When people undertake any thing in the cause of Science, or indeed in
any other cause, they might as well do their best while they have a
chance. This is an axiom of social economy which is presented, gratis,
to the world.
Now, the three scientific men who intend passing the winter on the top
of Mount Washington, might certainly find some other manner of spending
the cold months in the interests of science which would be much more
difficult and disagreeable. They expect to be snowed up at the Tip-top
House, from December until March, and will spend their time in a room
lined with felt, where they will burn twenty tons of coal during their
sojourn.
Almost any one could do all this. If the scientific gentlemen in
question desire to undergo some really notable hardships there are
plenty of deep lakes in New York, at the bottom of which they might
spend the winter in a diving-bell. They would probably be frozen in
until March, and they would find it much more difficult to use their
instruments, and everything far more disagreeable, generally, than in a
large room in the Tip-top House.
Still if they would prefer something still more arduous, let them ride day
and night, from December until March, in the Third Avenue cars of this
city. If they were to do this, and confine their scientific labors to
observations of the decidedly mean altitude of the Sun, they would
probably suffer more, in a given time, than any previous party of
learned men, and thus accomplish their object much better than by
deliberately allowing themselves to be snowed up on Mount Washington.
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