaling. On top of this moun
tain is the Devil's Tower itself, which
covers twenty ac?"es of ground and rises
J.300 feet above the plain. Here it stands,
a sentinel and guide post for all the
country round about, just as it stood in
the days when the ear'.y travelers first
penetrated to its base and found red
men there worshiping it as a deity. The
Devil's Tower was in a national forest and
thus reserved from private acquisition
before it was made a national monument
half a <>izen years ago. It is proposed to
some day bolt an iron stairway to its
side, that the summer tourist may go
aloft and from its point of vantage view
the world.
His Satank- majesty seems to have had
a good deal to do at least with the
naming of those objects that have been
regarded as of sufficient importance to be
set aside to be preserved for posterity
Close by the Yosemite National Park and
within the Sierra National Forests of
California is a monument which is known
as the Devils Post Pile. The principal
object protected by the monument Is a
series of fine basaltic columns which have
In part toppled over, revealing an ap
parent great store of prismatic, loglike
sections which, from a distance, strik
ingly resemble a pile of posts. It looks
as though such a store of neatly squared
logs as had never been accumulated be
fore was here gotten together by some
giant of the wilds against the approach
of that time when there would be a
famine in railroad ties. It further looks
as though some rival had entered the
storehouse, split open the stack of logs
and nurled half of them, broken, down
the mountain side.
*
In the lava-strewn valley of the 7.uri
river of New Mexico, where dwell those
Indian worshipers of many strange gods
made concrete by the dolls of the'r house
hold. is to he found written in rock some
of the earliest of all American history.
Here, in th<> days when interior America
was as yet unknown to the outside world,
came those romantic Spanish adventurers
who claimed nearly all of America by
right of discovery and exploration. These
men went beyond De Soto and De Vaca.
v ho sought the mythical "seven cities
OrTnTRirrLD Tort-sts
of Cibola." Here the s^plorers rested
awhile among the Zuni, the Moqui and
the Navajo, the most Interesting of
America's Indians. Here, while they
rested, they carved their names and the
dates of their visits into the cliffs that
border the Zuni river. The dates of these
visits, according to the original records,
run from 1029 to 1737. Many are believed
to be much older than this, but the ero
sion of wind-blown sands and other nat
ural agencies have made the dates illeg
ible. So interested Is Uncle Sam in these
original writings of his early history that
he has withdrawn 160 acres of land from
settlement, converted it into a national
monument and intends to keep it forever.
The federal government is the owner
of three of the greatest natural bridges
in the world, the existence of which was
not known a decade ago. It was in 1S05
that Emory Knowles, a cowboy, riding
the range in southeastern I'tah in search
of the unbranded maverick, stumbled
upon such a natural span over a canyon
as white man had ne%'er seen before. He
reported his find and later acted as guide
to a party which revisited this and dis
covered two other similar bridge*. In
May, 190K, the general land office in
structed \V. B. Douglass, an examiner of
surveys, to visit and report upon these
bridges. He did so and recommenced the
withdrawal of a forty-acre tract around
each bridge.
*
3fc *
The Augusta Natural bridge, the larg
est of the three, is a splendid arch of
solid sandstone measuring 335 feet from
wall to wall agd having a clear opening
of 357 feet above the stream which it
spans. It is more than three times as
high and has twice the span of the cele
brated Natural bridge in Virginia. It
would form an arch above the National
Capitol at Washington, clearing the
dome with fifty-one feet to spare. The
Rainbow bridge, near the southern bound
ary of Utah, another monument, is
unique in that it not only forms a sym
metrical arch on the under side, but
presents also a curved surface above,
which resembles in shape a rainbow.
This bridge is 900 feet above the sur
face of tiie water that runs under it.
Th*> Mulr Woods National Monument is
one of the most attractive of these little
parks. The chief of the objects it pro
tects and preserves is a grove of giant
redwoods, those big trees of California,
sole survivors of that age of the world
when it was overrun with vegetation of
stupendous growth. It is located about
seven miles northwest of San Francisco
and is visited annually by thousands of
people, who may almost step over from
the crowded streets of a great modern
city into a wilderness where nature
reigns supremo and appalls with the
magnitude of her works.
The monument tract embraces 205 acres,
covered w ith a virgin forest of which three
fourths are giant redwoods, with much
fir and the common hardwood.% of the
coast country, it is a part of the Ranrho
Sausalito. an aid Spanish grant. This
magnificent possession of the people was
the gift of a pubiic-spirited citizen of
San Francisco aJid Chicago, William
Kent, who placed a market value on the
redwoods alone of $150,000, but who be
lieved that as the attractive-and impress
ive feature of a national monument they
would be priceless. At the request of
the donor the monument was named in
honor of John Muir, the California nat
uralist. It is certain in thf years to
come that this unique and accessible na
tional monument will be visited and ap
preciated by a growing army of nature
loving people. The custodian estimates
that 00,000 people visited it the past
year.
*
* *
In 1R<? Ed Frost of Cody, Wyo.,
chased a mountain lion into a cave in
the bank of the Shoshone river just be
low the point at which the reclamation
service has recently completed the high
est dam in the world. The hunter at
tempted to smoke tlie animal out, but
without success. He explored to ascer
tain the cause of his failure. He found
a limestone cavern which he followed
until it led him a mile into the mountain.
This cavern would at times open up into
vast amphitheaters hundreds of feet in
height. The whole cave was lime-in
crusted and because of this its interior
was a sparkling white, sometimes shad
ing into beautiful rose-pink and green.
Stalactites hung from the roof like so
?many monster ,icic!es, and stalagmites
often met them trom the floor, forming
such a series of pillars as have never
t>*en reproduced in any building of man.
That this cave might be preserved with
the probability of it some time becoming
one of the show places of the west, it
was converted into a national monument.
The Tumacacori monument, contain
ing but ten acres of land, affords pro
tection to an old Spanish mission church
in Arizona. It was built by early Jesuit
monks, who burned the bricks there
for. Its walls in some places are twelve
feet thick, and the old burying ground
which lies to the rear contains the ruins
of an old fort, where many an early-dav
tragedy was enacted. The cemetery and
mission are inclosed by a high brick
wall. This old mission was in the re
jected Tumacacori land grant and has
suffered much from neglect, as well as
vandalism. Portions of old paintings
within the chanc#l have been knocked
off and carried away, and the names of
many of these vandals are written in
side the cave. The land upon which the
mission stands was entered as a home
stead by Carmen Mendez, who fully ap
preciated the desirability of preserving
the ruin and showed the faith that was
in him by relinquishing the necessary ten
acres of his claim to the government
June 30, 1WS.
*
* *
lessen Peak in California has been in
eruption at a more recent date than any
other volcano in continental United
States and is of consequent great scien
titic interest. Eruptions from this peak
occurred not more than 200 years ago,
as is siiown by the remains of trees killed
at that time and still standing. Snag
l^ake was formed at the time of this
last eruption by a stream of lava which
flowed across a little valley, damming it
up and thus converting it into a body of
water. The stumps of many trees,
drowned as the water rose, are still
standing in this lake.
Within the extinct craters of these
peaks are scores of cinder cones, and the
cindcr cone is the last thing thrown out
by a dying volcano. As the fires below
ground disappear and the last of the
gases they produce rise to the surface,
they blow out these cinders and pile
them in the form of great ant hills about
the vents. For the protection of this
recent example of volcanic activity, 5.000
acres of land have been withdrawn into
what is known as the lessen Peak monu
ment.
^natu-ral jyrfcedgxs arx tkh ijvrorst lk 1kt-wor_lp
&t "wheejxr monumlnt . ccelo'ra.x>0 -
There are three or four monuments in
the southwest that are set aside by the
federal government because of the excel
lent .specimens of cliff dwellings that
they contain and the desire to protect
those dwellings. Among the most im
portant of these is Montezuma Castle, in
central Arizona. Montezuma Castle is
a great cluster of cliff dwellings in the
face of a mountain that rises perpendicu
larly from a riverside. The principal
ruin now stands forty-e'.ght feet in
height, has five stories and contains
twenty-one rooms, generally in a remark
able state of preservation. Back of
these living rooms are great caverns
which run to unexplored depths into the
mountain side and which were evidently
used in the time of the occupation of
these dwellings as storage space a>yj as
bur>ing crypts. The writer twenty
years ago explored this ruin and found,
deep in the musty caves of tills mountain
side, remnants of bags of corn that had
been stored centuries ago- Still deeper
in the mountain he found the mummified
remains of a prehistoric child and a pre
historic man, these probably comparing
in ago with the mummies that are often
found under the pyramids of Kgypt. In
the absence of scientific treatment, how
ever, these mummies fell into dust when
brought in contact with the outer air.
*
* *
Probably the most beautiful canyon in
the United States is that of the Mukun
tuweap river, in southwestern Utah.
There is not one man in a thousand,
however, who has ever heard of this
canyon, and there are probably not a
hundred white men in the world who
have ever seen it. so remote is it from
customary lines of travel and so difficult
is it of access.
The canyon has smooth, perpendicular
walis varying in heigiit from 800 to 2,000
feet, which are, with the exception of one
trail, unscalable within the monument
limits, and this trail is so dangerous that
only unburdened animals are permitted
to use it. The canyon is split by h
tongue or cliff high enough to cut off all
view from either side of the canyon to
the opposite canyon wall, thus dividing
the canyon into two parts equallv im
portant. The north fork of the Rio Vir
gin. a stream twenty feet wide and
eighteen Inches deep, flows through the
canyon. The United States deputy sur
veyor, wlio explored the canyon, reports
that the climate in the bottom of the
canyon is tropical, while the regular
mountain temperatures prevail imme
diately adjoining and beyond the rims.
At intervals along the west walls several
streams plunge over the edge of the
chasm, forming magnificent falls Ntt) t?
i!.?'00 feet high.
Some of the views into the canyon are
only surpassed in grandeur by those of
fered by the Grand <'anvon of the Colo
rado. This canyon is. in many ways,
similar to the Yosemite valley of <"ali
fornia. now in a national nark, whose
vertical walls, while considerably higher
in places, are not continuously perpen
dicular. and whose highest waterfall, the
Yosemite. has a drop of l.ttKt feet, 4<*J
feet less than some of the falls here.
*
* *
Of course, the greatest of all thcsa
monuments is the Grand Canyon of the
Colorado, which needs no introduction to
the people. In the state of Colorado
there is the Wheeler national monument,
which presents a remarkable example
of erratic surface erosion, leaving great
fields of needlelike spikes scattered
round about. There are the jewel caves
in the Black Hills of South Dakota, which
are chiefly remarkable because oT the
strange conduct of the winds that blow
through them. For fifteen hours these
winds blow in one direction and then
change and for fifteen hours blow the
other way. These caves have never been
explored in their entirety and their
mystery is as jet unsolved. Oregon has
a national monument because of lime
stone caves that run to unexplored depths
and pass entirely under ("ave mountain.
Mount Olympus has been made a na
tional monument, and has two chief in
terests?its glaciers and its Olympic elk.
a very rare and almost extinct species of
animal.
The Big Hole battlefield in Montana has
been made a national monument, as haa
the burial ground of Russian soldiers at
Sitka. Alaska, where many of the sup
porters of the czar fell in battle with
the Indians during the conquest of Alas
ka. In Hawaii this government owns a
real live volcano, which seethes and boils
and continually threatens to erupt. Hale
mauman is the name of the volcano, an<l
the Pahoehoe lava, which flowed from It
thirty years ago. froze into lava tails,
which are the most recently produced ig
neous rock owned by I'nele Sam. It is
proposed that this Hawaiian volcano
should become a national monument, and
it will be the next such strange posses
sion of the government to be set asio#
indefinitely for the edification of the pub
lic.
?Copyright, 191-, t-y W. A. I?u I'uy.)
VICTIMS OF MT. BLANC?SWISS EXAGGERATE THE? ALPINE TRAGEDIES.
I z
Sr? ? ^w.nik'nrc of Thf Star.
CHAMOUNIX, July IS. 1012.
HARLET, marry
me," said rich
Miss Isabella Strat
ton.
He had just sav
ed her life once
again, among the
lower Seracs of
Mont Hlanc. They
stood looking down
on r-hamounix, both
strurk to sentiment
by recent danger.
? I wM r.?'t like to give up my trade."
? -idled t ? poor hut husky young Oha
inonnix guide.
"I'd never ask you." said the lovely
\;r;? : -1 shed enthusiastic. "Rut
o'fll c . le on' * me
??j',: l v ' sad Oharlet. scratching
s ? < \ "H i 1 must ask the chief
g .t'.- in tMe regulations."
"i' i: go with you." answered the splen
i, ?! \o .;..g . : re whose Alpine climb
<rs r. : ! ;!.!! r? nains after the years.
? ; mf t!ie n:> : intrepid. "I-ook here,
i . ;, i . have saved my life twenty
tlr; <'1:mbed tiie snow peaks
'.c-^f ti r a: d we u ight not quit each
other.'
*
m *
'Wiat v. :ue in ivsT. Me who became by
n a; r. g? J* an I'harlet-Stratton and sev
eral !i. i: a ni l: nairi* in fiancs, re
v >y. hm, laid little man with
?t' i> - 'r . ii. il ? fable f Chamounlx
gu.'li; v. ho <!>?? a::i of marrying a rich
a >i iu\ ? ly A::ierit an girl?now you know
v.-' *? ? v ar? so KaMailt to lady-climbers.
I-;-! ii. . aft'-r tl ?? Ilappiest and riskiest of
Anpine livi-s. sett led down sedately in her
la'.?-? years to he the providence of guides'
v i\i s and ? mi iv l>a- k?*r of th?- C'hamounix
cinematograph. with a perfect iiorror of
women risking tl?-:r existences in moun
tain climbing. in her last ascension, at
ai<out the ag?- of forty-five. she, who had
never know fear, was taken with sudden
vertigo. and could not get over it?the
klrd ??!' vertigo that makes your bead
? iov.'n c-11 tlie level ]>lain. merely
inoi-.?ic :;|j at p< aks.
s.-.t! 'a Str. :ton in her la'.er years
t! '?>> iiii h? i great <'liamounlx influence
r;t .'?-< i. raging amateurs attempting
M-ft f'l.inc in h:??i w?ather and woman
limbers in any weather. The cinemato
in lienor of her. Mill continues to
a t ie \varriinjf lilms which shr- imagined
is: th?- earliest days of moving pictures,
though now vastly improved.
f'harlet remains a garrulous old native
nabob, in rusty clothes and soft hat. guid
ing, now and then, for fun Only four
*?ars ai'o he ac -ompanied Wertheim up
one of th* Needles. AVhen they returned
1 told him I had seen him in the tele
scope and expected hini to ..all.
"The difficult peaks make no victims,"
answered the veteran guide, "the Grepon,
the Requin and the Drus never killed
anybody. They will get the'r work in the
day when Air. Anybody can ride up in
a raek-and-pinion railway like the Cer
van. and go fumbling around without
stamina or caution. The one spot that
has the most victims is the Mauvais
Pus!"
On inquiry T found it cxa-t. Incredible
as it may seem, one spot on the easiest,
cheapest, commonest ladies' afternoon
trip across the sea of ice. requiring not
even a guide and not considered Alpinism
at ail, has fifteen victin\s to its credit,
mostly lady tourists.
Th? funiculaire rides the weak, the
nerveless and the timid up to the sea ot
ice. The guides ask a dollar to go across
with you. Many ?ave the dollar: all the
victims saved it. And you wonder how
they could fall. After the s;-a of ice is
left behind, tin a dry. sun-blistered slant,
a massive iron hand-rail leads along a
narrow zigzag path, " lit in ti e rock,
Well, the story never varies:
August. 11HJ& Mme. Lunar, Krencft
widow, met a party co'ning in the oppo
site direction. She attempted to pass
outside, fell 1<>> feet, struck her head and
died instantly.
July, litOi, Grace Leonard, Australian
school teacher, without guide, met a party
coming in the opposite dire tion. And
so forth.
*
* *
In 100.S, when I was staying at the
Hotel de 1'Angleterre, Ohamounix, two
muscular danseuses of the Paris Grand
Opera ballet attracted considerable atten
tion in dining room and on the terraces.
One afternoon they started off. on b?
ribboned mules, with each a guide and
letter. "Grand ascension?" the word
passed, laughing, "by mule-back to the
sea of ice!" That evening there was
silence. One poor survivfhg cigaie lay.
hysterical and drugged, in bed, and the
other, wit'n a skull crushed at the Mau
vais Pas, had begun her last sleep.
I did not return to Chamounix until
1911. On the day of my arrival I pick
ed up the Oourrier of Mont Blanc.
An English girl. Miss Hates, had quit
the Hotel des Ktrangers October H, 11UO,
sending her baggage to Montreux and
announcing her departure for Switzerland
the next day. She was never seen agal'i,
and every one imagined she had gene to
Switzerland. Only this May the melting
snows disclosed her body in a crevice of
the rocks, far deep below the Mottets
rocks. It is easy to reconstruct the
drama. At a moment when visitors were
almost nil Miss Bates had the impru
dence to cross the sea of Ice without a
guide or companion and continue along
the rocky route, so frequented in the
season. Why did she let go the solid
hand-rail? How did she fall? By what
accident did her poor body remain un
seen? We only know that the snows
finally covered it below the Mauvais Pas.
Regularly the natives exaggerate their
Alpine tragedies. And tourists help them.
w
* *
If you arrive at Grindenwald you hear
that some one fell at Zermatt. and when
you reach Chamounix they are talking of
a futal accident at Grindenwald.
Recklessness with names and dates
magnifies the rumor.
There is always an Englishman who
was at the Hear Hotel tne day that Wal
ton fell, and another who heard by tele
phone how a tourist at the slot-telescope
saw tile rope break and the American
pitch into the abyss.
"What American?"' His name ? was
Campton. or Carruthers. Three English
men, six guides and three porters started
first, and then these others. The Germans
seemed seasoned climbers, and the newly
arrived American hastily bought rope,
pick and creepers to profit by their ex
perience.
"Ah, yes!?Poor Hillings. h*> was from
Denver or Altoona, his pa;amas and
things being marked G. H. In the after
noon. a friend of mine saw a caravan
of six with ropes, knapsacks and skis go
up alone They were guides who had can
celed their engagements to risk death
for the American who would not pay for
their services "
"Quite so. One is not likely to forget
it. They found the Germans safe, below
tlie Couloir, hut the unhappy Harkness
had pitched into a crevasse and was cov
ered with a million tons of snow. The
hotel clerk showed us his police slip, so
often negligently filled up by Americans.
It was a lead pencil scrawl: 'Alvin' or
'Harkins' and 'America'-"
And, i>assing the parlor door, you hear
an impressive female voice concluding:
*
* *
"They passed the night under a ledge
The tempest toppled over seracs as big
as houses with a noise of thunder.
'What time is it?' whispered Weim in a
momentary lull. 'Half-past eight,' re
Plied the porter. 'Then,' whispered
Zeiir.. 'there is great chance that none
of us get back to Chamounix alive.
Yet In the early morning they were able
to drag oft exhausted. Soon Zeim felt
the rope stretch taut; Mr. Blake has
fallen unconscious. His last words were;
'I'm dying, send word to .* He never
finished the sentence. 'Light the lantern,'
said Zeim, in broad daylight. He was
all but blinded by the snow glare. In
this state Blenstok helped him down
ward without the rope; and such was
the pride of those two Zermatt men
that, meeting an ascending caravan,
they refused help for themselves, say
ing, simply: There's a dead American
up there; we're going to Chamounix to
organise his descent.' "
Another'dead American? You have his
name right. Blake. YoU-may. go. off to
St. Gervais and spread the news-run
*
SCENE OF* MANY FATALITIES.
Incrrillblr an It may nrfiu, the spot on the eawiest, cheapest, commonest
ladles' afternoon trip ?<to?? the Sea of lee, requiring not even a guide, and not
considered Alpinism at all, has fifteen victims to Its credit, mostly, ladles, it is
called the Mauvais Pas, "the Had Step."
less, by accident, you step inside that
parlor door aqd perceive that the lady
1b simply reading aloud from "Death Hi
the Eternal Snowg\" published at Ge
neva in 187H? the children so enjoy it.
Thus are-scattered tourist tales of AU*
pine tragedies, by word of mouth, giv
ing a general impression of things heard
and seen, a kind of collective conscious
ness of dangers reveled in by the moat
prudent: and eaoh time you vet the
natfie wrong it is a new tragedy.
In fact, a, search of the -records shows
only forty-three deaths, on Mont Blanc
proper since the first ascent of it by
Balmat in 1786, viz.:
1820?(11th ascent). The Hamel trag
edy. Three guides buried in a crevasse
by a snowslide.
1800?< 172nd ascent). Three Englishmen
and a guide slipped down a snowslope
on the Italian side. Two other guides,
front and back, each holding the rope,
let go?exceptional cowardice.
1SHI?Coutett. a porter for two Austrian
gentlemen, walked into a crevasse under
the eyes of the guides and party.
*
* *
180*'?Sir George Young and two of his
brothers, without guides and roped to
other. descending from the summit, the
foremost slipped and dragged the others
over a precipice onto soft snow. The
youngest brother broke his neck.
18GH?L'apt. Arkwright, a guide and two
porters all buried in a falling ava
lanche.
1870? (445th ascent). Mrs. Marke and
Oliver Gay of Virginia broke through a
snow bridge and ingu!fed in crevasse.
(Jay had "given the lady his arm" to
walk about while others rested.
1870?Ati entire caravan of eleven per
sons perished. Mr. Randall, American
gentleman of fifty, met Mr. Bean, an
other American, and the Rev. McCork
indale of Oxford at their hotel. None had
ever climbed. They hired three guides
and five porters, reached the Grand Mu
lcts refuge and passed the night. The
next day. through the telescopes, Chft
?mounix people saw them start on up,
struggling with wind and whirling snow.
Not one returned. The diary found on
Mr. Bean contained pathetic farewells to
his family.
187-1?Mr. Marshall of I^eeds and two
guides broke through snow into a cre
vasse.
*
* *
1880?A Courmayeur guide and two Ital
ian tourists were resting, high on the
Italian slope. The guide wandered off a
few steps, slipped and dashed into the
abvs?.
1801 (1,257th ascent)?Herr Rothe and a
guide killed by an ice avalanche.
1891?Dr. Jacottet of Chamounix, died of
mountain sickness at the summit.
1802? R. Mettleship, Oxford tutor, died
of exhaustion after a night in a snow
refuge which he helped to dig.
1895?Dr. Schnurdreher of Prague, his
guide and porter found dead in a cre
vasse.
1898-H. N. Riegel, young college man,
from Riegelsville, Pa., with recklessness
equivalent to suicide, actually ascended
Mont Blanc alone, and descending the
Italian slope toward Courmayeur, fell
over a precipice.
1903?J, Staeling and H- Mauduit, mem
bers of the French Alpine Club, lost in
windstorm, wandered all night and died
of exhaustion .wlthtn half an hour of each
other, close to the Vallot refuge. Their
gujde and porter, returning to give news,
fell Into a crevasse, the porter breaking
his skull.
1907 (2,195th ascent)?An unknown
American was killed by falling rocks be
low Mont Maudit.
1910?Mr. Pogson of N>w Orleans (?>,
struck by lightning and killed near Val
lot refuge.
*
* *
Such are the forty-three victims of
Mont Blanc proper, out of a total of
2,552 ascents to the summit. The three
deaths which occurred while I was in
Chamounix last summer occurred, like
others I have omitted, around the edges
of the Monarck mountains. Georges Cail
let, well known Alpinist; young Jacques
de l^epiney of Paris, aged fifteen, but
very strong, with a guide and porter,
started to climb the Aiguille de Plan, one
of the rocky pointed peaks. First a fall
ing rock crushed the porter's skull. The
three survivors were sadly descending to
give the news and form a caravan to
seek the body, when M. C'aillet slipped
and went crashing into a precipice, with
such force that the roj>e that should have
held him (or dragged down the others*
cut on a sharp rock. The fifteen-year-old
boy and guide came into Chamounix
alone. I shall never forget the scene on
the Hotel de l'Angleterre terrace!
It took ten guides two days to get the
unhappy porter's body down and the
funeral, attended by 1.500 persons, was
very impressive. Two days later M. Call
let's body was found by the famous
guide Auguste Blanc. For two days
Blanc was a hero. Everybody wanted
him. And now see the irony of fate. Go
ing up Mont Dolent, as guide to the ex
perienced Dr. Thomas of the Frcnch Al
pine Club, all roped together as usual,
Blanc told them to hold still while he ex
amined a great rock which they must
pass in front of. Standing cautiously by
the edge, he reached out to feel if it were
solid at its base. A touch sufficed. The
equilibrium of the great rock was so deli
cate that it swung back toward Blanc,
crushed him, cut the cord and dashed on
down the mountain, with the thunder of
an avalanche, Blanc's mangled body fol
lowing.
Yet none of these accidents deters climb
ers. The next day Mr. and Mrs. Roop
of Berkeley, Cal.. went up to the summit
of Mont Blanc?the first woman of the
summer of 1911. As yet, this summer, no
woman has done the whole trip, but in
1911 the total was sixteen women, of
whom seven were Americans, and no fa
tal accidents.
*
* *
All depends on the weather, the
atranffth, stamina, and endurance of the
partis*?and their luck.
In vain the rood Isabella Charlet-Strat
ton established her moving pictures!
The dangers which they are supposed .to
warn against poem to make an extra in
centive?perhaps the chief.
Everybody goes to see them.
Rzzzz! On the white sheet two men
toil toward a mountain tavern's porch.
News of ail Alpine tragedy. Out straggle
mountaineers. The telephone is working.
Click' We are at Ctaamounix, at the
guide's corner. Tourists move off. de
pressed at their canceled dates- The first
rescue party starts.
<*lick! The scene shifts to the well
known bridle path, taken alike by Mont
];iaiic climbers and mere muleback tour
ists to the glacier bottoms. What are
those long sticks they carry? Husht
They'll improvise sleds with those skls-?
when they find the bodies.
Click! They are among the rocks.
Click! Now the snow. The scenes shift
rapidly. Haif I he Mont Blaijc ascent 1*
made in fifteen minutes. Yet we see it is
a vast world up there. Tho route goes on
interminably. Now we are among the
crevasses of the plateau. It is blue twi
light up there?trick of tinted films, but*
most uncanny. Click! The gTeat scene
atnid ghostly seracs and black gulfs.
The rescuers move in single file. The
cinematograph moves with them. A guide
throws up ills arms. The trail! On In the
blue twilight. They spread in a fan. No
need to ask why they stop reverently at
that chasm. A climbing pick that sticks
beyond Its broken-down edge explains.
* *
A young guide volunteers the perilous
descent. We tremble as we knot the rope
beneath his arms. They step back to pay
it out. He waves a farewell?and slides
over the edge, into the darkness.
By the paying-out rope we know the
awful depth. They must be dead down
there! A chill creeps on us as the fore
most guide receives the signal tug What
do they let down now? A simple rope,
weighted with a pick! The tale is told.
He needs no aid down there. And as they
pud. up slides a long black mass. Down
goes the rope again; up comes another.
They lie there, gruesome, as they pull the
living guide up. With the skis for run
ners they transform "them" to sledKes.
And as they move down they arc steadied
from behind with a short rope, lest "they**
slip.
I asked Wertheim. the famous L<on?
doner, who has been doing all the "nef.
die" peaks of Chamounii, how the cine
matograph scene impressed him.
"Oh," he answered, "danger is the
main attraction, as the natives well
know. Just as they refrain from pub
lishing all tunnel and railway mountain
accidents, so they spread at large all Al
pine climbing tragedies. They add to the
general Alpine Interest and they stimu
late ambition."
Isabella, most intrepid of climbers in
your beautiful and brilliant youth, ver
tigo-stricken and fearsome in the kindly
autumn of your days, how would this
misunderstanding of your warning pic
tures shock you!
STERLING HElLlCi