The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature
and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880, by Various
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Title: Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880
Author: Various
Release Date: July 13, 2009 [EBook #29395]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE
OF
_POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE._
OCTOBER, 1880.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1880, by J. B.
LIPPINCOTT & CO., in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at
Washington.
A CHAPTER OF AMERICAN EXPLORATION.
[Illustration: GLEN CANON.]
Those adventurous gentlemen who derive exhilaration from peril, and
extract febrifuge for the high pressure of a too exuberant constitution
from the difficulties of the Alps, cannot find such peaks as the
Aiguille Verte and the Matterhorn, with their friable and precipitous
cliffs, among the Rocky Mountains. The geological processes have been
gentler in evolving the latter than the former, and in the proper season
summits not less elevated nor less splendid or comprehensive than that
of the Matterhorn, upon which so many lives have been defiantly wasted,
may be attained without any great degree of danger or fatigue. All but
the apex may often be reached in the saddle. The _bergschrund_ with its
fragile lip of ice, the _crevasse_ with its treacherous bridges, and the
_avalanche_ which an ill-timed footstep starts with overwhelming havoc,
do not threaten the explorer of the Western mountains; and ordinarily he
passes from height to height--from the base with its wreaths of
evergreens to the zone where vegetation is limited to the gnarled
dwarf-pine, from the foot-hills to the basin of the crisp alpine lake
far above the life-limits--without once having to scale a cliff,
supposing, of course, that he has chosen the best path. The trail may be
narrow at times, with nothing between it and a gulf, and it may be
pitched at an angle that compels the
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