humor and good fellowship at the campfire. But if a personal digression may be permitted, I would like to refer briefly to a trip we enjoyed together in the High Sierra in the summer of 1903, in the course of which he pointed out a multitude of features of geological significance and glacial sculpture that had escaped my observation during previous field-work in the region; while reciprocally I was able to bring to his attention certain habits of the rock coney and of a rare animal of the genus Aplodontia, that greatly excited his interest.

From the towering summit of Mt. Conness, reached at 8:30 in the morning after a cold night in our sleeping-bags among the timber-line mats of dwarf white-bark pine high up on the mountain side, we enjoyed a prospect of singular glory. The atmosphere was unusually clear, the smoke-haze of the lower country having not yet arisen. We looked out upon a broken sea of cold gray granite whose peaks, domes, and ridges stretched from the Matterhorn to Mt. Galen Clark, and from the splendid ramparts of Tenaya and Yosemite to the lofty crowns of Lyell and Ritter; while to the east, though the waters of Mono Lake were hidden by the crest of the Sierra, the magnificent chain of volcanic cones known as Mono Craters was in full view, and beyond, in the far distance, arose the lofty Desert Ranges of Nevada. It was an inspiring picture— one that rekindled Gilbert's youthful enthusiasm and tempted him to remain; but the rising wind, making the descent dangerous, forced a retreat before the morning was half spent.

Gilbert's description of another scene, though in a remote part of the west, is so to the point-so appreciative, so full of feeling, so suggestive of the man and of the emotions he must have had when standing on the summit of Conness-that its introduction here seems most fitting. It runs thus:

"One summer afternoon, 35 years ago, I rode along a high plateau in southern Utah. My companions were Hoxie, a young army officer; Weiss, a veteran topographer, who mapped our route as we went; and Kipp, an assistant whose primary duty was to carry a barometer. Not far behind us was packtrain. We were explorers, studying the geography and geology of a strange land. About us was a forest of pine and fir, but we rode through a lane of sunlit prairie cradled in a shal

low valley. Suddenly the floor of the prairie came to an end, and we halted on the crest of a cliff overlooking a vast expanse of desert lowland. The desert was not a monotonous plain, like that of northwestern Utah, but a land of mesas, cañons, buttes, and cliffs, all so bare that the brilliant colors of their rocks shone forth-orange, red, chocolate, blue, and white-fading slowly into the gray of the remote distance. We were looking across the broad barren tract through which the Colorado winds in Glen and Marble cañons, and of which the Painted Desert of Arizona is a minor division. To most of us it was a supreme vision of beauty and grandeur as well as desolation, a scene for which words were inadequate; and we stood spellbound. The silence was at last broken by Kipp, who exclaimed, 'Well, we're nicely caught!' and his discordant note so carried us from the sublime to the ridiculous that our tense emotion found first expression in a laugh.

"The reminiscent story has been told to illustrate the relation of the traveler's appreciation to his point of view. Kipp saw only that the cliff at our feet barred further progress in that direction, and all that had appealed to the others most strongly was lost on him. Hoxie, Weiss, and I doubtless saw different things in the landscape, for we were trained in diverse schools, but our personal points of view all included the esthetic factor, and that factor lifted us above the plane of petty annoyance into a realm of exalted emotion. We saw what we had eyes to see. Our point of view was the measure of our perception and appreciation."*

When a member of the Harriman Alaska Expedition, in 1899, Gilbert seemed still in the prime of physical vigor, never hesitating to undertake active and difficult work among mountains and glaciers, undeterred by hardship or danger. His most noteworthy side trips perhaps were one to the glaciers of Geike and Reid inlets, traversing in a small boat, accompanied by Muir and Palache, the ice-choked channel of the northwest arm of Glacier Bay, and camping on the bare rock close to the ice; and one in Prince William Sound, where, with Coville and Palache, he explored and mapped the most stupendous glacier visited by the expedition, a glacier having a sea-wall frontage

* SIERRA CLUB BULLETIN, p. 225, Jan., 1908.

LE CONTE MEMORIAL LODGE, DECEMBER, 1918 Being reconstructed in Yosemite Valley for the Sierra Club by Camp Curry Company, halfway between the old site and Sentinel Hotel

Photo by J. N. Le Conte

of four miles. This he named after the geologist and explorer I. C. Russell, but later, finding Russell's name preoccupied by a glacier in the Copper River region, this one was rechristened the Columbia.

When steaming northward along the lofty ice-wall of La Perouse Glacier, he noticed a number of tilted trees near the north edge of the ice, and induced Mr. Harriman and one or two others to accompany him ashore in a whale-boat, landing in a stiff surf, by which they were properly soaked. Climbing the lateral moraine to the edge of the forest, he was much interested in finding the foremost trees ground into pulp and splinters, intermixed with the material of the moraine-the result of a recent northward advance of this corner of the glacier.

During a brief landing at St. Matthews Island in Bering Sea, Gilbert made an ornithological discovery of considerable interest, finding two nests of the white Hyperborean Snowflake -one of the rarest and most beautiful of American birds and one not known to breed anywhere in the world except on this island and its close neighbor, Hall Island. The bird belongs to a group whose members usually place their nests on the ground among grass or other plants; but those discovered by Gilbert were in holes a foot or two deep on the sea-face of cliffs an extraordinary location, due without doubt to the abundance of the bird's arch enemy, the arctic fox.

In later years, when the strain of continued mental effort brought on distress of the head, he was forced to shorten the hours of work with resulting increase in the time available for other occupations. He had been a famous walker, but at this period was no longer able to do much tramping and had to seek exercise and amusement in other ways. Fortunately, he was fond of canoeing, and in favorable weather, when in Washington, might be seen paddling on the Potomac River nearly every afternoon. At other times, if like-minded companions were available, he played billiards, dominoes, or cards, or read aloud; and when alone, alternated reading and solitaire. Once or twice a year he went to see a game of ball, or took the children of some friend to the circus; but he did not care much for the theater or for music, and needed the stimulus of companionship to indulge in either. He disliked public meetings