The Last Secrets: The Final Mysteries of ExplorationBuchan, John
History
The Last Secrets: The Final Mysteries of Exploration
Buchan, John
Discoveries in geography; Explorers
Next year the actual summit was reached. The late Dr. Hudson Stuck,
the Archdeacon of the Yukon, ever since he came to the country nine
years before, had contemplated an attempt on the mountain. In the
autumn of 1912 he sent on supplies by way of the Kantishna River to a
point fifty miles from the base. In March, 1913, he and Mr. W. P.
Karstens set out to reach the peak from the north. At their base
camp, 4,000 feet up, they made a fresh supply of caribou pemmican
which proved more satisfactory than that used by Professor Parker and
Mr. Belmore Browne. The road taken was the same as that of their
predecessors--up the Muldrow Glacier and then up the central
North-East ridge. They found that the earthquake of 1912 had
completely changed the character of that ridge, and instead of being
a reasonable snow gradient, it had become a confused mass of rock and
ice, most difficult to surmount. Bit by bit they forced their way up
it till they reached the upper basin, and then, being favoured with
clear, bright, still weather, they managed to attain the highest
point, the southern summit. There had been a story of two miners,
called McGonogall and Anderson, who had reached the top in 1910. Dr.
Stuck discovered that the top they had reached was the lesser
northern peak, for he saw the remains of their flagstaff.
With this ascent the story of the conquest of Mount McKinley is
complete.*
* Dr. Stuck argued with much reason that the present name of the
mountain is unsuitable, and that the Indian name "Denali"--which
means "the Great One"--should be restored. It is to be feared that
the suggestion comes too late in the day. Ever since the expedition
of 1906 Mount McKinley has become too familiar a name in the Western
Hemisphere to be readily changed for another. The story of the
Parker-Browne expedition is contained in _The Conquest of Mount
McKinley_ (New York, Putnams, 1913), and that of Dr. Stuck in _The
Ascent of Denali_ (New York, Scribners, 1914).
VII
THE HOLY CITIES OF ISLAM
THE HOLY CITIES OF ISLAM
(_Map_, p. 216.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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