Reviews

The Annals Of Mont Blanc: A Monograph. By C. E. Mathews.

(London: T. Fisher Unwin. 1898)

“This book is in no sense a record of personal adventure. It is a History of Mont Blanc.”

Many books have been written relating experiences on and around the mountain, and in the pages of the “Alpine Journal” and scattered in Magazines there is an amount of information relative to it, but until now there has been no work in which could be found a collective account of all the more important ascents. Mr. Whymper’s excellent little book, “Chamonix and the range of Mont Blanc,” contains much historical matter, but a guide book to the whole chain cannot be expected to give an exhaustive history of the mountain itself. Mr. Mathews’ book deals essentially with Mont Blanc and the ascents of importance which have been made by the various routes.

Beginning with a brief early history of Chamonix, particulars follow of the first attempts to ascend the mountain, from those encouraged by the hope of securing the prize De Saussure offered in I760, to the successful ascent by Dr. Paccard and Jacques Balmat in 1786.

In recounting some of these the author has been aided by a note-book made by Paccard, which Mr. Mathews tells us has been treasured unseen in the Doctor’s family until it was placed at his disposal a few years ago. This manuscript is of importance. It was begun several years before the first ascent of Mont Blanc and carried down to the time of Clark and Sherwill’s ascent (1825).

Unfortunately, we are still without Paccard’s own story of the first ascent. Only a very meagre note of the event appears in his manuscript. It is known he wrote a longer account, which was printed, but a copy cannot be found, and the question Mr. Mathews takes up, and in which the interest in a considerable portion of his book centres, is whether the self-glorifying tale dictated by Balmat to the elder Dumas forty-six years after the event is still to be believed. A free translation of this is given.

According to it, the poor Doctor needed all the encouragement and help Balmat says he gave him on the way up. Mr. Whymper, however, threw another light on the matter when he called attention to the declarations signed by Balmat which were printed in the “Journal de Lausanne” in 1787.

These appear to have been either “overlooked or ignored” by writers on Mont Blanc, and, in justice to the Doctor, this and the further evidence now brought forward in his favour should be made widely known and the honour so freely bestowed on the memory of Balmat shared by his companion.

Mr. Mathews weighs the available evidence and concludes the case as follows :-

“The story that Balmat left Paccard on the snow and made his final effort alone, and then returned and took his companion to the top, must be abandoned, as a piece of Chamonix “blague,” – invented, after the ascent, by a man greedy for praise. The position of the Doctor must be rehabilitated. The two men ascended the mountain for the first time together. No doubt Balmat was the stronger man of the two, probably he led all the way; no doubt he inspired the Doctor with that animation of which he stood in need; no doubt he was a few steps in advance on reaching the summit; but every reasonable man must now admit that both the pioneers were equally entitled to the honour and credit of the undertaking.”

Mr. Mathews recounts De Saussure’s and many subsequent ascents, particulars of which are very acceptable, as some of the original works upon which he has drawn are not now easily accessible. We are given a history of the formation of the Alpine Club, in which Mr. Mathews took a part. This, as he says, “is strictly relevant to the Annals of Mont Blanc,” as “every discovery of a new way [other than by the Grands Mulets and the Grand Plateau] to the summit was made either by a member, or by one who afterwards became a member.” It is most fitting that this History comes from one of them. He divides the routes into seven, not counting variations, and further suggests that a way should be tried “direct from the snow fields below the Col de la Brenva to the summit, entirely on the southern [? eastern] side.” We venture the opinion that whether taken as a direct finish from above the ice ridge followed by Messrs. Moore and party, in 1865, and by Messrs. Murnmery, Collie, and Hastings in 1894, or by the avalanche-swept slopes immediately south of the ridge, this must prove a mountaineering feat of a very high order. The latter – if at all feasible – will probably be found to equal in risk Messrs. Pendlebury’s route up the Dufourspitze of Monte Rosa by the east face.

In a chapter on the Chamonix guides, Mr. Mathews properly condemns the system still practically in use for regulating their employment. This might suitably have been followed, instead of preceded, by the one on fatalities which have occurred on the mountain. A reference to his table at the end of the book shows how largely these have been attributed to incompetent guiding.

The book contains some beautiful photogravure plates and other illustrations of interest, amongst them being a reproduction of a sketch by Mr. Adams-Reilly of the first hut on the Grands Mulets. In a chapter on the Huts, Refuges, and Observatories we are told that this was “a wooden building,” but reference to an existing photograph of the old hut, shows that the side and Chamonix end were of stone, and apparently Mr. Adams-Reilly’s sketch – taken from the same position – bears this out.

An excellent fac-simile of Windham and Martel’s extremely scarce ” Account of the Glacieres or Ice Alps in Savoy ” is appended to the volume, also a fairly complete bibliography, mainly taken from the French edition of M. Louis Kurz’s ” Climbers’ Guide ” ; a chapter on the geology of the massif by Professor Bonney, and a map showing the routes, which, though on a rather small scale, will be useful to the reader.

The book is a distinct acquisition to Alpine literature. Mr, Mathews knows his subject well. That Mont Blanc has been a “constant and irresistible fascination” to him is evident. He has ascended it twelve times. In his ‘Gleanings and Reflections’ he gives expression to the feelings of the true mountain lover in such charming words that this notice may well conclude with the following excerpt from it:-

“Mountaineering has its lights and shades, but it is a pursuit which has added greatly and permanently to the sum of human happiness. Who shall measure the amount? Who is there who can sleep on a glacier in the moonlight, or by the camp fire amongst the lonely hills; who can listen to the music of the wind against the crags, or of the water falling far below; who can traverse the vast white solitudes in the night time under the silent stars; who can watch the rose of dawn in the east, or the great peaks flushed with carmine at sunset, without thoughts which it seems almost sacrilege to put into words, without memories which can never be effaced, for they sink into the soul!”

Life Of Man On The High Alps. By Angelo Mosso.

(London: T. Fisher Unwin. 1898.)

THIS book is practically a work on Physiology, and is interesting mainly to men of science and mountaineers. To the latter it appeals especially – though all may not find it entirely easy reading – as it is the record of a series of researches which were made to ascertain, as far as possible, the causes of mountain sickness, and how it may be prevented or relieved. Though this may seem a simple enough problem, it is far from being so, as a glance through the book will show.

Sig. Mosso describes a great number of experiments, all characterised by extreme thoroughness and care, which he made on the functions of the various organs of the body at different altitudes and under various atmospheric pressures. In carrying these out he endeavoured to separate the effects of fatigue and cold from those of diminished barometric pressure.

The experiments, made mainly on the author, his brother, some soldiers, and various animals, were begun at Turin, and continued at various altitudes up to the summit of the Punta Gniffetti (14,965 feet) of Monte Rosa.

The author first gives the effect of different altitudes on muscular power, and proves that up to the height of Monte Rosa it is very little diminished, especially after training. When the body is at rest the pulse rate is shown to be increased by diminished barometric pressure alone; arterial tension is lowered, and respiration made both slower and shallower.

The effect of fatigue on the bodily temperature is found to temporarily increase it, even to such an extent as to cause fever, and this, the author says, is due to the production of what are called “fatigue poisons,” which may be obviated by training.

The results of exertion on the circulation at high altitudes are then shown to be increased pulse rate, some dilatation of the heart, and diminished arterial tension, all of which make the circulation of the blood very sluggish in the small vessels of the skin, and cause that blueness so frequently seen when climbers are suffering from the effects of rarefied air. These results, the author finds, are mainly due to the action of the diminished atmospheric pressure on the nervous system, especially the vagus nerves; and he goes on to prove that fear and excessive mental strain are important factors in causing fatigue.

Mountain sickness is carefully described, and is divided into the acute and chronic forms. Fifty pages of the book are devoted to prove that want of oxygen is certainly not its main cause, and then it is shown that the dulling of the mental faculties, and sleepiness under these circumstances, is not due to excess of carbonic acid in the blood.

Sig. Mosso endeavours to prove that mountain sickness is mainly due to a condition which he calls ” acapnia ” meaning a want of carbonic acid in the blood. This is an exactly opposite theory to that hitherto held, viz., that deficiency of oxygen was its cause. He seems to prove that the old theory is not correct; but the amount of evidence he produces and the results of his experiments are far from convincing that ” acapnia ” is the real one.

The amount of detail in describing some of the apparatus and experiments is rather unnecessary, otherwise there is not much in the book that could well have been omitted. The author has taken due notice of the work of other investigators, whom he freely quotes; he has exploded some of the old ideas and given us new suggestions; but the whole subject is so intricate, that one finishes the book with the feeling that there is still much more to be worked out, before there will be elucidated the way in which the rarefied air of high altitudes acts on the human system, so as to cause what is termed mountain sickness.

F. H. M.

Bibliographie Nationale Suisse.

Descriptions Géographiques et récits de Voyages et Excursions en Suisse: Contribution à la Bibliographic de la Littérature Suisse des Voyages (de 1479 à 1890). Par A. Wäber (Berne; K. J. Wyss, 1899).

SEVERAL years ago a commission was appointed by the Swiss Federal Government to arrange for the compilation of Bibliographies of everything relating to Switzerland and its inhabitants. Fascicule III., dealing with Swiss travel, has just appeared in a closely-printed octavo volume of over 460 pages. It has been prepared by Herr A. Wäber-Lindt sometime Editor of the “S.A.C. Jahrbuch.”

The work is divided into three sections:-
I. Previous bibliographies.
II. Publications of the numerous Alpine Clubs.
III. Works of travel and those relating to the geography and topography of Switzerland.

Here are arranged, in order of issue, particulars of what must be nearly all the books and papers of any importance on these subjects that have been published or privately printed during the last 400 years.

The names of the authors, the full titles of their books, the sizes and number of the pages, dates of the different editions and their place of publication are all given, when it has been possible to do so.

In Section III. the works on West, Central, South, and East Switzerland are separately divided, and again subdivided for the different districts and Cantons. Excepting the difficulty there must have been in procuring information respecting early and obscure works, the portion of this section which includes the articles in the publications of the numerous Alpine Clubs has doubtless entailed the greatest amount of labour. For these it forms an excellent index, and will be especially useful to the mountaineer seeking for what has been written about any particular Swiss mountain.

The labour of research called for in a work embracing thousands of titles of books, and articles in books, must well have tested the enthusiasm of Herr Wäber, and only a specialist with an exceptional knowledge of the topography of Switzerland, as well as its travel-literature, could have accomplished it with such a degree of success. Its magnitude may be realised when we say that the double-columned Index alone takes up no less than 50 pages of the book.

It will be evident therefore that the task of gathering and arranging such a quantity of material has been no light one, even with the assistance of the French, Austrian, German, Italian, and Swiss collaborators whose help Herr Wäber gratefully acknowledges. Mr. Coolidge, whose knowledge of Alpine Literature is probably unrivalled, has assisted in supplying the titles of English publications.

Herr Wäber is to be congratulated on this painstaking work of years. He scarcely need apologise for the comparatively few imperfections it contains, as in a work of this kind and magnitude, slight errors are almost unavoidable, and absolute completeness can never be assured.

The work must long remain the standard reference hook on Alpine Literature, and it is to be hoped that in due course it will he supplemented by a list of the publications which may appear during, say, each succeeding decade.

Cave Exploration.
“The Encyclopedia Of Sport.” Vol. II., pp. 48-53.

(London: Lawrence & Bullen. 1898.)

FOLLOWING Sir Martin Conway’s article on mountaineering is one on cave exploration above the names of four members of the Yorkshire Ramblers’ Club – Messrs. Calvert, Ellet, Gray, and Green. The article says cave exploration has been aptly called “mountaineering reversed.” Frankly describing it as a sport, its writers make no apologies for pursuing it, regardless of public opinion, which always condemns climbing more or less, and cannot too utterly abhor the more apparent futility of its allied sport.

Yet the futility is more apparent than real. Science cannot fail to benefit by the increase of knowledge. Its lessons of hard work and endurance, its varied responsibilities and opportunities do much to strengthen the muscles and minds of its pursuers. The technical side is dealt with at some length, and the article gives a careful explanation of the most successful methods of exploring caves and descending pot-holes. Attention to details is properly emphasised. Carelessness is always unjustifiable, yet it is so easy to be careless, and it may be so fatal.

lf there is a point upon which it is possible to join issue with the authors it is upon the form of rope-ladder best adapted for this work. In spite of its extra weight, a ladder with alternate rungs of wood and rope, or at least every third rung of wood, is to be preferred to the ladder with one wooden rung in every four or five recommended. Climbing n rope-ladder for even a short distance is exceedingly arduous, and the stiffness and rigidity imparted by the additional wooden rungs more than balance the increased difficulty in getting the ladder to its point of usefulness.

Curiously, all mention of provision for the sustenance of the explorers has been omitted. This matter is of some importance, and might have received some attention with advantage. Its necessity is obvious. Some of our larger pot-holes and caves have involved expeditions of ten, twelve, or even fourteen hours’ duration. They are more or less wet, and the success of an expedition often depends in a greater degree on an efficient food supply than is commonly suspected. Cave exploration is hard work, quickly exhausting vitality, and there are possibilities of temporary imprisonment, when things would go hardly with a party unprovided with food.

The article is illustrated by a sectional diagram of a pot-hole, showing method of descent, &c.

L. M.

Wit, Character, Folklore, And Customs Of The North Riding Of Yorkshire, With A Glossary. By Richard Blakeborough.

(London: Henry Frowde. 1898.)

WE welcome Mr. Blakeborough’s book on the North Riding as containing in a handy volume a record of the Wit, Character, and Folklore of the shire. Compiled with care and written with judgment – we might almost say with diffidence – it reflects the author’s knowledge and love of his subject. The book is so arranged that it can be either read and enjoyed, or used for reference equally well.

Though the anecdotes illustrative of Yorkshire wit are not all new, they are well chosen and told with humour. Our people do not always consider the feelings of others when they feel called upon to make a few remarks, but they can and often do say good things without being offensive, as the following among many others shows:-

“Lady – said to one of her under-gardeners, ‘Thomas, the maids tell me that you often say very nasty things about women; do you ever do the same of the men?’ And then her ladyship looked him squarely in the face, but Thomas was equal to the occasion. ‘Neea, my lady, that Ah deean’t, acoz i’ that case it ‘ud be trew, ya. knaw.'”

Hospitality, kindness, fairness, and gratitude are virtues naturally extolled, but less admirable traits are by no means covered up-
“It is admitted on all hands that the Yorkshireman is fairly ‘cute; he always has an eye to the main chance.”

Even so. The advertisement of the author’s calling, which unfortunately disfigures its pages, is as good an illustration of this point as the book contains.

The chapters on customs and folklore are especially interesting, and as is proper in a work covering a wide area those beliefs only are noticed which are common to the whole district. The observances of all the seasons of the year many of them dating from the earliest days of Christianity and doubtless of Paganism – are described, and the reasons assigned for them are generally well grounded.

The rites, ceremonies, and charms to be used for the discovery of future spouses, and other prognostications, are very numerous, and provide plenty of interesting reading.

Customs in connection with birth, death, and marriage die hard, though they are observed in a very modified form nowadays. The memories of many old people still contain a fund of witchlore, and volumes could be written on the doings of witches who lived and did a large business a generation or two back. Wise men flourished at the same time, and for a consideration they were ready to provide antidotes for the spells put upon their clients by witches. Wickenwood was universally employed as a charm, but recipes generally of most repulsive ingredients had to be employed in various ways in conjunction with elaborate ritual and incantations. The writer, in order to record that witches sometimes did good even if they committed evil to bring it about, quotes a tale of a widows son who was dying presumably under the spell of at certain Nanny Appleby. The mother saw the witch with the idea of appeasing her, but Nanny swore she was innocent, and undertook to visit the lad and cure him.

“In much fear and trembling, the widow returned with Nanny, to the astonishment of the whole village. After having been left alone with the young fellow for some little time, Nanny told the weeping mother that her lad was possessed of a devil, which she promised to drive out. By what means she managed to induce the devil to let go his hold ‘of the vitals’ is not known; but a terrific fight took place, furniture was smashed and pots were broken, amidst yells Satanic, and Nanny came off victorious. Having got the devil out of the young fellow, the next thing was what must be done with the little imp? Nanny, however, seems to have been equal to the occasion. Of course, such a doubtful customer could not he allowed to roam about at his own sweet will; oh, dear no, Nanny would not grant at favour of that kind. The spirit was commanded to enter the body of a certain Tom Moss. Probably she had a spite against Tom; anyway the order seems to have been mostl promptly obeyed, for within a month Tom was found drowned in Grantley Lake. The invalid recovered, and so there is no doubt about anything.”

Legends of the hobman and the fairies complete this section, which is full of interest to the student of folklore.

The grand old Yorkshire folk-speech – “not a dialect, but a language,” has a champion in Mr. Blakeborough. How we wish the people who speak it as their mother tongue were all as proud of it as he is! We should then have no fear of its disappearance. But it is already doomed, and we are not quite sure that many Cleveland boys old enough to grasp the meaning of its equivalent in their own speech would not fully understand the slang phrase which is quoted in one chapter as something unintelligible to them. There are too many weekly “comic” papers circulating for this to be possible. It is hardly fair, by the way, to hold up such a hideous deformity of the language as a type of Southern English. We do not like to look forward to the day, but the time will surely come when education, the press, railways, and the post office shall have elevated (or is it lowered ?) the country to one level, when the ancient beliefs, the ready wit, and the quaint tongue shall give way to the scepticism, the superficial sharpness, and the cant of the large towns. Mr. Blakeborough’s book is thus all the more valuable as half of it is entirely devoted to the folk-speech. There are chapters – one being by the Rev. C. F. Morris – on idioms, similes, proverbs, and characteristic sayings, a short grammar and a valuable glossary, which might he improved by derivations of the words which differ much from accepted standard English. This part of the work reminds us much of two other books on Yorkshire which have been published in recent years, the imitation of which, however, if it is a fault at all, is a good one.

On the whole, this is a book for which all Yorkshiremen owe their gratitude to the author, and one which everybody, whether natives of the broad-acred shire or not, will find very entertaining reading.

H. H. B.

Recent Books.

General Introduction To The “Alpine Guide.” Hints and Notes Practical and Scientific for Travellers in the Alps. By the late John Ball. A New and Revised Edition. Prepared on behalf of the Alpine Club by W. A. B. Coolidge. Size 71/4 x by 5, pp. clxiv. (London: Longmans, Green & Co. 1899. Price 3s. net.)

The Alpine Guide. Vol. I. The Western Alps. By the late JOHN BALL. Memorial Edition, Reconstructed and Revised by W. A. B. Coolidge. With 10 Maps. Size 71/4 x 5, pp. xlix. and 612. (London: Longmans, Green & Co. 1898. Price 12s. net.)

The Annals Of Mont Blanc: a Monograph. by C. E. MATHEWS, with at chapter on the Geology of the Mountain, by Prof. T. G. Bonney, with photogravure and other illustrations, and a map. Size 81/2 X 53/4. pp. xxiv. and 368. (London: T. Fisher Unwin. 1898. Price 21s. net.) Reviewed on p. 79.

Life Of Man On The High Alps. By Angelo Mosso. Translated from the second edition of the Italian by E. Lough Kiesow. With illustrations. Size 91/2 x 61/4, pp. xv. and 342. (London: T. Fisher Unwin. 1898. Price 21s.) Reviewed on p. 82.

The Early Mountaineers. By Francis Gribble. With 48 illustrations. Size 81/2 x 51/2, pp. 352. (London: T. Fisher Unwin. 1899. Price 21s.)

The Playground Of Europe. By Leslie Stephen. A New Edition, with 4 illustrations. Size 71/2 x 5, pp. xi. and 339. (Longmans, Green & Co. 1899. Price 3s. 6d.)
We are pleased to find the publishers issuing another and cheaper edition of this well-known classic. Five years ago, before the second edition was issued, a copy of the work could only be obtained with difficulty for almost as many pounds as it can now be purchased for shillings.

Hours Of Exercise In The Alps. By the late John Tyndall. A New Edition with an Index. Edited by Mrs. Tyndall. With 7 illustrations. Size 73/4 X 5. pp. x. and 48I. (London : Longmans, Green & Co. 1899. Price 6s. 6d. net.)

The House On Sport. By Members of the London Stock Exchange, with a chapter on Mountaineering by J. O. Maund. (London: Gale & Morgan. Price 21s.)

The Cost Of Sport. Includes a chapter (pp. 348-355) on the cost of Mountain Climbing in the Alps by Edward Whymper. Size 8x 51/4. (Loudon: John Murray. 1899. Price 6s.)

Wild Life At Home. By R. Kearton. With illustrations. Size 71/2 x 51/4. 1899. Price 6s.
Chapter II. (pp. 20-45) Contains hints on the use of the rope and manipulation of cameras on cliff faces.

Through The High Pyrenees. By Harold Spender and H. Lt. Smith. With 69 illustrations and 5 maps. Size 83/4 x 51/4, pp . xii. and 370. (London: A. D. Innes & Co. 1898. Price 16s.)
It is so long since a book on the Pyrenees was published in England that we welcome this brightly-written account of two camping and climbing expeditions made by the authors in the summers of 1896-7. Climbers will find in it useful information on the comparatively little visited higher parts of the Pyrenees. A judiciously compiled bibliography adds to the value of the work, which deserves a more extended notice than this.

New Climbs In Norway: An account of some ascents in the Sondmore District. By E. C. Oppenheim. With illustrations. Size 73/4 x 51/2, pp. x. and 257. (London: T. Fisher Unwin. 1898. Price 7s. 6d.)

Earth Sculpture; or, the origin of Land Forms. By Prof. Geikie. With illustrations. Size 81/4 x 51/2, pp. xvi. and 320. (London: John Murray. 1898. Price 6s.)

Volcanoes: their structure and significance. By Prof Bonney. With illustrations and a map. Size 81/4 x5 ? pp. xiii. and 351. (London: John Murray. 1899. Price 6s.)

The Way About The English Lake District. By A. W. Rumney. With an appendix on Crag Climbing by J. W. Robinson. Illustrations and Map. Size 61/2 x 4? pp. 160. (London: Iliffe, Sons and Sturmey Ltd. Price 1s. net.)

Sprogues On The Fells. By A. W. Rumney. With Illustrations. Size 61/2 x 4?, pp. 68. (London: Iliffe, Sons and Sturmey Ltd. Price 6d. net.)

A Picturesque History Of Yorkshire. Being an account of the History, Topography, and Antiquities of its Cities, Towns, and Villages. By J. S. Fletcher. With illustrations. Size 10 x 71/4. To be published in 18 One Shilling parts. Parts 1 to 4 have been published. (London: J. M. Dent & Co. 1899.)

Wensleydale And The Lower Vale Of The Yore, From Ouseburn To Lunds Fell. By Edmund Bogg. With 125 illustrations. Size 71/4 x 43/4, pp. 190. (Leeds: Henry Walker. Price 1s. net.)

Wit, Character, Folklore, And Customs Of The North Riding Of Yorkshire, with a Glossary. By Richard Blakeborough. Size 71/4 X 4?, pp. xxi. and 485. (London: Henry Frowde. 1898. Price 5s. net.) Reviewed on p. 86.