Professor Edgar McClure.
XII. McCLURE'S ACHIEVEMENT AND TRAGIC DEATH, 1897
By HERBERT L. BRUCE and PROFESSOR H. H. McALISTER
Visitors to Paradise Valley, who climb above the Camp of the Clouds to the snowfields, are sure to be attracted to McClure Rock. It is the scene of one of the mountain's earliest tragedies, in which Professor Edgar McClure of the University of Oregon lost his life. He was trying to measure accurately the height of the great mountain as he had already done for Mount Adams and other peaks.
The record of his extensive observations was computed with the greatest care by his colleague, Professor H. H. McAlister of the University of Oregon. An account of the work so tragically ended was prepared by Herbert L. Bruce. Both articles were published in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer for November 7, 1897, from which paper they are here reproduced. The portrait of Professor McClure is furnished by his brother, Horace McClure, editorial writer for the Seattle Daily Times.
The height of the mountain, 14,528 feet, thus obtained, remained in use until 1914, when the United States Geological Survey announced its new and latest findings to be 14,408 feet.
One of the most tragic incidents in modern science was the death of Professor Edgar McClure, who lost his life on Mount Rainier July 27, 1897. Occupying, as he did, the chair of chemistry in the University of Oregon, his personal tastes, instincts and ambitions were essentially scientific. In addition to this he was a member of the Mazamas, whose purposes in the line of scientific exploration have lent a romantic interest and a cumulative value to the geography of the northwest. The particular expedition with which Professor McClure was associated when he met his untimely death, left Portland with the distinct object of making the ascent of Mount Rainier, recording such geographical and topographical observations as might be feasible. As a member of the expedition Professor McClure was placed in charge of the elevation department and set before himself a somewhat more distinct and definite purpose, viz., to ascertain by the most approved methods and with the most accurately graduated instruments the precise height of the famous and beautiful mountain. How well he accomplished this purpose will best appear in the subjoined letter from Professor E. H. McAlister, his friend and colleague, who with infinite care and sympathetic zeal has worked out the data, which would otherwise have been undecipherable not only to the general public but to the average scholar. As he himself said when he had completed his arduous task: "I have done everything possible to wring the truth from the observations. In my judgment they should become historic on account of the probability of their great accuracy."
To the accomplishment of this object Professor McClure brought all the varied resources of a ripe culture and an ardent, vigorous young manhood. His plans were all laid with the greatest care. To him their fulfillment meant not so much a personal or selfish triumph as a victory for science. The very instrument on which he most relied for accurate determinations, as will be seen from Professor McAlister's statement, was not only hallowed by scientific associations, but was prepared for its high mission more lovingly and assiduously than a favorite racer would be groomed for the course. Twice had it looked upon the beauties of the Columbia river from the summit of Mount Hood, and on three other lofty peaks it had served its silent but efficient ministry to the cause of science. On one of these, Mount Adams, the altitude determined with this instrument was accepted by the United States government, yet a new tube was filled for it, Professor McClure himself preparing the mercury by distillation, and seeing to it that the vacuum was exceptionally perfect. That the barometer was most carefully handled at the time of observation will fully appear from the record below. It was suspended by a ring and allowed to hang until it had assumed the temperature of the surrounding air before being read. Not only this, but all the subsidiary phenomena which could have the slightest bearing on the result were laboriously determined. Concurrent observations were made at all salient surrounding stations, while for a week before the date of actual observation Professor McClure himself had made numerous observations both of pressure and of temperature at various sub-stations in the vicinity of Mount Rainier, and his collaborateur has secured simultaneous observations from Seattle and Portland. Uniting as he did the fervor of the pioneer explorer with the accuracy of the laboratory chemist, Professor McClure was peculiarly fitted to obtain a result which bids fair to become historic.
The broken barometer will appeal powerfully to every lover of science. If, as has been suggested, a monument be reared to mark the spot where the young scientist gave up his life, no fitter design could be adopted than a stone shaft bearing on its face a bas-relief of the historic instrument which he bore on his back with sacred care. It is entirely probable that this barometer, coupled with his unselfish solicitude for the safety of other members of the expedition, was the immediate cause of his death. He carried it in a double case; a wooden one which his own hands had constructed, and outside of this a strong leather tube. From the latter stout thongs enabled him to strap the instrument on his back, much as a pioneer huntsman would wear his trusty rifle. While standing on the perilous ledge whence he took the fatal plunge, he turned to sound warning to his companions whom he was leading in a search for the lost pathway down the mountain. "Don't come down here; it is too steep," he called, turning so as to make his voice more audible. These were his last words. He vanished in the night and the abyss. It is likely that the tube, three and a half feet in length, caught as he turned and helped to hurl him from his precarious footing. Like his own high strung frame, the delicate instrument was shattered; but neither of the twain went away from the world without leaving an imperishable record.
It is interesting to note the close correspondence of his independent observations with those made by others. The height of the mountain had been measured many times before he essayed to measure it. Some observers had measured it by triangulation, and others, notably Major E. S. Ingraham, of Seattle, had given its altitude from the readings of mercurial barometers. Major Ingraham gave the height at 14,524 feet. It will be noticed that the result obtained by Professor McClure was just four feet greater, a remarkable coincidence at that vast altitude and among conditions of hardship, exposure and uncertainty. Prior to Professor McClure's record, the latest measurement of Rainier had been made by George F. Hyde, of the United States Geological Survey, in 1896. He pursued the method of triangulation, and, taking as his base a line at Ellensburg, in connection with the sea level gauge at Tacoma, he figured out the extreme height of Rainier at 14,519 feet.
The value of Professor McClure's determination will be heightened rather than lessened by the peculiar difficulty and rareness of scientific work in an unexplored territory and from a base which has not all the appurtenances and advantages of the older scientific stations of the East and of Europe. In this respect his work is like that of Agassiz and of Audubon. Not unlike those great masters was he in his intense and lofty devotion to science. Not unlike them he wrought with rigid accuracy where others had worked almost at random. Not unlike them he aroused among his friends and students the conviction that he was a born high priest of nature, whose chief mission in the world was to reveal her secrets to mankind. He offered up his life virtually a sacrifice to the cause of popular and practical science, and in as lofty a sense as ever dignified a Roman arena he was a martyr to the cause of truth. To use the matchless figure employed by Byron in describing the death of Henry Kirk White, who died a victim to his own passionate devotion to literary art, he was like the struck eagle whose own feather "winged the shaft that quivered in his heart."
Just in harmony with this thought came countless expressions of sympathy and condolence to the members of Professor McClure's family when the sad news of his death went abroad. One of the most touching, and, to my mind, one of the most typical of all these came from an obscure man in an obscure corner of Kentucky. He was not a great man himself, as the world counts greatness, this man in Kentucky; but he knew a great man when he saw him. He had known Edgar McClure; and when he heard the circumstances of his death he sat down and wrote a brief note. One sentence in it was worthy of Whittier or Emerson. It was this: "Edgar McClure died as he had always lived—on the mountain top."