REVIEWS

EDWARD WHYMPER : by F. S. Smythe. (Hodder and Stoughton, 1940, 330 pp., 24 illustrations, 21s.) This biography adds greatly to the pleasure of reading Whymper’s books; now we get the various parts of his career in perspective. One does not have to use the internal evidence of his works to piece them together. – Whymper was a fine artist and a very lucky young man, for at twenty he was sent out by Longman’s for eight weeks to make sketches in the Alps particularly of Dauphin^. He covered~an enormous amount of ground, but his first mountaineering season was 1861, the .first ascent of Pelvoux and the astonishing camp on the Col du Lion. After sweeping to and fro’ among the great peaks, he was only 25 when he climbed the Matterhorn. Life was precious in those days, and the grief of a lifetime is the key to Whymper’s later years. ‘

The accident held back mountaineering for half a generation, but had all gone well we cannot doubt that Whymper would have headed the movement for many years. Not till 1874 did he climb the peak again, and only after thirty years did he revisit the Italian Ridge. The 1879 expedition to the Andes was a great series of efforts in his early style. A very welcome book.

BRITISH HILLS AND MOUNTAINS : by J. H. B. Bell, E. F. Bozman and J. F. Blakeborough. (Batsford, 1940, 120 pp., 8s. 6d.) As one would expect Bell has written an accurate and interesting and

valuable account of Scottish mountains and of the Cheviots and the book is finely illustrated. But he has been let down. Fairfax Blakeborough’s line of country is not the Pennines. Neither the Derwent, Esk, N. Tyne or Coquet rise in the Pennines, nor do the latter stretch to the Highlands. Bozman on Lakeland is generally sound but on Wales he opens with amazing stuff on gloom, enveloping spirits, and fear of going alone which one associates with Highland writings and not with cheerful and vigorous Wales.

NORWAY, THE NORTHERN PLAYGROUND : by W. C. Slingsby. (Basil Blackwood, revised edition, 1941, 227 pp., 7s. 6d.) The new edition by Slingsby’s daughter restores the original order of his explorations and first ascents, also making some omissions. ” A prophet has no honour in his own country—•” and there is no great Yorkshireman of whom the Press seem to know less than Cecil Slingsby. In its shorter and cheaper form we hope that the delightful book may have a wide circulation, and make Yorkshire townsfolk realise why in Norway he was the only Englishman ordinary people had ever heard of.

BRITISH CAVER, Nos. III-XV, 1938-46 (formerly Journal of the Mendip Exploration Society).—Printing is a hobby of Platten’s so that in the last nine years he has turned out thirteen numbers of about 80 pp. each, containing notes and extracts about caves from a huge range of books, besides articles and plans sent him. He takes no responsibility, thus his contributors are sometimes amusingly ill-informed, the plans magnetic north undated. Valuable records are small caves in Ryedale, Hooper’s caves in Devon, cave diving, and the surveys of Swildons II and Llugad Llwchwr, but Platten’s great success is the discovery of H. T. Jenkins’ visits to the latter and use of a coracle in 1841-8 ! Platten is a real enthusiast.

SPELUNCA (Bulletin de la Societe Speleologique de France, No. IX for 1938 and No. X 1939-43) and ACTES DU CONGRES NATIONAL, 1939-—Both numbers are in the main brief notes of an amazing number of cave explorations with a few more detailed accounts and technical articles. In X, which covers five war years the volume of work is naturally less, but the descriptions bear striking witness that caving in France did not suffer complete eclipse. We take off our hats to our French colleagues for carrying on under adverse conditions.

In summarising the Society’s activities, R. de Joly mentions still further discoveries in the great Padirac, and more details are given by G. de Lavaur who describes the effects of improved lighting. Several pages are devoted to British caving, and we note with amusement that the reviewer of our Journal failed to grasp that the coracle was used in Dan-yr-Ogof in 1912 ; he thinks that we found the rubber boats inadequate and so took to a type of craft recalling that to which Moses was entrusted on the Nile.

In Spelunca X perhaps the most interesting article is that by P. Chevalier on the exploration of the Trou de Glaz and its continuation, the Grotte du Guiers Mort, both a few miles north of Grenoble. These caves have been proved to be joined after a long series of expeditions from 1935 to 1941. Together they form the deepest cave in France, total depth 1,400 feet ; altogether over 5^ miles of passage have been explored and the total of laddered shafts amounts to 3,300 feet.

In the report of the First Congress, we find articles by Bernard Geze on the effect of geological structure on cave formation ; by P. Chevalier on the deepest gulfs of France ; and various papers on bone-caves and stalactite formation. A. Fontanilles suggests that stalactites and stalagmites are not formed in the usually accepted manner. Instead of the calcium carbonate being precipitated from solution in the percolating water by the release of carbon dioxide, he suggests that the chalk is in suspension in the form of minute crystals which have been picked up by the water while percolating through the limestone beds ; the smaller particles rise to the top of the drop and are left to form the stalactite, while the larger fall with the drop to form the stalagmite. Moreover, at the moment of separation of the drop, some of the particles are scattered and float about in the air of the cave, ultimately being deposited on the walls to form the queerly shaped concretions so often found.

He argues that if the accepted theory is correct, one would expect to find an increase in carbon dioxide concentration in the air at the end of culs-de-sac where stalactite formation is actively in progress ; one would also expect the water to be cloudy from precipitating chalk. In support of his theory he claims to have found minute crystals in the drops from a stalactite, but he regrets that he has not searched for such crystals floating in the air. The first of his objections to the ” classical ” theory appears at first sight to be reasonable, although calculation might show that the rate of diffusion away from a dead end is sufficient to prevent much concentration of gas ; moreover, it must not be forgotten that stalactites m.s.y be formed from calcium carbonate that has been dissolved in water without the help of carbon dioxide. His second objection seems not so sound, as it might well be argued that chalk formed by precipitation from solution would be at least in as fine a state of subdivision as particles picked up mechanically from the surrounding limestone. One wonders whether the calcite crystals found by the author under the microscope could not have been pre-cipated by the evolution of carbon dioxide following release of pressure. Nevertheless the theory is most interesting and deserves further investigation. G.S.G.

POLLNAGOLLUM (CLARE) (Proceedings of Royal Irish Academy L.B.5, 1944, Williams and Norgate, 28 pp., plans, 2s. 6d.). Messrs. Coleman and Dunnington in 1942-3 by many expeditions have with incredible patience made a survey of the whole system and added greatly to the known length of the watercourse above the pot-hole. They did not reach the river beyond ” Baker’s farthest ” pool and do not accept Gowing’s 1936 account apparently (Y.R.C.J. No. 22) ; as I came up the stream to the pool, I do.

The Austrian claim of five miles for the lower part is discredited ; total length now known 3f miles. Both Oedl (1925) and Dunnington

(1942) use the same magnetic declination, 25°, instead of 18⁰ and 15°. There is in consequence some doubt as to the relation of the main watercourse to the surface features. Poulelva is in any case very close to ” Baker’s farthest,”

It seems incredible that there are no faults in the Burren region.

KINDRED CLUB JOURNALS.—It is impossible to do more in this issue than acknowledge gratefully the journals of other Clubs, the Alpine Journal, Himalayan Journal, and those of Mountain Club of S. Africa, Tararua Tramping Club (N.Z.), Scottish Mountaineering Club, Cairngorm Club, Climbers’ Club, Rucksack Club, Fell and Rock Club, British Ski Club, Pinnacle Club, Wayfarers’ Club, and Oxford, Cambridge, Leeds University Climbing Clubs.