ON MOUNTAINS AND MANKIND.^ 



By Doicii.AS \\'. FuKSiiFiEij). 



Wo havo all of lis seen hills, or what we call hills, from tho mon- 

 strous proluhoraiices of the Andes and the Himalaya to such j^uny 

 pimples as lie about the edges of the Cambridge fens. Next to a 

 Avaterfall. the first natural ol)ject (according to my own experience) 

 to impress itself on a child's mind is a hill, some spot from which he 

 can enlarge his horizon. Hills, and still more mountains, attract the 

 human imagination and curiosity. The child soon asks, " Tell me, 

 how were mountains' made? " a question easier to ask than to 

 answer, which occupied the lifetime of the fat!r>r of mountain 

 science, I)e Saussure. But there are mountains and mountains. 

 Of all natural objects the most impressive is a vast snowy peak 

 rising as a white island above the waves of green hills — a 

 fragment of the arctic world left behind to commemorate its 

 past predominance — and bearing on its broad shoulders a gar- 

 land of the alpine flora that has been destroyed on the lower 

 gi-ound by the rising tide of heat and drought that succeeded the last 

 glacial epoch. Midsununer snows, whether seen from the slopes of 

 the Jura or the plains of Lombardy, above the weaves of the Euxine 

 (»r through the glades of the tropical forests of Sikhim, stir men's 

 iuiagiuatious and rouse their curiosity. Before, however, we turn to 

 consider some of the physical aspects of mountains, I shall venture, 

 speaking as I am here to a literary audience and in a university town, 

 lo dwell for a few minutes on their j^lace in literature — in the mirror 

 that reflects in turn the mind of the passing ages. For geography is 

 concerned with the interaction l)etween man and Nature in its widest 

 sense. There has been recently a good deal of writing on this sub- 

 ject — I can not say of discussion, for of late years writers have gen- 

 erally taken the same view. That view is that the love of mountains 

 is an invention of the nineteenth century, and that in previous ages 

 they had been generally looked on eithei- with indiifetence or positive 



a The address delivered to Section E (Geography) at the Cambridge meeting 

 of .the British Association, 10O4. Reprinted from autlior's revised copy. 

 S.M 190-i 22 337 



