18 AUGUST 1900, Page 19

MOUNTAINEERING REPRINTS.*

TEE three volumes of mountaineering literature now before pi differ greatly in intrinsic merit, but they all bear witness to the wide interest taken nowadays in things mountaineering. They represent, moreover, the chief aspects of the literature of the sport,—the scientific, the amateur, and the technical. By far the most important of the three is Travels through the Alps, in which Mr. Coolidge has done for the narrative portion of Forbes's remains what the Professor himself did for the scientific in his Occasional Papers on the Theory of Glaciers, now First Collected and Chronologically Arranged, published in 1859. The volume contains descriptions of the journeys that Forbes • (1.) Travels through the Alps. By the late James D. Forbes, F.R.S., See.R.S.Ed., F.G.S. A New Edition, Revised and Annotated by W. A. B. Coolidge. London : A. and C. Black. [20s.]--(2.) The Alps from End to End. By Sir William Martin Conway. With Illustrations by A. D. M'Cormlck, and a Chapter by the Rev. W. a. B. Coolidge. London : Constable and Co. Dis.]—(11.) Mountaineering. By C. T. Dent and others. Third Edition. " Badminton Library." London: Longman and Co. ilea Gd.)

made to the .A.1pa, and the experiments he conducted there from 1839-50, as well as some occasional articles.

Forbes is one of the early giants, or rather semi-mythical heroes, of mountaineering record, to whom succeeding genera- tions of climbers pay a sort of awful reverence, and he deserves every bit of the respect shown him. He may well be regarded as the father of English mountaineering, the pioneer of the great outburst of Alpine exploration that took place in the " fifties," but it should be remembered that, whatever may be his position as a man of science, as a climber he strictly belongs to the British Walhalla, for it is a vulgar error, Mr. Coolidge informs usoto suppose that as a nation we were the first in the Alpine field.

He owes the exalted position that he occupies primarily to his genuine and passionate love of the wonders among which he worked and lived. He felt the solemn glory of the world of ice, the bright mystery of the neve swelling into the mighty dome or set about with rugged pinnacles of shattered rock ; to him the moonlight lent fresh enchantment to the scene as it glinted upon the frozen snow, and when he stood upon the edge of some great crevasse he must, like us, have felt the favi- nation of the cool blue of the unplumbed abyss, even while his scientific eye noted the veined structure of the walls ; for we must not forget that, in common with most of the early climbers, his interest was, in the first place, scientific, and that it is as a man of science that the Professor of Natural Philosophy at Edinburgh would expect to be remembered. Though the present volume contains his less strictly scientific works only, about half consists of accounts of his experiments and his deductions from the results obtained. Nor is he in danger of being forgotten in the forward march of science. With Agassiz he stands practically alone in the history of Gleteherkunde previous to Tyndall, and though the theory of glacier motion that he advanced is not now accepted—at least in the form in which he propounded it—it was an immense advance upon the crude, if sometimes ingenious, guesses of earlier writers, and was founded upon a series of elaborate and most skilfully conducted observations. Herein, indeed, lay the great value of Forbes's work; while former savants had based their theories upon vague popular traditions as to the movements of glacier-ice, the Scotch Professor deduced from actual observation certain laws which subsequent experiment has served only to confirm.

It is a little difficult to place oneself in the position of an Alpine climber in the early " forties," when the topography of the great mountain masses was almost un- known, but it is essential we should do so if we wish to appreciate the work done by the early mountaineers. Even nowadays the ice-fall on the Glacier du Geant is some- times a formidable obstacle, and it must have been no light undertaking to cross from Courmeyeur to Chamonix when it was quite impossible to know beforehand whether and where the seraes were passable, and when unfamiliarity with snow- craft and scanty knowledge of the configuration of the ice- world increased the difficulties and labour of the passage, and added to the nervous strain the vague terror of the unknown. The knowledge of Alpine geography of two generations back seems to us, indeed, little removed from pure ignorance, and it is rather curious to find Forbes apologising for writing of so well known a region as the Alps. We wonder what he would have said to many modern Alpine publications, such, for instance, as Sir Martin Conway's book now before us !

This narrative, entitled The Alps from End to End, was published some years back, and now appears in a cheaper form, but with all the original illustrations by Mr. M'Cormick. These are from photographs, but give a very poor idea of snow scenery owing to the lack of detail and dull heaviness of the shadows, which make them look like under-exposed negatives. The great majority—there are fifty-two—could well have been spared, and if, in place of these wash sketches, reproductions had been made from, say, a dozen good plates by one of the admirable processes now in use, the interest of the book would have been vastly increased, for there is little in it, apart from the illustrations, that will attract mountaineers. The idea of following the main ridges of the Alps throughout their length, which occasioned Sir Martin's expedition, is very suggestive, and many might follow a similar plan with advan- tage, but if we may venture a word of advice, the chances are

greatly against their having anything to tell at the end of it which will serve for more than smoking-room reminiscences.

The new edition of the " Badminton " Mountaineering,-the third, " revised and enlarged," has been brought up to date in such matters as guide-books and photography, wherein every few years make considerable changes, whereas the art of climbing has now been brought to that pitch at which it may be said to change scarcely more rapidly than the mountains themselves. A new chapter has also been added by Mr. James Bryce on " Mountaineering in Far -Away Coun- tries," which is an admirable continuation of Mr. D. W, Freshfield's on " Mountaineering.beyond the Alps," and gives a summary of the work done since the publication of the first edition eight years ago, as well as a general account- of the difficulties of mountaineering in distant and unknown parts, and of profitable fields for further exploration. Since 1892 there have been three English expeditions to the Himalayas, the latest being Mr. Freshfield's to Kinchinjanga last year, two to the Andes, one to the Canadian Rockies, one to Central Africa, and several to New Zealand, to mention only those in which important summits have been attained, and when we remember that Dr. Sven Hedin's explorations in the Pamirs, and the Prince of the Abruzzi's ascent of Mount St. Elias, prove that this activity is not confined to English- men, we shall admit that the last eight years should rank high in mountaineering record.