The Moving Picture World/Volume 1/Number 2/Howe's Moving Pictures
HOWE'S MOVING PICTURES.
The most weird and spectacular mountain peaks in the world were conquered a few months ago for the first time. They are the Dolomites in the northern Italian Tyrol. How they were conquered forms one of the most interesting features of Lyman H. Howe's lifeorama, now touring the States. Switzerland seems time in comparison with the great shattered mountains of solid rock shown in this feature. In shape they violate all ideas of what mountains should be. They seem as though part of another world, or like some colossal castles nature has built above the clouds. It has always been regarded as utterly impossible to ascend them, even though climbers had nothing to look after but themselves.
But to secure these scenes the climbers had to care for the equipment necessary to reproduce them, as well as caring for themselves while facing the same great perils that defied and defeated all others. To succeed, handicapped as they were, where all others, without such disadvantages, had failed, intensifies the amazement of the triumph. The pluck, courage and ingenuity displayed is thrilling and sensational in the extreme. At times they are shown fairly hanging over vast depths. Again they are seen clinging to perpendicular walls of solid rock with only a few precarious inches between them and instant death below. A misstep, dizziness, or a false hold would be fatal at every moment of the hazardous venture. The fearful risks taken hold the spectator with breathless interest, and the wild grandeur of the scenery bewilders the mind.