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Mark Twain (author) 
Mark Twain attempting to photograph the Matterhorn 
1880 
  
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Google Books 
 
LL/43148 
  
Mark Twain A Tramp Abroad, Vol.II, Third edition, (London: Chatto & Windus, 1880), p.100
 
But lonely, conspicuous, and superb rose that wonderful upright wedge, the Matterhorn. Its precipitous sides were powdered over with snow, and the upper half hidden in thick clouds which now and then dissolved to cobweb films and gave brief glimpses of the imposing tower as through a veil. A little later the Matterhorn 1 took to himself the semblance of a volcano; he was stripped naked to his apex around this circled vast wreaths of white cloud which strung slowly out and streamed away slantwise toward the sun, a twenty-mile stretch of rolling and tumbling vapour, and looking just as if it were pouring out of a crater.
 
1 Note. I had the very unusual luck to catch one little momentary glimpse of the Matterhorn wholly unencumbered by clouds. I levelled my photographic apparatus at it without the loss of an instant, and should have got an elegant picture if my donkey had not interfered. It was my purpose to draw this photograph all by myself for my book, but was obliged to put the mountain part of it into the hands of the professional artist because I found I could not do landscape well. 
 

 
  
 
  
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