Evening Star Newspaper, August 30, 1925, Page 74

THE SUNDAY STAR, ‘WASHINGTON, D. ©., AUGUST 30, 1925—PART Mountain Climbers Fight for Safety in Approaching Darkness Trapped by a Slide on a Savage Cul de Sac, Party of Eight Men and Two Women Takes Desperate Measures in Seeking Less Perilous Ground. Missing death by a hair when a misstep sent him plunging down Mount Hood, was one of the perils ©f mountain climbing recounted last week by C. E. Rusk. noted western mountaineer Mr. Rusk also had the unique experience of a night's vigil on Mount Adams the Ethe- real Mountain,” and of a visit to the summit of Kulshan (Mount Baker), where he and his com panion’ were perhaps the last to gain pictures of this weird volcano, which now appears to be dead chute, with several of the rest of us | grasping the rope, he crept up the | stlope. He tied the end firmly around a big rock. One by one, the other members of the party went up. hand over hand | From here on to the last cliff be h the first summit there was little difficulty. There were now no &now cornices to be passed. We were soon “HAND-OVER- HAND SHE WENT, SUPPORTED BY TWO THIN LINES OF HEMP, THE GREAT PRECIPI- TOUS MOUNTAIN FROWNING ABOVE, AND NOTHING B DEATH YAWNING BELOW.” BY C. E. RUSK. MBITIOUS plans for the con quest of snow parks and the exploration of unknown wilds had been made by the | cadians, a mountaineering club organized at Yokima, Wash., and | Mount Stuart was selected for a climb. | The party included Mr. and Mrs. | W. E. Richardson, Mr. and Mrs. Rolfe | Whitnall. Clarence Truit. Harold Carey | and Vern Mason, Joseph R. Vincent, | Rolland Whitmore and myself We got to a broken ridge or cleaver, leading to the first summit, without once setting foot on snow. Then an arduous climh up the great r and through the narrow chimneys, the | ropes being brought into frequent | requisition. When were ab halfway up came \dventure the day We had come out on the great flat-topped shelf of rock abutting upon the ice ch Immediately above the party was a perpendiculur wall. eight ten feet high. which shut the view upward. It could he seen. how ever, that we should either have to retrace our steps and find a route to the right or pass around the poini of | the wall next to the ice chute. It was | a relief to get onto a level surface | Again, no matter how small. Two or three of us went around the point reconnoiter | The ice chute led straight down the | bottom of the couloir at a frightfully | steep with here and there a | jagged point of rocks jutting out | into the ice. Tt was so hard that it | would have been folly for ar :mm" { Cas- | the to hope to get a footing on it with out the cutting of deep steps Above our shelf a very steep incline of rather smooth granite led upward for seventy-five or one hundred feet to a point where there was a promise of secure footing. The slope of this in cline was such that it met the surf of the ice chute at about the angle it maintained the entire length | of its face | When I came around the point | t of sight of the party, I saw | Vincent. on his own initiative, had | taken the end of a 100-foot rope in | his hand and had started up the in-| cline, climbing with hands and feet He had reached a point about 20 feet | above the ice chute when he dropped the rope. He grabbed for it and lo his balance. Grasping desperately for | handholds, he rolled over and over, | down the face of the rock and struck | the ice chute asprawl. His body im mediately shot downward on the flinty | surface of the ice * x * seemed that that | It rov no earthly | assembled on the first summit, pared for the final climb. Our toil was rewarded by a mar velous cloud scene. On three sides a PS sea of billowy clouds rolled away to the horizon, its silver-tipped ves receding into the distant haze of September sunlight. The topmo: waves were far below us. Looking heneath the lower edge. we could see the dark masses of somber mountains in their mantles of silent evergreens Through great holes in the mist banks. here and there, the | earthfolds could be seen. A face of the glacier, under our feet. drifted wisps whose shadows | scudded athwart the surface of the ice. F \way the mighty snow péaks proudly towered above this shifting ocean. agleam with the sheen of Autumn afternoon being e rocks party of power could save him from dashed to death on the below. All of the still around in blissful unconsciousness of gic denouement. 1In the swift moment that was given me for de. cision 1 think I did the only thing could have done under the circum stances. 1 stepped as far out on the rocks I could. thrust the point of my alpenstock as firmly as possible into the ice, and yelled to Vincent to catch it as he shot by. Whether or not he heard me and comprehended my meaning, I cannot say. lt was never to he known if my action would have helped him any A near miracle intervened an end to the remar Several days befor had been a considerable snow on the moun melted away except in a few nooks well sheltered from the sun. It so happened that a narroWw fringe of this snow now filled the crevice between the margin of the ice and the rocky wall As Vincent shot downward he| fought desperately for his life. He attempted to throw himself toward the rocks. He wes a large. strong man and he did not intend to give up without a struggle. A mightly thrust with one of his arms brought it down through the soft snow into the crevice. His speed was checked. In the twinkling of an eve he had rolled | himself on to the rocks and grasped the friendly projections. A white streak on the surface of the ice, where he had plowed away the dirty covering, was the only reminder of that near-tragedy—mute token of what would have been had that streak continued down the chute Vincent was determined not to be balked by the granite incline. 1 was | the only one of the party who had seen the accident. When the others had been told of it, and had felt the resultant thrills run over them. we were ready to proceed. This time Vin cent tied the rope around his waist Selecting a more favorable starting peint, a little farther from the ice d of the point rest were the it sight the tr out 1 to put able adventure, - visit there fall of fresh This had all * * ok safely ed the upper part of the chute, Zoing between the cliff and’ the edze of the ice. The rocks were a little inclined to settle heneath our feet: but we made good time. We came out onto a sort of shelf, with the perpendicular southern face of the couloir on our right and a steep granite incline dropping toward the chute. Finding it necessary to descend at almost a right angle, we did it by means of a crack in the rock, about six inches wide. which furnished holds for fingers and toes. We now stood eight or ten feet from the surface of the ice, with a perpendicular drop to it Relow. the rock chute stood in a e adjacent to the broad shelf which should have been easy to travel over. But when Vincent and I went ahead to reconnoiter we found them shat tered and loose and extremely treach erous. It would seem that a great mass had slid down from the cliffs of the ridge and was now resting on an unstable foundation., either of shifting bowlders and gravel or sibly old ice and snow At one place I was slightly in ad- vance of Vincent. He stepped out onto a point of great bowlders, some of them as large as a house. Sud- pa NOW SEEMED THAT NO'EARTHLY POWER-COULD-SAVE HIM." | v broken | | denly, without warning, the whole mass settled henedth him with a dull, | grinding noise. The whole subsidence | probably was but a few inches; but | it was enough to suggest unpleasant | possibilities, such, for instance, as a lex ground between unyielding stone jaws, or a body held beneath a cruel weight of slag while frantic com- papions strove vainly at rescue. Conditions did not improve with our advance. When I reached the place where the shelf pinched out between the lower end of the ice chute and the great ridge above the mass was so loose that there seemed danger of starting @ rock avalanche at any moment. Here it was not so very far down to the Ice, and it looked feasible, once down, for a party to pass around the lower end of the chute: but there wi that treacherous drop of loose scoria to be dealt with. One man alone might have made a dash for it, braving the danger of falling stones and taking a chance of |about her waist, the woman worked her way down the ice, past the big boulder which interfered | considerably with effective use of the | ropes, and out on to the forbidding surface of the chute. | Hand over hand she went over, her | feet touching but lghtly on’ the treacherous ice-face. She often after- ward: described it as the greatest thrill of her life as she hung there in uncertainty, supported by two thin lines of hemp, the great, precipitous mountain frowning above and noth ing but death yawning below. Slip she did, and frequently, but nothing could break her grip upon that lifeline, and eventually she won to_the security of the rocks. We drew back one of the ropes, and | Mrs. Whitnall went, next. Her going was as the going of Mrx. Richardson, | and she, too, was at last upon the rocks. courageous | | { * ok ox X | party were now hute, weil below | HREE of our safely across the riding an avalanche he might start: but with a party of 10, including | two women, such an attempt would | | have been madness. To scale the cliffs | | on the right was impossible. | | We were trapped | We had deliberately descended into | | n savage cul de sac, from which the only escape now seemed to he to climb | back the way we had come. And I | felt that T was to blame for the mess, | for 1 had been the one to suggest that | we take the chance. | I returned to the place where the halance of the party was waitinge Vincen: had already preceded wiel The situation had become serious. The sun had dropped behind the big ridge to our right, and the evening chfil was in the air. - 2 wlow e BF A COLD wind mountainside. idly approaching chattering teeth 9,000 feet above the hours of frigid darknes: lutely no shelter in clothes, Quick action of some sort was imperative. To remain there overnight was out of the question. When I reached the party Vincent | was working h way down a narrow ledge to the surface of the ice the intention of seeing if it were pos- sible to creep along the edge of the chute at the intersection of the rocks and the ice. He held the end of the rope in his hand. I told him he must tie this around his waist, which he did. When he got onto the ice he began a cautious descent along the margin, supporting himself partly with his hands upon the rocky wall and heid by the rope from above. A large bowlder lay with its lower side Imbedded In the surface of the | ice: but it was impossible to tell how | | firmly it might be held, and we were |afraid it might give away when any- one attempted to pass it. But it did | not move, and, immediately below it, | Vincent passed around a jutting | point, out of sight of those who were holding the rope. | It was now impossible for us to fol- | low his movements, and all we could | do was to keep the rope well in hand | 50 as to stop him if he slipped. Whit- nall crept cut on the point of roc to try to Kkeep track Vincent's progress \ddenly there was a violent jerk on the rope as-it snapped taut under the impact of Vincent's 190 gounds of fiving weight. He had slipped, and for the second time that day had/ | started down that frightful slope. 1| was almost vanked from my feet. 1| velled to the boys above to hold hard, | and they threw themselves backward upon_ the vibrating line. But the im- | pulsé of grayity. even aided by the slick treachefy of that awful chute, {could not prevail against the strength of that bevy of determined voung fel- lows, and Vincent was again persuad- ed to forego his penchant for the lower regions of the mountain. When he had recovered his breath and his equilibrium, to some extent, he made himself heard sufficiently to make it plain to us above that it was impossible for the party to get down that way and still maintain its en- tity as a company of worthwhile human beings. ok ok % OMETHING had to be done forth- with to get the party across the i more dependable rocks on the oppo- | site side of the chute. We had noth- {ing with which to cut steps in the {hard ice. For climbing we had ai- penstocks with sharp steel points; but these were almost worthless when it came to gouging out footholds in such an adamantine surface as that chute presented. My decision was quickly made. T called to Vincent to try to make his way across the ice to the opposite rocks. The chute here was only 50 or 60 feet wide. We were well above him, yet the only support we could &ive him on the rope was an oblique support. Nevertheless, it was of some help, and we could keep him from sliding far in case of a slip. He crept slowly in the direction of the coveted rocks, kicking his hob- nails as firmly into the ice as pos- sible and jabbing the point of his alpenstock hard down. He won, inch by inch and foot by foot, unt at last, we saw him rench out and grasp the rocks. 'Lo. anchor the rope was but the work of a few momente. We now had A slender connection with the world of safety once more. Mrs. Richardson wak now tied to | was sweeping the | Night w rap- There were many We were nearly sea, facing long . with abse- our Summer | | | | | | | of the the most dangerous part of the rocks.' But the transit had taken much valu-| able time, and seven of us were still within the trap. The lengthening | | shadows warned me that long before the sea and that our bre: the others could get would be upon us Our company would then be divided across night in darkness, and those who remained | would face a situation serious in the extreme. The last to cross would have to go with practically no support from the ropes, for we were above the others, and the support of ropes, of course, must come from above There was but one thing to do, and we did it forthwith. Shouting to Vincent to get the women down the rocks as quickly as possible, we cast the end of the rope far out on to the ice, and he drew it to him. Then we turned to the task of climbing back to the head of the ice-chute, just beneath the first sum mit, and a dash down the opposite granite cliffs, in a race against dark ness. The six others were all far younger than 1, and I felt that where 1 could they could surely follow. Telling them to come on, every man for him self, I turned and started up the nar row crack in the face of the granite. | I climbed as 1 have never climbed | before or since Followed an hour of perhaps the' | | | other way. { jon one of the most savage mountains in the United States, that an Aretic night was swooping down upon us and that we must pass around that serpent tongue of ice and down, down down te help rescue two women from their perilous position quickest rock work ever seen in Western America. We forgot that we were mearly nine thousand feet above th was sup. posed to come in short gasps upon the slightest extra exertion We remembered only | that we were | big | went weak Twilight had come when we reached the top of the chute. A cornice of white snow leaning against the cliff offered a safe crossing. Along it I went, with Vern Mason close behind Some of the party were afraid of the snow and hugged into the rocks. One. at least, must have heen careless, for a shower of loose stones went bound- ing down over the ice. Looking to watch them go, we were horrified to see that Vincent and the women, for some reason, had not moved from where we had left them Their heads were still sticking above the rocky point, and the stones were whizzing straight for them. We =xhouted wfid warnings heads ducked, but not enough fragment shot within of Mrs. Whitnall's face. in the knees. But it over almost before we realized it was happening and we were our way again Another tragedy had been averted there were no preclous moments of daylight to be wasted in regaining our equilibrium. The A few We was that on inches * x ox * B were on the right ice at last; but the cliffs were still below us. Down them we must That morning I had slipped my electric flashlight into my pocket knowing the possibility of being over taken by darkness. I now brought it forth to light the way. The bat tery had gone dead. The delicate instrunient had been unable 1 the buffeting on the t strenuous day We might have been thought reck less as we plunged down the rocks in the gathering gloom. But the sion demanded rixk. Soon it grew dark that 1 could not see those in the rear. I knew they were coming only by the xound of the different voices There was no possibility of follow fng our morning route; for on rocks one makes no tracks, and we could not see far enough to recognize points made familiar in the full light of day Nevertheless, we frequently passed over places that we had climbed over on the way up. The ridge was but narrow, at best, and we could not stay on it and diverge more than a few feet, one way or another, from our upward line of scramble We came to a 15-foot chimney wall was oth; other offered slight irregularities for footholds and handhelds. We did not hesitate. Calling warnings, each (@ the one behind, down we went, bracing bodtes against the smooth wali, feeling holds in the irregular one. It risky business; but there was ) sta rocks thi for was no If we had had abundant day could have used the slowly and surely; but minutes where wé should hav hours. There was not time knots and pay out a life line man musi be sufficient unto himself All got down the chimney without accldent. A few seconds later I came suddenly on to an enormous granit slab, six or eight feet in width, lyin at a steep inclination. The outer edge overhung the northern precip and there was a straight drop of thousand feet or so which the dnark ness did not make any more cheerf We could have gone to the foot the mountain in one quick jump our troubles would have been Jut we should have been on the wrong side of the mountain when we lit, & ight we working had had Unusual Discoveries Made by French Astronomers| —Regarding Those Sun| Spots—A New Science Which May Foretell the Weather for Centuries In Advance. By STERLING HEILIG. PARIS, August 17, 1925, N the usual course of events the prediction that 1926 and 1927 will be danger vears, threatening the world's harves and 27 a “vear without a Summer” would be received merely as a “sensational story This of the est 1o is entirely authentic, really sensational inter. one. It ix a prediction highest responsibility in three for Prof. Dr. Kuther of | has come out with it in In France the government | is preparing to make foud reserves More extraordinary. the meteomwlog- fcal service of the Smithsonian Insti- tution In Washington and at stations of North and South America coin- cides, precisely and independentl with data just presented to the French Academy of Sciences by the celebrated meteorologist, President Bigourdan, chief official astronomer at the Paris Observatory #nd president of the bureau of longitudes. Very great discoveries have been made, which will enter into weather bureau forecasts. Not only will 1927 be “nineteen hundred and freeze to death,” but all very severe Winters and “bad Summers” will be plptted out, long in advance, so that the world can get ready for them. * X x * AND in hand with this, developments are entering the weather service of the utmost value to the shipping trade, farmers, ranch ers, packers and all who depend upon the weather. The man who made the discovery in France is the Abbe Gabriel. professor of mathematios at Caen. It was con sidered o great that President Bigour- dan himself presented it to the Acad- emy of Sciences. Being a statistician, Gabriel had for a long time plotted out, from stati ticn and from historians and great writers of all ages, the extreme se: sons—severe Winters and great Sum- mers as recorded, wherever found. Arago had done much work of this kind, but fragmentary When Gabriel had his mass of dates completed he was surprised to find‘ them fall into a curious periodicity. Comparing them with the revolutions | of moon and with sun-spot cycles as generally established, he “established that there exists a hitherto unknown lunar-solar cycle of 744 years, com- posed of exactly 9202 revolutions of the moon and 67 perfods of sun-spot time it most every countries, Heidelburg Germany | | | | new d 67 variations. This primordial cycle sub- divides Into two periods of 372 vears and four of 188 vears." ! “This discovery has special interest in astronomy which only technicians ecan appreciate,” says Gabriel Guil- bert, meteorologist at the Paris Ob- { servatory, “but the corresponding pe- riodicity which it has established for lextreme Winters and Summers inter: | ests every one! : Thus the rigorous Winter of 1817, |80 bad at the front in the World | War, has corresponding to it the [ hard Winter of 1544, exactly 378 vears previously, which itself hax for prece- dents the Winters of 1350, Y88 and | 831, all noted in history for their | | | | | | | | the end of the other rope and let down the ¢lift on to the ice. Clinging to the one that was stretched across the chasm and supported by the one rigor. The hard Winter of 1805 corre. sponds to that of 1708, of glacial celebrity, after exactly 186 years. The PAINTING IN THE GALLERY OF VERSAILLES OF THE FAMOUS “LONG PICTURE SHOWS KING LOUIS XVI RELIEVING DISTRESS 1 | celebrated Winter of 1879-1880 comes, | lunar-solar law of periodicity for the at 186 vears distance, after that of | weather, which will hold good in the 1694, it=elf preceded. at 186 vears dis- | future, as it has done in the past. tance, by the very severe Winter of * % % % 1508. And 185 years before 1508 it | was the historical hard Winter of GO contends President Bigourdan, 1523, | not only chief official astronomer No dates of the past are!more|of France. but head of the French corroboratively established than those | nautical office. In this way the hard of the great Winters and extreme | Winter of 1917, after 18 vears, will Summers — historians, writers of | be repeated in the vear 2103, and that chronicles, theologians and even the [of 1395 in the Winter of 2051. These great poets have always been fond of | dates do not interest us personally. recording them, in all centuries. So, | But it is ensy to understand that when when correspondence like those are Al such extreme seasons are plotted found so exactly throughout history, out along the line, for past, present it follows that there must be a r wnd auture, they wiill form solid hackbone for w her forecusts. One example shows the great test of the present. Along the plotted line wbriel finds the great Winter of 1553, which broke up the army of Charles V at the siege of Metz Add the lunar-solar cyecle of 186-1 years and we arrive at the celebrated Win ter of 1740, which froze the Seine {and the Thames and carried away the bridges of Rouen. Then add 186 sars to 1740 and what do vou get? ou get the vear 1926.1927! ““The absolute periodicit Winters in past centuries,” s: bert, méteorologist at the obser: “the way 1n which they have returne in the past, to fixed (With « | vear's leeway at most) scarcely per 1 mits doubt that the Abbe Gabriel has discovered a evele - heretofore un known. From it we must conchi that in January or December. 1926, | there will come upon us a long and prous Winter, astronomically fore. cording to periods first noted in . and affiming iteelf. period !period. up to_the historical W 53 and 17401 briel will publish the full | 1ated list of great Winters | Summers in history. It i quite long, | and will compose a booklet with notes, One such Winter has heen preserved in a noted painting.” This was the “Long Winter of 1788.1783." when snow remained In the streets of Paris in the first weeks of May. . e aters tabu PRESIDENT BIGOURDAN, CHIEF OFFICIAL ASTRONOMER OF FRANCE. Arter | and hot | American and French Scientists Agree That 1927 Will Bea “Year Withouta Summer” WINTER OF 1788-1789." THE N THE PARIS SUBURBS. in the King the The painting, which hangs Gallery _of Versailles, shows Lonis XVI relieving distress | Paris suburb: ording to Taine this long Winter. by filling_Paris with a tough multitude of refugees actually furnished the occasion for the great revolution, which began on July 14, 1789, in the following Sum- mer. All this leaves the most extraordi nary part to the last At this same moment, sonian Institution, in Washington, {not only confirms’ President Bigour {dan and the Abbe Gabriel in the pre diction for 1927, but tells what kind of extreme year it will be. *x ox % the Smith LL 1927 will | a Summer.” 1t will be “nineteen | hundred and freeze to death,” in | analogy (o 1516 in our srandparents memory. 1t does not mean a v of constant low temperatures. Even “a_year without a Summer’ means only frosts or freezing weather for perhaps less than half the days of each Summer month. Between such extraordinary coid spells there may be days or weeks S0 warm that new heat records are established How such outrageous variations of cold and heat persist is explained by the new weather forecast service established by the Smithsonian Sun-spot activity enters largely into ! their calculations, and “longz-range | forecasti is their specinlty The maximum of spots @very 11 1-3 years, At t the curve the sun is holt ! naturally, should the eurt cept that dust clonds thrown out by | seething sun_ spots intercept radin tions most of the time, so that the {earth gets only a minimum of solar heat. This explains chill, freezing weather through a whole Summer In-between short record heat alter nations are due to the sun’s extra heat accidentally - sile-stepping the dust clouds. be “a year without oecurs crest of st and so, be, ex side of the | One [by & common, silent fmpufise we de- | cided to stick to the slowerd and more | toilsome route, if possible, Spread out like a bat, T slid down #he incline with feet directed towardl a solid anchorage below: but some of the s preferred come dommn with legs dangling in a rack between the inner edge [+Y ) and an overhanging walljof rock. &% % SHORTLY ate d we came to & |*2 narrow chimney which I\ recog | nized as one we had come upiin the forenoon. It was hardly wide énough | for the passage of a man's body, and | when I was about two-thirds of the way down one of my heels jammed linto the crevice, and I could not' pul! it out. I called to Vern, who was just behind, to restrain his precipi tancy, so that there would not be an undie congestion of humanity within hat limited space For a time it looked as there for an indefinite stay the others could not pass | would have to stay, too Finally I succeeded in wrenching | my heel tree. It was now thoroughly dark, and we were perhaps traveilng as much by instinct as by anything else | Presently we came to another ob. | stacle we had climbed going up. This | was an almost straight granite face | with a sharp upp: By letting ourselves down end of arms could firmly a fo whick the sloping We were | cipitous part | still rem blocks | cariously forth_into the {fact that Vince short distance | seemed to have ress. The ward each other gether at the foot « Below lay the pre bottom and with bowlders o to and me they it was we just fee on below on no w past the 1ble ¢ howlders p angl darkne ste. Calis ser revealed women we ht. The « pre ties 1 i finally came to- steep slope to our T midc tha In p { | deseribed sidy consi distance | | the were 1 srable size a loose, g which the feet sank to the ank each step toilsome ¥ easy ro light lit | most 3 e sur avelly depostt, ir es at | Origin of the 3 “HE earth is the pr in more ti Moon n the opinion of Dr was eff ir state, and tional attraction ca into a ball of the see in the sky. The on the earth formed the continents. This theory for the fact that, w sener y accepted ideas, masses of lighte density such as make up the eartk continents the ent surface they ¢ cover only 1ird,” the miss ing two-thirds consisting of the m Measurements of the moon n by its effect the earth it is about three and a half | heavy an equal volume of w This is more dense than the average for the continent ma bu | Dr. Rast ss at the tin | of the disruption some of the heavic { underlying ma aws The new theor the ideas recently { man geol who bel | the moon's ed also o should the gl abou on show times as land mmes that was ori | Africa, and that it 1 | present place. This would | been possible, so long as earth was covered with but ajter the moon had been torn away it was possible for the cor nents to separate from their long er hrace such a crust A Cancer Cause? E | H ¢ rrEsst eating of the 1sing A decided velopment it was announc meeting of the North Th Dr. paper struction o “Prolong ing of fc s many Tivi 1 Ame the he esophag ain an Osmond 1siness men perience today, is highly dangerc IUs apt to produce what is known cardiospasm, when the nerves do coordinate and when whict swallowed does not get the stor ach, but is retained in the esoph This expands sometim a ulp ed ne Ame b s asm experiences great which is often erroneonsly a to indigestion. 1 channel flamed, frequently resulting in cance where there is a tendency toward th. disease Dr. Osmond declared that so far {had been determined cancer contagious, but is rather an inherited | tendency, ‘the cancer cropping | when conditions, =uch as the irrits tion of the esophagus, are favorable for evil cell development. Iping food alone mav causscan e d, “by irritation. In add tion, many cares of cancer develop he cause children, when playing abo the house, swallow some bouseho: preparation containing alkall, such as Iye, causing inflammation.” | | Strange New Drug. NEW drug that has been recent- Iy brought to this country for chemical examination is called by the natives of the Colombiaa terri- tories of the Putumayo and Caqueta Rivers, where it grows, by the pe culiar name of “Yaje.” The drug is prepared the stem of a | rather leafies b which averages 9 to feet high. What | there are counterpoised |a ark olive green in color, The i infusion made from the stem by heat- {ing in water is reddish with greem | ish Auorescence, and on keeping this changes 10 a topaz having & beautiful bluish-green fluorescence. Under the influence of the drink the natives Jump, scream and run widly abe making a great uproar, |1t is highly _prizea occasions, fresh potations being taken as the effects of the preceding ones wear off, According to Prof \ lalba, who has investigated it, the Infusion contains two kaloids th: may be readily crystallized: one, the | more important, he amed | Yajeine, ‘and the secondary | Yajenine. Experiments upon guinea | pizs show that the toxic dose is about 0.2 gm. per kem. body weight In small doses it gives human beings a deep sieep and a sensation of wall- being. |