It began to declare itself shortly after noon, suggesting to us the
idea of at once seeking our safe
Camp in the timber and abandoning the
purpose of making an observation of the barometer at 3 p.m., - two
having already been made, at 9 a.m., and 12 m., while simultaneous
observations were made at Strawberry Valley. Jerome peered at short
intervals over the ridge, contemplating the rising clouds with anxious
gestures in the rough wind, and at length declared that if we did not
make a speedy escape we should be compelled to pass the rest of the
day and night on the summit. But anxiety to complete my observations
stifled my own instinctive promptings to retreat, and held me to my
work. No inexperienced person was depending on me, and I told Jerome
that we two mountaineers should be able to make our way down through
any storm likely to fall.
Presently thin, fibrous films of cloud began to blow directly over the
summit from north to south, drawn out in long fairy webs like carded
wool, forming and dissolving as if by magic. The wind twisted them
into ringlets and whirled them in a succession of graceful
convolutions like the outside sprays of Yosemite Falls in flood time;
then, sailing out into the thin azure over the precipitous brink of
the ridge they were drifted together like wreaths of foam on a river.
These higher and finer cloud fabrics were evidently produced by the
chilling of the air from its own expansion caused by the upward
deflection of the wind against the slopes of the mountain. They
steadily increased on the north rim of the cone, forming at length a
thick, opaque, ill-defined embankment from the icy meshes of which
snow-flowers began to fall, alternating with hail. The sky speedily
darkened, and just as I had completed my last observation and boxed my
instruments ready for the descent, the storm began in serious earnest.
At first the cliffs were beaten with hail, every stone of which, as
far as I could see, was regular in form, six-sided pyramids with
rounded base, rich and sumptuous-looking, and fashioned with loving
care, yet seemingly thrown away on those desolate crags down which
they went rolling, falling, sliding in a network of curious streams.
After we had forced our way down the ridge and past the group of
hissing fumaroles, the storm became inconceivably violent. The
thermometer fell 22 degrees in a few minutes, and soon dropped below
zero. The hail gave place to snow, and darkness came on like night.
The wind, rising to the highest pitch of violence, boomed and surged
amid the desolate crags; lightning flashes in quick succession cut the
gloomy darkness; and the thunders, the most tremendously loud and
appalling I ever heard, made an almost continuous roar, stroke
following stroke in quick, passionate succession, as though the
mountain were being rent to its foundations and the fires of the old
volcano were breaking forth again.
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