ON MOUNTAINS AND MANKIND. 341 



<(MMilli !iii(l s('vento(Mitli rontiirios in Europo; T may go earlier — evon 

 liMck (() Daiito. ITis allusions (o nionntain scenery an^ fVe(|iient; 

 his \'iri:il liad all the onift of an Alpine rock climber. Read Leon- 

 ardo da X'inci's Notes, Conrad (lesner's Ascent of Pilatus; study 

 I lie iiari-atives of tiie Alj)ine pivcursors Mr. (\)olid<jfe has collected 

 and annotated with admii-al>le industi'v in (he pi-odii^'ions volume 

 he has rei-ently l)roui»ht out." 



It is impossible for me hei'e (o nudtii)ly proofs of my argument, 

 to ([uote (>ven a selection from the passages that show an authentic 

 (•nthusiasm for mountains (hat may be culled from writers of vari- 

 ous nations prior (o )(>()() a. n. I unist content myself witli the 

 following specimens which will ])robaI)ly l)e new to most of my 

 hear<'i-s. 



r)enoi( Afard was a professor of (ireek and ITebrew at Bern, and 

 ;> friend of the great Conrad Gesner (I call him great, for he com- 

 bined (he (lualities of a man of science and a man of letters, was one 

 of the fathers of botany as well as of mountaineering, and w^as, 

 in his many sidedness, a typical figure of the Renaissance). Marti, 

 HI (he year 1558 or 1559, wrote as follows of the view from his native 

 city : 



" These are the mountains which form our pleasure and delight " 

 (the Latin is better — " deliciie nostrse, nostrique amores ") " when 

 we gaze at them from the higher parts of our city and admire their 

 mighty peaks and broken crags that threaten to fall at any moment. 

 Here we watch the risings and settings of the sun and seek signs of 

 the weather. In them we find food not only for our eyes and our 

 minds but also for our bellies;'' and he goes on to enumerate the 

 dairy j)roducts of the Oberland and the happy life of its population. 

 I ([note again this good man : " Who, then, would not admire, love, 

 willingly visit, explore, and climb places of this sort? I assuredly 

 should call those who are not attracted by them mushrooms, stupid, 

 dull fishes, and slow tortoises " (" fungos, stupidos insulsos pisces, 

 lentoscpie chelones''). ''In truth, I can not describe the sort of 

 affection and natural love with which I am drawn to mountains, 

 so that I am never haj)[)ier than on the mountain crests, and there 

 ai-e no wanderings dearer to me than those on the mountains.'"' 

 ''They are the theater of the Lord, displaying monuments of past 

 ages, such as precipices, rocks, peaks, and chasms, and never-melting 

 glaciers; "' and so on through numy eloquent paragraphs. 



I will oidy add two sentences from the preface to Simler's Vallesiae 

 et Alpimn Descriptio, first published in 1574, which seem to me a 

 strong piece of evidence in favor of my view : " In the entire district. 



" ".Tosias Seinler et les orisines (1(> r.Mpiiiisnia jiiscju'eu ICOO," par W. A. B. 

 Coolitlge. Allier Freres. (Jronol»le. 



