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[[handwritten annotation]] By A. P. Lacey, Lawyer & home friend Barrister Building F4218]] [[underlined]] Cadiz Sentinel, 1877 [[/underlined]] [[circled]] 1 [[/circled]] [[/handwritten annotation]] [[newspaper clipping]] Mr. W. H. Holmes, son of Joseph Holmes, of Short Creek township, this county, is winning the reputation in Hayden's scientific party, in the employee of the government. We publish the following private letter from Maj. Robert S. Lacey, of Washington, D. C., From which we are pleased to know that Mr. Holmes is being appreciated for his talents. In addition to the elegant pictures spoken of we have some twenty smaller photographic views which are superb. Washington, D. C., Sept. 25, 1877. Dear Arnold:-- I herewith send you by Pat Haverfield, the photographs of Colorado scenery I promise Mrs. Arnold last spring I hope she will be pleased with them, as I regard them as very fine indeed. The waterfall is one of the best combinations of forest and stream that I ever saw, and one, in looking at it, cannot repress the query, how did the artist succeed so admirably in effecting it? No. 2 is intended to give the spectator of view at the head of a canon, any point where the timber ceases to grow, so that the eye may catch a range of peaks and the huge banks of snow which by in the ravines throughout the year. These peaks are nearly 14,000 feet above the level of the sea, and when a visitor climbs upon them he fully realizes he is in the region of everlasting snow, and is where the hand of man can never enter to transform to his wishes. Standing at the timberline, in the foreground of the picture, you are about 12,000 feet high, and this canon in its absence of trees, and the gradual disappearance of vegetation up to the point where snow and naked rock are met, with the clear outlines of the peaks against the sky, presents a review which you may see everywhere in the Rocky Mountains. The snow falls in such places at all seasons of the year. I was driven down from the top of Gray's Peak in the middle of August by as fierce a snow storm as I ever encountered, and yet at timber line the air was as serene and pleasant as the sun could make it in such elevated places it No. 3 is one of the Mountain Lakes often found among the peaks, and is an excellent combination of light and shadow. These pictures seem to me to be the perfection of the photographic art and it is difficult to appreciate how the artist could take them of such immense size, knowing that all his apparatus and working material had to be transported upon the backs of small mountain jacks. No vehicle of any nature can climb the rugged mountains. Horses cannot endure the rarified air, hence there is no alternative but to use the diminutive donkey for every purpose. These docile, sure-footed animals will, in trains of a dozen, follow each other in single file, and the narrow zig-zag paths to the highest peaks, and in places where horses would prove powerless, carry enormous burdens and enjoy themselves; hence they are to the Mountaineer what the camel is to the Arabian, and absolute essential on which he relies as a [[/newspaper clipping]] [[handwritten annotation]] Column 1 Column 2 [[/handwritten annotation]] [[newspaper clipping]] carrier for every necessary of life. These photographs were taken by Wm. H. Jackson, the photographer of Prof. Hayden's Survey, and they unmistakably exhibit his rare skill in the perfection with which every detail is shown of shade, sky, bushes, twigs, water and every outline that may be seen by the visitor on the ground. It is impossible, of course to appreciate what nature has there of the supply by looking at a photograph, yet we feel assured no artist living can succeed better than Mr. Jackson has, in making nature's counterfeit in these pictures. Connected with Prof. Hayden's survey is another true artist, Wm. H. Holmes, a Harrison county boy. Prof. Hayden's genius is as much shown in his selection of men for assistants as in his scientific attainments, and we are glad to note that Shortcreek Tp. has in Mr. Holmes furnished him one of his most talented aids. Mr. Holmes came here several years ago, taking a mere subordinate draftsman's position in the Smithsonian Institute, but, developing rare merit, he soon was promoted. He has served under Prof. Hayden as a field draughtsman and geologist and has no superior here for either duty. He is a thorough master of the pencil and watercolor. His topographical and geological maps cannot be surpassed, while his written articles which appear in the Annual Reports of Prof. Hayden to Congress, and in the Literary Magazines of the East show him to be as much at home with a pen as with pencil and dividers. We are very proud of him here, and feel assured he will make his mark. [[circled]] We will hardly allow Steubenville to take him, though fully aware of the necessity which impels that benighted city to absorb Harrison county talent.[[/circled]] put Holmes down as another Harrison county boy who has gone out into the world and made himself a reputation. Prof. Hayden's entire force is composed of young men like Holmes. Older men prove unable to endure the fatigues and hardships of mountain work, and are kept in the office here while the young men must put on their harness and go out into the field until they have acquired full right for post duty. R. S. LACEY. [[/newspaper clipping]]
