BOOKS.
THE ASCENT OF MOUNT McKINLEY.* WE have written "Mount McKinley" at the head of this review with some hesitation, for Dr. Hodson Stuck, the plucky Alaskan missionary who with his companions was the first to
• She 41resst of Denali (Mouse McKinley). By Hodson scow, D.D. mos- hated. London , Bickers and Bon. ae. Bd. not] reach the top of this famous mountain, implores the world to call it by its aucient native name—" Denali." Denali means "the great one." It is the Olympus of the Alaskan native, the home of his legends, the object of both his respect and his affection. The nearest great height to Denali is called "Denali's Wife." About eighteen years ago a prospector in Alaska saw Denali for the first time, and as it was not already known to American map-makers he named it after Mr. McKinley, who was then the Republican candidate for the Presidency. Some years later an American officer named the companion peak'• Mount Foraker" after Mr. Joseph Foraker, the Ohio politician. It is impossible to disagree with Dr. Stuck that the native names are more beautiful and more interesting, and we like the chivalry which drives him to resist on behalf of inarticulate people the imposition of brand-new names upon immemorial places. We have used the name "Mount McKinley" at the head of this article only for the purpose of identification. Under that name it has become known to all the world as the highest peak in North America—twenty thousand feet. It is also famous—notorious perhaps we should suy—as the scene of the fictitious climb of Dr. Cook. The popularity of his book describing his climb, and the readiness with which his claim was accepted, evidently encouraged that unhappy and ill-balanced man to proceed to hie subsequent claim to have discovered the North Pole. Dr. Stuck does Dr. Cook the justice to say that his pioneer and survey work on the lower slopes of Denali was valuable. But Dr. Cook's claim to have climbed to the top of the mountain is now trebly exploded: first by the marvellous climb in 1910 of a party of miners and prospectors, who were inexperienced as climber's, but conquered most of the difficulties of the mountain, perhaps because they ignorantly despised them ; secondly by the Parker-Browne- LeVoy Expedition of 1912, which climbed within three or four hundred feet of the summit, but was defeated by bad weather and want of supplies ; and thirdly by Dr. Stuck. The Parker-Browne-LeVoy party would probably have succeeded had they originally approached the mountain from the north instead of from the impossible south aide, and bad they not laden themselves with unnecessary supplies of pemmican which were found to be uneatable when the critical time came. As Dr. Stuck says, to take pemmican to Denali is like taking coals to Newcastle, for there are plenty of caribou and mountain sheep about. Dr. Cook in his narrative talked of "the heaven-neraped granite of the top" of the mountain, and the dazzling whiteness of the frosted granite blocks," but we know now that there is not a rook to he seen on the mountain above nineteen thousand feet.
The climb of the miners and prospectors in 1910 was a thing unique in the history of mountaineering. Although Dr. Cook's claim was accepted outside Alaska, the men who worked in the placer-raining regions round the base of Denali laughed at it. Some of these men, with a practical instinct which was more serviceable than literary criticism. detected the place in Dr. Cook's book—To the Top of the Continent, published in 1908—where definite description was succeeded by vague "fine writing." They were convinced that the ascent had never been made, and they determined to put the matter at rest by climbing the mountain themselves- They had seen vain attempts made by mountaineers equipped with scientific instruments; they would try with no special equipment at all. The organizer of the party was one Lloyd, but he turned back before the latter part of the climb was attempted. How two of the party scaled the North Peak of Denali—it was the higher South Peak which was climbed for the first time by Dr. Stuck— is described as follows
"On 10th April, Taylor, Anderson, and lefoGanogill set out about two in the morning with great alimbing-irons strapped to their moccasins and hooked pike-poles in their heads. Disdaining the rope and cutting no steps, at wee 'every man for himself,' with reliance solely upon the crampons. They went up the ridge to the Grand Bean, crossed the ice to the North Peak, and proceeded to climb it, carrying the fourteen-foot flagstaff with them. Within perhaps five hundred feet of the summit, MeGonegill, outstripped by Taylor and Andersen, and fearful of the return over the slippery ice-incrusted rocks if he went farther, turned back, but Taylor and Anderson reached the top (about twenty thousand feet above the sea) and firmly planted the flagstaff, which is there yet. This is the true narrative of a most extraordinary feat, unique—the writer has no hesitation in claiming—in all the annals of mountaineering. He has been at the pains of talking with every member of the actual climbing party with a view to sifting the matter thoroughly. For, largely by the fault of these men themselves, through a mistaken though not unchivalrous sense of loyalty to the organizer of the expedition, much incredulity was aroused in Alaska touching their exploit. It was most unfortunate that any mystery was made about the details, most unfortunate that in the news- paper accounts false claims were set up. Surely the merest common sense should have dictated that in the amount of an ascent undertaken with the prime pure of proving that Doctor Cook had not made the ascent, and had falsified his narrative, everything should be frank and overboard; but it was not so. A narrative, gathered from Lloyd himself and agreed to by the others, was reduced to writing by Mr. W. K Thompson, an able journalist of Fairbanks, and was cold to a newspaper syndicate. The account the writer has examined was • featured ' in the New York Sunday Timed of the 6th June, 1910. In that account Lloyd is made to claim unequivocally that he himself reached both summits of the mountain. 'There were two anmmits and wo climbed them both '; and again, 'When I reached the coast summit' are reported in quotation marks as from his lips. As a matter of fate, Lloyd himself reached neither summit, nor was much above the glacier floor; and the south or °east summit, the higher of the two, was not attempted by the party at alL There is no question that the party could have climbed the South Peak, though by reason of its greater distance it is safe to say that it could not have been reached, as the North Peak was, in one march from the ridge camp. It meet have involved a camp in the Grand Benin with all the delay and the labour of relaying the stuff up there. But the men who accomplished the astonishing feat of climbing the North Peak, in one almost superhuman march from the saddle of the Northeast Ridge, could most certainly have climbed the South Peak toe."
We have referred to this adventure at length becanee theta has been much misunderstanding about it. It was an extraordinary incident in every way. It was more extra- ordinary as a feat than Dr. Stuck's own climb ; but the climbers, instead of taking their legitimate award of fame. allowed a largely fictitious narrative to be put forward in their name. These strange fellows most have been as ignorant of the One foundations of fame as they were of the true dangers of mountaineering. No wonder discredit was cast on them Dr. Stuck when he ascended Denali did not know whether to believe or to reject their story, but he saw their flagstaff on the North Peak, and thus established their claim for ever.
Dr. Stuck'e own success was a triumph of organization. Hie. American companions, Messrs. Karatens and Tatum, were loyal and sturdy, and the natives employed enthusiaetie and trustworthy. Although failure was provided against in every way possible, the expedition was a cheap one as expe- ditions go. Dr. Stuck had saved his spare money for years for the purpose. It was an irony that when everything had been so carefully thought out the expedition should nearly have failed through the carelessness of one of the party— generously unnamed—who threw down a match and set fire to the chief cache. The most interesting physical fact noted by Dr. Stuck was that the most important snow slope which had to be ascended had entirely changed its character since Messrs. Parker, Browne, and LeVoy had visited the mountain. The change was due to an earthquake which occurred just after these three men had descended. They certainly had a lucky escape. Had their food lasted they would have been on the mountain when the earthquake came, and they must have been killed. Dr. Stock had expected a comparatively easy climb up this slope, but as it was it took three weeks to cut steps up the jumbled surface. Above it the party reached the most dangerous spot of the whole climb "Directly below the earthquake cleavage was an enormous mass of ice, detached from the cleavage wall. From below, it had seemed connected with that wall, and much time and toil had been expended in cutting steps up it and along its crest, only to find a groat gulf fixed; so it was necessary to pass along its base. Now from its base there fell away at an exceedingly sharp angle, scarcely exceeding the angle of repose, a slope of soft, loose snow, and the very top of that slope where it actually joined the wall of ice offered the only possible passage. The wall was in the main perpendicular, and turned at a right angle midway. Just where it turned, a great mass bulged out and overhung. This traverse was se long that with both ropes joined it was still necessary for three of the four members of the party to bo on the snow slope at once, two men out of sight of the ethers. Any one familiar with Alpine work will maize immediately the great danger of such a traverse. There wee, however, no avoiding it, or, at whatever cents we should have done ea Twice already the passage had been made by Karsten° and Walter, but not with heavy packs, and one man was always on ice while the other was on mow. This time all four must pass, bearing all that men could bear. Cautiously the first man ventured out, eetting foot exactly where foot had been set before, the three others solidly anchored on the ice, paying out the rope and keeping it taut. When all the first sectiou of rope was gone, the second man started, and when, in turn, his rope was paid out, the third man started, leaving the last mast on the ice holding to the rope. This, of course, was the most dangerous part of this passage. It one of the three had
slipped it would have boon almost impossible for the others to hold him, and if he had pulled the others down, it would have been quite impossible for the solitary man on the ice to have withstood the strain."
The author suffered more than his companions from "mountain sickness," which he describes as being not sickness but want of breath. We must quote the account of the climbing of the last hundred foot:— "Walter, who had been in the lead all day, was the first to scramble up ; a native Alaskan, he is the first human being to set foot upon the top of Alaska's great mountain, and he had well earned the lifelong distinction. Karate. and Tatum were bard upon his heels, but the last man on the rope, in his enthusiasm and excite- ment somewhat overpassing his narrow wind margin, had almost to be hauled up the last few feet, and fell unconscious for a moment upon the floor of the little snow basin that occupies the top of the mountain. This, then, is the actual summit, a little crater-like snow basin, sixty or sixty-five feet long and twenty to twenty-five feet wide, with a haycock of mow at either end—the south one a little higher than the north."
It was a lucky day for them. The mountain, usually clothed in mist, stood out in startling clearness, and when the top was reached they saw with dramatic suddenness the great out- spreading mass of Denali's Wife. Few climbers have had such good fortune on a supreme occasion, but few have better deserved IL
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