sand feet in depth from the elevation over which their pathway lay. The setting sun The setting sun admonished them that they had barely time to return to camp before dark. They reached there in time to join the boys in a game of snow-balling, a singular amusement for the last days of July.

At half past four the next morning, the thermometer being 11° above zero, the party was aroused, and after partaking of a hearty breakfast, each man provided with an alpine staff, and a bacon sandwich for mid-day lunch, departed from camp, intent upon reaching the topmost summit of the loftiest Teton. The first two miles of the journey lay directly up the cañon, and over countless heaps of fallen trees. This tedious course of travel only terminated to give place to another, still more wearisome, through a ravine, and up a steep acclivity which we were enabled only to ascend by clinging to the points and angles of projecting rocks. Pausing at the summit to take breath, we saw lying between us and the first icy ridge a vast field of snow. Our aneroids showed that we were 9,000 feet above the ocean level-a height which entirely overlooked the walls of the cañon we had ascended, and took in an immense view of the surrounding country. Far as the eye could reach, looking northward, peak rose above peak, and range stretched beyond range, all glistening in the sunbeams like solid crystal. In the immediate vicinity of our position, the eye roamed over vast snow-fields, rocky chasms, straggling pine forests, and countless cascades.

The snow-field over which we next traveled, instead of the smoothness of a freshlycovered plain, was as irregular, as full of hummocks and billows as the rocks beneath it and the storms which for years had swept over it could possibly make it. It presented the appearance of an ocean frozen when the storm was at its height. Clambering over the first ridge, we traveled on in the direction of the second, which obstructed our view of the Tetons. Our route was over huge bowlders alternated with snow, and at this hour of the morning, before the sun had visited it, no traveling could be more unpleasant. We found our alpenstocks of infinite service, and we may thank them for the many falls we escaped upon the slippery surface, as well as for the comparative safety of many we made. Two miles of this kind of exercise brought us to the second ridge, which was composed of crumbling rock, and at least six hundred feet above the level of the field we had passed over. The view

from this point was magnificent, but almost disheartening, from the increasing obstruction it presented to Our progress. Another stretch of snow, rising to a sharp ridge, lay in front of us, at least five miles in length, across which, in our line of travel, was another upheaval of crumbling rock. On our right, a thousand feet below, was the open, blue Lake Cowan.

Resuming labor, some of our party crawled around the side of the gorge, preferring rather to cross over the snowy ridge on our left, than to descend the slippery side of the elevation upon which we stood. Several projecting ledges of crumbling rock lay between them and the snow, from which, as they passed over them, detached masses rolled down the bank endangering the lives of all below. Mr. Beckler, by a sudden jump, barely escaped being crushed by a large rock, which whistled by him like an avalanche. As he jumped he fell, and rolled down upon an out-cropping bowlder, receiving an injury which disabled him. Others of the party slid down the ridge unharmed, and encountered fewer difficulties in their journey along its base than its sides. The snow in the long ridge was at least two hundred and fifty feet in depth, and apparently as solid as the granite it covered. After a walk of more than a mile upon its glassy surface, we made a long descent to the right, and passed over a lake about 600 yards long by 200 wide, covered with ice from twelve to fifteen feet thick. There was nothing about this frozen water to indicate that it had ever been open. The ice which bound it, as well as the snow surrounding, seemed eternal. So pure and clear was this frozen surface, that one could see, even at its greatest thickness, the water gurgling beneath. At the distance from which we first saw it, we supposed this lake lay at the very base of the Tetons, but after we passed over it, there still stretched between us and that point two miles of corrugated snow. Still receding and receding, those lofty peaks seemed to move before us like the Israelites' pillar of cloud, and had we not seen this last snow-field actually creeping up to the top, and into the recesses of that lofty crest, from which the peaks shoot upward to the heavens, we should most willingly have turned our faces campward from the present point of vision, and written over the whole expedition, "Impossible."

There is no greater wonder in mountain scenery on this continent, than the tendency it has to shorten distance to the eye and lengthen it to the feet. A range of moun

tains apparently ten miles distant may be fifty miles away. A plain, to all appearances as smooth as a floor, is often broken into deep ravines, yawning chasms, and formidable foot-hills. Everything in distance and surface is deceptive.

Beyond the lake we ascended the last rocky ridge, more precipitous than the others, to take a last look at the dreary landscape. We seemed to be in the midst of an arctic region. All around was snow and rock and ice. Forward or backward everything was alike bleak, barren and inhospitable; but our great labor was still unperformed. Encouraged by the certainty that we were upon the last of those great snow environments which lay at the feet of the mountains, we pushed onward to the base of the immense saddle between them. At this point several of the party, worn out with the day's exertions, and despairing of reaching the lofty summit which still towered five thousand feet in mockery above them, abandoned all further effort. Our kind surgeon, Dr. Reagles, had considerately accompanied us to the base of the ridge, provided with instruments and bandages in case of accident.

We lost no time in selecting from the numerous ravines that were made by the erosion of the friable rock from between the ascending granite ledges, such an one as we believed might be traversed to the top of the ridge without meeting lateral obstructions. Some of our party, mistaken in this, encountered when midway up the side a precipitous wall of granite, which made their return imperative. Five only of the company, after clambering over a snow-slide a thousand feet or more in width, reached the depression upon the right of the Grand Teton which we called "The Saddle." The ascent thus far had tested the endurance of all who made it. It was only difficult or dangerous to those who had selected the wrong passage through the ledges. We ate part of our luncheon while upon "The Saddle," which we reached about noon, and rested there a quarter of an hour beneath the shadow of the Great Teton. seemed, as we looked up its erect sides, to challenge us to attempt its ascent. As we gazed upon the glaciers, the concavities, the precipices which now in more formidable aspect than ever presented themselves to us, we were almost ready to admit that the task we had undertaken was impossible to perform. The mountain side, from the Saddle to the summit of the Grand Teton, arose at an angle of sixty degrees; broken by innumerable cavities and precipices.

It

Our leader, Captain Stevenson, had pushed on ahead, and when Messrs. Hamp, Spencer and the writer had reached "The Saddle," he was far up the mountain, lost to view in its intricacies. Our fears concerning him were allayed by occasionally seeing his footprints in the débris. Very soon after we commenced the ascent, we found ourselves clambering around projecting ledges of perpendicular rocks, inserting our fingers into crevices so far beyond us that we reached them with dif ficulty, and poising our weight upon shelves not exceeding two inches in width, jutting from the precipitous walls of gorges from fifty to three hundred feet in depth. This toilsome process, which severely tested our nerves, was occasionally interrupted by large banks of snow, which had lodged upon some of the projections or in the concavities of the mountain side,-in passing over the yielding surface of which we obtained tolerable foothold, unless, as was often the case, there was a groundwork of ice beneath. When this occurred, we found the climbing difficult and hazardous. In many places, the water from the melting snow had trickled through it, and congealed the lower surface. This, melting in turn, had worn long openings between the ice and the mountain side, from two to four feet in width, down which we could look two hundred feet or more. Great care was necessary to avoid slipping into these crevices. An occasional spur of rock or ice, connecting the ice-wall with the mountain, was all that held these patches of snow in their places. In Europe they would have been called glaciers. Distrustful as we all were of their permanency, we were taught, before our toil was ended, to wish there had been more of them. As a general thing, they were more easily surmounted than the bare rock precipices, though on one occasion they came near proving fatal to one of our party.

Mr. Hamp, fresh from his home in England, knew little of the properties of snow and ice, and at one of the critical points in our ascent, trusting too much to their support, slipped and fell. For a moment his destruction seemed inevitable, but with admirable dexterity he threw himself astride the icy ridge projecting from the mountain. Impelled by this movement, with one leg dangling in the crevice next the mountain side, and the other sweeping the snow outside the glacier, he slid with fearful rapidity, at an angle of fortyfive degrees, for the distance of fifty feet, falling headlong into a huge pile of soft snow. which prevented his descent of a thousand feet or more down the precipitous side of the

mountain. I saw him fall, and supposed he would be dashed to pieces. A moment afterwards he crawled from the friendly snowheap and rejoined us unharmed, and we all united in a round of laughter, as thankful as it was hearty. This did not quiet that tremulousness of the nerves, of which extreme and sudden danger is so frequent a cause, and underlying our joy there was still a feeling of terror which we could not shake off. Pressing carefully forward, we attained a recess in the rocks, six hundred feet below the summit, where we halted.

While resting here, far above us, we heard the loud shouts of Captain Stevenson, which we answered. Soon he joined us, with the information that he had been arrested in his ascent, at a point two hundred feet above us, by an intervening rock, just too high for him to scale. It was perpendicular, and sur

MOUNT HAYDEN AND MOUNT MORAN-FROM THE WEST.

mounted by a wide sheet of ice stretching upward towards the summit, and covered with snow. He had made several ineffectual efforts to reach the overhanging edge of the rock, and at one time lost his foothold, his entire weight coming upon his hands while he hung with his face to the wall. It was impossible without a leap to reach a standing place, and by loosening his hold without one he would drop several hundred feet down the mountain. Fortunately, there was a coating of ice and snow, which reached midway from his feet to his arms, and into this, by repeated kicks with the toe of his boot, he worked an indentation that afforded a poise for one foot. This enabled him to spring on one side to a narrow bench of rock, where he was safe.

We had periled life and limb to little purpose, if the small matter of five hundred feet was to prevent the accomplishment of

our task. We determined, therefore, to ascend with Captain Stevenson, and make another effort to scale the rock. When I saw the perilous position from which he had escaped, I could not but regard his preservation as almost miraculous. In spite of nervous exhaustion, Mr. Hamp had persevered in the attempt to climb the mountain, but as all upward progress from this point was extremely hazardous, he and Mr. Spencer were persuaded to avail themselves of a foot-hold in the rocks, while Captain Stevenson and I made a last essay to reach the pinnacle.

A rope which I had brought with me, cast over a slight projection above our heads, enabled me to draw myself up so as to fix my hands in a crevice of the rock, and then, with my feet resting on the shoulders of Captain Stevenson, I easily clambered to the top. Letting the rope down to Captain Stevenson, he grasped it firmly, and by the aid of his staff soon worked his way to my side. The shelving expanse of ice, overlying the rocky surface at an angle of 70°, and fastened to it by slight arms of the same brittle material, now presented an obstacle apparently insurmountable. Beside the danger of incurring a slide which would insure a rapid descent to the base of the mountain, there was the other risk, that the frail fastenings which held the ice-sheet to the rocks might give way while we were crawl

STEVENSON IN PERIL.

ing over it, and the whole field be carried with us down the terrible precipice. But the top was just before us, not three hundred feet away, and we preferred the risk to an abandonment of the task. Laying hold of the rocky points at the side of the ice-sheet, we broke with our feet in its surface a series of steps, up which we ascended, at an angle deflecting not more than twenty degrees from a vertical line, one hundred and seventy-five feet, to its topmost junction with the rock.

The peril to which this performance ex posed us was now fully revealed, and had we seen it at the foot of the ice-sheet, the whole world would not have tempted us to the effort we had made. Why the entire mass of ice, yielding to our exertions, was not de tached from its slender fastenings and hurled down the mountain is a mystery. On look ing down through the space which separated it from the rock, I could see half a dozen ic tentacles, all of small size, reaching from wal to wall. Seemingly the weight of a bir would have loosened the entire field. W felt, as we planted our feet on the soli mountain, that we had escaped a great per -and quenching our thirst from one of the numerous little rivulets which trickled dow the rock, set resolutely at work to clambe over the fragments and piles of granite whic lay between us and the summit. This wa more tedious than difficult, but we wer amply rewarded when, at three o'clock P.M. after ten hours of the severest labor of m life, we stepped upon the highest poin of the Grand Teton. Man measures hi triumphs by the toil and exposure incurre in the attainment of them. We felt that w had achieved a victory, and that it wa something for ourselves to know-a solitar satisfaction-that we were the first white me who had ever stood upon the spot we the occupied. Others might come after us, bu to be the first where a hundred had faile was no braggart boast.

The several pinnacles of the Grand Teto seen from the valley seem of equal heigh but the inequality in this respect was ver apparent at the top. The main summi separated by erosions from the surroundin knobs, embraced an irregular area of thin by forty feet. Exposure to the winds ke it free from snow and ice, and its bald, d nuded head was worn smooth by the el mental warfare waged around it. With th unshorn beams of a summer sun shining fi apon us, we were obliged to don our ove coats for protection against the cold mounta breeze. Indeed, so light was the atmospher that our respiration from its frequency becan almost burdensome, and we experienced, no slight degree, how at such an elevati one could at a single exposure suffer t opposite intensities of heat and cold. Abo the ice-belt, over which we had made such perilous ascent, we saw in the débrist fresh track of that American Ibex, t mountain sheep,-the only animal known clamber up the sides of our loftiest peak Flowers also, of beauteous hue, and delica

fragrance, peeped through the snow, whereever a rocky jut had penetrated the icy surface.

On the top of an adjacent pinnacle, but little lower than the one we occupied, we found a circular enclosure, six feet in diameter, composed of granite slabs, set up endwise, about five feet in height. It was evidently intended, by whomsoever built, as a protection against the wind, and we were only too glad to avail ourselves of it while we finished our luncheon. On entering it we found ourselves a foot deep in the detritus, which had been worn by the canker of time from the surrounding walls. The great quantity of this substance bore evidence to the antiquity of the structure. Evidently the work of the Indians, it could not have been constructed less than a century ago, and it is not improbable that its age may reach back for many centuries. A period of time which human experience cannot

calculate, was required to produce this wonderful disintegration of solid granite. It was the great wonder of our day's work, and proved that even the Indians, usually so incurious, had some time been influenced by the same spirit which had inspired us. No such curiosity, I imagine, affects the Indians of our day. The toil and exposure of a scramble up the Teton would daunt the bravest of them, if he should happen to possess energy enough to attempt it. Better men than any that now belong to the North-Western tribes, must have ascended this mountain, and left this evidence of their visit; but what motive save that of the merest curiosity or a trial of skill could have caused the ascension, it would be impossible to determine.

Far away on the northern horizon, scarcely distinguishable from the clouds with which they are intermingled, we saw the Belt, Ma

VOL. VI.-10

NARROW ESCAPE OF MR. HAMP.