"Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada" is a memoir by Clarence King of his adventures and work with the California Geological Survey. King later led a major survey along the 40th Parallel in the American West and then was appointed the first director of the new U.S. Geological Survey.<br /><br />King's 1872 "Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada" exhibits a modern sense of timing and insight, and his accounts of hand-and-foot rock climbing seem as fresh as last week's blog post. He was part of the Victorian wave of mountain-climbing that first scaled the highest world peaks in the mid-19th century and, as a scientist, was part of a similar wave of new theories and discoveries: Darwinian evolution, glaciers, volcanism, erosion, earthquakes, topographical techniques, and human ecology. California had just passed through the Gold Rush years, and further survey of the Sierra Nevada was desired to extend knowledge of California economic geography.<br /><br />While listening to this historic bo
