854 ON MOUNTAINS AND MANKIND. 



might easily have made it more purely geographical, if it is geog- 

 raphy to furnish a mass of statistics that are better and more intelli- 

 gibly given by a map. I might have d^velt on my own explorations 

 in greater detail, or ha\e summarized those of my friends of the Al- 

 pine Club. But I have done all this elsewhere in books or reviews, 

 and I am unwilling to inflict it for a second time on an}^ of my hearers 

 who may have done me the honor to read what I have written. I^ook- 

 ing back, I fintl I have been able to communicate very little of value, 

 3^et I trust I may have suggested to some of my audience what oppor- 

 tunities mountains otfer for scientific observations to mountaineers 

 better qualified in science than the present speaker, and hoAv far we 

 scouts or pioneers are from having exhausted even our Alpine play- 

 oTOund as a field for intelligent and svstematic research. 



And even if the value to others of his travels may be doubtful, the 

 Alpine explorer is sure of his reward. ^Vliat has been said of books 

 is true also of mountains — they are the best of friends. Poets and 

 geologists may proclaim — 



The bills are shadows, and they flow 



From form to form, and nothing stands ! 



But for us creatures of a day the great mountains stand fast. Jung- 

 frau and Mont Blanc do not change. Through all the vicissitudes of 

 life w^e find them sure and sympathetic companions. Let me conclude 

 with tW'O lines which I copied from a tomb in Santa Croce at 

 Florence : 



Hue proi)erate. viri. salebrosum scandite montem, 

 Pulchra laboris eruut pra?mia, palma, quies. 



