attered all over the glacier gleamed white in the
sunshine, deep-blue in the shadow. We wound our way downward, passing
camp site after camp site, until at the first place we camped in the
Grand Basin we stopped for lunch. Then we made the traverse under the
cliffs to the Parker Pass, which we reached at 1.30 P. M. The sun was
hot; there was not a breath of wind; we were exceedingly thirsty and we
decided to light the primus stove and make a big pot of tea and
replenish the thermos bottles before attempting the descent of the
ridge. While this was doing a place was found to cache the minimum
thermometer and a tin can that had held a photographic film, in which we
had placed a record of our ascent. Above, we had not found any
distinctive place in which a record could be deposited with the
assurance that it would be found by any one seeking it. One feels sure
that in the depth of winter very great cold must occur even at this
elevation. Yet we should have liked to leave it much higher. Without
some means, which we did not possess, of marking a position, there
would, however, have been little use in leaving it amid the boulders
where we hunted unsuccessfully for Professor Parker's instrument. We had
hoped to be able to grave some sign upon the rocks with the geological
hammer, but the first time it was brought down upon the granite its
point splintered in the same exasperating way that the New York dealer's
fancy ice-axes behaved when it was attempted to put them to practical
use. "Warranted cast steel" upon an implement ought to be a warning not
to purchase it for mountain work. Tool-steel alone will serve.

Our little record cache at the Parker Pass, placed at the foot of the
west or upward-facing side of the great slab which marks the natural
camping site, should stand there for many years. It is not a place where
snow lies deep or long, and it will surely be found by any who seek it.
We took our last looks up into the Grand Basin, still brilliant in the
sunshine, our last looks at the summit, still cloudless and clear. There
was a melancholy even in the midst of triumph in looking for the last
time at these scenes where we had so greatly hoped and endeavored--and
had been so amply rewarded. We recalled the eager expectation with which
we first gazed up between these granite slabs into the long-hidden
basin, a week before, and there was sadness in the feeling that in all
probability we should never have this noble view a