298 SOME NEW BOOKS [ocroBER 
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 aréte the quickness of judgment and the orderly percep- 
tion which 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? <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. Ade: 
EXPERIMENT IN GEOLOGY. 
La Géologie expérimentale. By STANISLAS MEUNIER. Pp. 1.-vili. and 1-312, 
with 56 illustrations. Paris: Felix Alcan, 1899. Price 6 frances. 
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 
“Tes Ancétres 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 
