298 SOME NEW BOOKS [october 



A CLASSIC FOR CLIMBERS. 



Hours of Exercise in the Alps. By John Tyndall, LL.D. Pp. i.-xii. and 

 1-482, with seven full-page illustrations. New Edition. London : 

 Longmans, Green, and Co., 1899. Price 6s. 6d. 



This new edition of a highly characteristic work is practically the reprinting 

 of a classic. So far as the compositors' work could allow, it is more — it is an 

 actual reproduction. A full index has been wisely added, a matter on which 

 the author was strangely indifferent ; even his popular " Forms of Water " 

 appeared without one. A few notes by L. C. T., bringing certain statements 

 up to date, have been made with conscientious care. 



The book was first issued, by the same publishers, in 1871, and must have 

 been written with as much enjoyment as it has again and again brought to 

 others. The human personality of it must always remain fresh ; and climbers 

 will not tire of details of these earlier exploits. Switzerland, the middle level 

 occupied by church-congresses, university-extension parties, and the host of 

 unattached or exploited tourists, has changed conspicuously in the last thirty 

 years ; but the great peaks and snow-girt amphitheatres remain for the men of firm 

 nerve, of resolute and confident resource. Such men, year after year, bring to 

 the snow-slope and the arete the quickness of judgment and the orderly percep- 

 tion Avhich have made them masters in their own professions, masters alike of 

 human prejudice and of mountain-barriers. Whether all such will approve the 

 school-boy rashness of some of Tyndall's joyous escapades, none can fail to 

 respond to his enthusiasm, or to smile with him in his hours of success. The 

 story of the rescue of the porter on p. 144 touches a far graver note. The book 

 concludes with several short papers, among which is a considerable discussion 

 on regelation. On p. 421 we have the well-known account of a winter ascent 

 of Snowdon, in the company of Professor Huxley. Though a number of Alpine 

 climbers have since exercised themselves on the crags of Lliwedd and Crib- 

 goch, how many of the English tourists who throng Grindelwald or Zermatt 

 have seen Wales under any other covering but that of August rain 1 ? A journey 

 from London to Llanberis, in the crisp clear days of January, will soon make 

 even an ordinary walker share the enthusiasm of our author. 



To say " our author " is not in this case a convention ; there is much in 

 this volume, even in its simplicity and candour, which must seem to all of us 

 like the cheery handshake of a friend. G. A. J. C. 



EXPERIMENT IN GEOLOGY. 



La Geologie experimentale. By Stanislas Meunier. Pp. i.-viii. and 1-312, 

 with 56 illustrations. Paris: Felix Alcan, 1899. Price 6 francs. 



This compact little book, forming a volume of the " Bibliotheque scienti- 

 fique internationale," summarises its author's researches, which have extended 

 over thirty years, much as those of M. Gaudry were aptly brought together in 

 " Les Ancetres de nos animaux." The author, possibly from a desire for 

 dispassionate exposition, has chosen to write in the third person. This is the 

 very opposite of the method of the late Professor Tyndall ; and the middle tone 

 of partial self-suppression adopted by authors of average literary gifts probably 

 represents the canon of taste in dealing with one's own observations. Mr. 

 Stanislas Meunier's plan has the disadvantage of reminding us of the handbill 

 issued by Mr. Samuel Gerridge in Robertson's comedy of manners. Apart 

 from this, the descriptions are of course clear and definite, in the admirable 

 fashion of French text-books ; and the discussions that are involved, as well as 

 the replies to criticism, are never unduly extended. The instruments devised, 

 and the permanent results obtained, have been formed into a collection in the 



