Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1889-05-11

/ oPeciai blspabcn EVENING STAR.
| HAMPERS FERRY Va, May 1.-THE special
train containing the members of the National
Geographic society and their friends who were
to take part in the society's first field day, drew
out of the Baltimore and Ohio depot soon after
$50 this morning, headed for Harpers Ferry.
Among the passengers on the train
were Major J. W. Powell, Prof. G..
r. Gilbert. Simon Newcomb, Theodore Gill, F.
W. Clarke, B. E. Ternon, J. W. Chickering, N.
H. Egleston; Cleveland Able, Lester F. Ward,
A. II. Thompson, Capt G. E. Dutton. Lieut.
Everett Hayden, Assistant Secretary Willets, Of
Department of Agriculture, Henry Gannett
r. S. Woodward, Thomas Wilson, Or. c. II.
Merriam, DR.. W. H. Zaman, Capt. Rogers
Birmo, jr., DR.. Marcus Baker and Gen.
Pleasant Porter, of the Cherokee
nation, W. ]. MCGEE, DIR. Gordon
| of Kendall Green, Dr. Flint, II. G. Ogden, II.
W. Henshaw, Col. Richard J. Hinton, W. A.
Croffutt, and many other gentlemen well
known in scientific and literary circles, with
| their families and friends. Gardiner G. Hub
| bard, president of the society, was prevented
| by illness from attending.
SOME GEOLOGICAL TALK.
The train arrived at Harper's Ferry at 1145
and carried the excursionists directly to the
Burmese Grove, which had been reserved for
them. At the main pavilion a meeting was
held, Prof. A. H. Thompson presiding in
Mr.. Hubbard's place. The exercises
began about hahNsSst II with an address by
Major Powell on the geological aspects of Har-
per's Ferry and the Blue Ridge country. ex-
planning the upheavals of nature which threw
up the high bluffs, and accounting for courses
followed by the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers
in this region. He quoted from notes of
Thomas Jefferson, written 102 years ago, in
which Blue Ridge is described and the great
gap cut by the rivers with the vast prairie lying
back OF the ridge which he thought must
once have been the bottom of lake. Major
Powell discussed briefly the different rivers
which century had brought forth regarding
these phenomena as geology had made
progress.
Prof G. K. Gilbert followed with a talk SUD-
Elementary to Major Powells, going into con-
siderable detail as to the stratitied rock forma-
ton and the story which the geologist reads in
them.
COL. RICHARD J. HINTON
was next introduced, as personal friend and
intimate of Capt. John Brown and as the mys-
terious civilian Harrison" who figured in some
of Browns correspondence. The young man
Albert Hazlett, who was captured in the Cum
berland valley and turned over to the Virginia
authorities by those of Pennsylvania, was
Col Hinton's remarks were extemporaneous,
and included brief resume, suggestive rather
than descriptive, of the striking features of
John Browns career, with sketch OF his char
acter as seen by those who enjoyed
his most intimate friendship. John
Brown was. in the speakers Judgment. not
a raider or marauder. He was not animated
by passion or perverted by grief. He abso-
lutely believed ina just God and in liberty as
His law, and in mans individual responsibility
a.. 49,, - Ill
garded chattel slavery as organized
piracy. He held that the slave
holders had perverted the republican institu-
tions of the United States, and hence that they
were to be subdued like other lawbreakers He
was great-hearted, deeply-religious man, who
his feeling about needless bloodshed,
he was as stern as Cromwell
Ian Ironsides when it came to the
hour of action. How inconsistent with tine
facts is the popular estimate Of him as a man
without feeling is shown by the fact that this
iusurgent leader who, with handful of follow
ers, could defy the united powers of the
State of Virginia and the federal
government, paid fine, while living in west
ern Pennsylvania from 1926 to 1885, rather
than bear arms in the militia. The historian,
Won Hoist, in referring to the sentimental side
of Browns nature, as evinced by his allowing
the B. and o. night train to proceed
because the passengers pleaded that their
families would be alarmed, gave, in Col Hin
toms judgment one of the immediate causes
of the disaster which followed. The capture
of the Waterman the railroad bridge
was cause of the early alarm
excited. The detention of the train was the
next most important, as it involved the fatal
reached the telegraph, and thus the news
of the movement was scattered far and
wide. The next mistake was in yielding
to the appeal of the prisoners not to carry
them away. Fireballs OF tow had been pre-
pared, but were not used as intended, in the
destruction of the bridge, &c. Brown undoubt-
eddy designed to make an early retreat to the
mountains, and thence raid the valley below
as early as was practicable. Col. Hinton's
theory based upon personal knowledge of
Browns health at the time. is that his will
force was slightly weakened at
the critical moment by the physical
effects of severe attacks of fever and ague or
congestive chills; but above all other considera-
tons was his desire to prove to the people in
his power, and through them to the country,
mission from on High, and not as a mere
marauder.
One of Col Hinton's most interesting relics
of Browns latter days is a letter written to a
the morning of the day of execution, and never
before published, in which he conveys
his thanks for sympathy extended to himself
and his family. ''Such feeling as you mani
Test, he wrote, makes you to shine, In my
estimation. in the midst of this wicked
and perverse generation as a Light
in the world. May you ever prove
yourself equal to the high estimate
l have placed upon you, pure and undefled
| religion before God and the fathers is, as
understand it, an active-not a dormant prin-
ciple." These last words afford, in Col Hin
| tons opinion, the key to the whole of Browns
| remarkable history.
The next speaker was Gilbert Thompson,
who was one of the engineers who built the
| first American pontoon bridge across the Poto-
mac at this point
| PROF. GILBERT THOMPSON ON PoNrooNs
Mr.. Thompson began by disclaiming the
honor forced upon him by the printed program
of having designed the first pontoon-bridge
over the Potomac at Harper's Ferry. He had
helped construct it, but the designing was done
by James G. Duane, then a captain, afterward
chief of the corps of engineers, U. S. A. ''The
American pontoon equipage," said Mr.. Thorn
son, lis modification of the French system. and
the fruit of a long series of experiments in
1859 and 1860. The pontoons made of India
rubber and used in the Mexican war were
deemed insufficient for the probable require
ments of such an extensive war as we had on
| our hands twenty-seyen or eight Years ago.
| Thus, with the exception of trials in practice
4 drill. pOntOOns were virtually an experi-