s of
travel which we have seen this year, or, indeed, any year."

--_New York Tribune._

"This startlingly brilliant book."--_Literary Digest._

TO

SIR MARTIN CONWAY

ONE OF THE WORLD'S GREATEST TRAVELLERS AND CLIMBERS WHOSE FASCINATING
NARRATIVES HAVE KINDLED IN MANY BREASTS A LOVE OF THE GREAT HEIGHTS AND
A DESIRE TO ATTAIN UNTO THEM

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED WITH RESPECT AND ADMIRATION

PREFACE

Forefront in this book, because forefront in the author's heart and
desire, must stand a plea for the restoration to the greatest mountain
in North America of its immemorial native name. If there be any prestige
or authority in such matter from the accomplishment of a first complete
ascent, "if there be any virtue, if there be any praise," the author
values it chiefly as it may give weight to this plea.

It is now little more than seventeen years ago that a prospector
penetrated from the south into the neighborhood of this mountain,
guessed its height with remarkable accuracy at twenty thousand feet,
and, ignorant of any name that it already bore, placed upon it the name
of the Republican candidate for President of the United States at the
approaching election--William McKinley. No voice was raised in protest,
for the Alaskan Indian is inarticulate and such white men as knew the
old name were absorbed in the search for gold. Some years later an
officer of the United States army, upon a reconnoissance survey into the
land, passed around the companion peak, and, alike ignorant or careless
of any native name, put upon it the name of an Ohio politician, at that
time prominent in the councils of the nation, Joseph Foraker. So there
they stand upon the maps, side by side, the two greatest peaks of the
Alaskan range, "Mount McKinley" and "Mount Foraker." And there they
should stand no longer, since, if there be right and reason in these
matters, they should not have been placed there at all.

To the relatively large Indian population of those wide regions of the
interior of Alaska from which the mountains are visible they have always
borne Indian names. The natives of the middle Yukon, of the lower three
hundred miles of the Tanana and its tributaries, of the upper Kuskokwim
have always called these mountains "Denali" (Den-ah'li) and "Denali's
Wife"--either precisely as here written, or with a dialectical
difference in pronunciation so slight as to be negligible.

It is true that the little han