Vol. III. 



PUBLISHED BY THE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION 

 OF THE COLLEGE OF PHARMACY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK. 



New York, July, 1896. 



LIBR 



NEW 

 eOTAf 



No. 7. 



MOUNTAIN CLIMBING IN SWITZERLAND.* 



By Herman A. Heydt, LL.B.. Ph.B. 



Mr. Chairman and Friends : cause only a few of the brave would dare 



I say "friends" for the reason that to wander into unknown regions and 



the cordial reception of last month and open the door for man's prying activity, 



the pleasing welcome of to-night assures Mt. Blanc, the highest peak of Europe, 



me that I am amongst friends. The was not climbed till 1786, whereas now 



subject, "Mountain Climbing in Switzer- hundreds annually seek the impressive 



land," has been selected because it gives lesson of the wonders of nature in regions 



me an opportunity to speak from per- of eternal snows. 



sonal experience in the Alpine regions. The climber of to-day studies the at- 



But before doing so I desire to speak a mospheric condition, the state of the 



few words on mountain climbing gener- snow — whether soft or hard — and es- 



ally. lyike any branch of science, like pecially the nature of the rock, whether 



any department of study, and like any rough or jagged, or smooth and slaty, 



accomplishment, it is an art. The fleet- He studies the glaciers — does not con- 



flooted denizens of the mountain, devoid sider them mere ditches of snow and ice, 



of the intelligence of man, are endowed but he looks upon them with a scien- 



with nimbleness, accuracy, precision and tific eye and knows that they move, and 



endurance, and thus we see the chamois that although he sees one vast gorge 



or the mountain goats leap from crag to coursing toward the valley, it is but a 



crag, over yawning chasms, and cling to large artery, and that further up the 



precipices where a single slip would hurl mountain side the veins branch out and 



them to the abyss below. But man has again split into smaller veins, all finally 



reason. He must study the laws which converging like the ribs of a fan and 



govern us, the theory of formation and finding an outlet as a mountain stream 



the science of nature. in the valley below. 



Fifty years ago mountain climbing 7~ 



° *Delivered before the Alumni Association of the New 



was almost unheard of, and why? Be- York college of Pharmacy, ApHl 8, 1896. 



