Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Josephine Paolucci and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. 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 use of "all-fours;" but with patience and discretion the ultimate peak is conquered without rope-ladder or ice-axe, and the vastness of the world below, gray and cold at some hours, and at others lighted with a splendor which words cannot transcribe, is revealed to the adventurer as satisfaction for his toil.