194 



NATURE 



[January 2, 1896 



There is an unmistakable Cromwellian spirit about 

 this. 



The description of the journey through the eastern 

 Bernese Oberland is incHned to be scrappy. It is here 

 that the words " couloir " and " bergschrund " are ex- 

 plained for the first time in the book, although they 

 have been in constant use by the author in the preceding 

 200 pages. Such flaws of orderly treatment frequently 

 occur, and remind us that the narrative was originally 

 written for a serial journal. The Alps of Uri and Glarus 

 repeat the more pastoral scenes of the western Ober- 

 land, but the inhabitants are less kindly criticised. 



The Austrian frontier wat reached on August i. 

 The chief peaks ascended in Austria were the Scesa 

 Plana in the Rhaetikon, the Weisskogl in the Oetzthal 

 Mountains, the Hochpfeiler in the Zillerthal Mountains, 

 the Gross Venediger, the Gross Glockner, the Klein 

 Glockner, and the Ankogl Mountain. During the latter 

 part of the journey, east of the Brenner Pass, Sir William 

 Conway was accompanied only by the two Gurkhas. The 

 departure of the others, especially the loss of Aymonod's 

 talk, was not without its effect on the " Journal." Side- 

 incident distributed itself around fellow-travellers, and the 

 German and Austrian Club-huts received a large share 

 of attention at the author's hands. 



Taken as a whole, the " Alps from End to End " is a 

 notable example of the fact that occasional papers pub- 

 lished in a " serial" seldom cohere satisfactorily into an 

 independent volume. As a literary production, the book 

 is not likely to add to the author's fame. It is one which 

 will live only in the form of extracts. Fine descriptive 

 passages occur in plenty, but they are loosely padded 

 together. Ideas are fragmentary, and repetitions tire- 

 some. The state of the weather and the digestion of the 

 party play naturally enough a most important part in a 

 faithful journal of Alpine climbing, and if the journal 

 be read by weekly instalments, those items may act 

 pleasantly as a foil to the main interest of climbing. But 

 it will try the patience of most readers to go through the 

 variations of this theme, chapter after chapter, in a one- 

 volume book. Still, the book contains a mass of useful 

 hints and information for ardent Alpine climbers. The 

 author conveniently condenses the details of each part of 

 the route, and gives the time record, at the beginning of 

 each chapter. These small summaries are admirable 

 storehouses of reference for the practical walking tourist. 



Every one, tourist or stay-at-home, will feel bound to 

 admire the sangfroid, pluck, and determination which 

 carried the author through an extremely difficult pro- 

 gramme of climbs in all weathers. But the Alpine devotee 

 will regret the business-like way in which the tour was 

 accomplished, as well as the unsympathetic attitude often 

 shown by the author towards the hard-wrought inhabit- 

 ants of these high regions. Sir William Conway is at his 

 best when he discusses views, peaks, cloudland, and the 

 elements constituting a good panorama. Nothing could 

 be neater, for example, than the following aphorism : 

 " That panorama is the most perfect which the eye follows 

 round with the greatest luxury of movement " (p. 348). 



There is one feature in the book which cannot entirely 

 be passed over. It is the author's touch of impatience 

 with the familiar figure in the Tyrol — the German " Ruck- 

 sack " tourist who carries his belongings on his back, and 

 NO. 1366, VOL. 53] 



is his own guide. The same feeling is extended to many 

 of the well-meant efforts of the German and Austrian 

 Alpine Club for the aid and better enjoyment of such 

 tourists. 



" The Tirol is cursed with wire-ropes. Wherever a 

 good scramble was offered by nature, it has been ruined 

 in this fashion by man, with the result that any bumpkin 

 can get conveyed almost anywhere in this mountain 

 area" (p. 275). 



Sir William Conway seems to forget what an enormous 

 saving it is for hundreds of the less wealthy tourists 

 to be able to climb mountains and cross cols safely 

 without paying the tax levied by the guides. And 

 that is what the step-cutting and path-making of the 

 German and Austrian Club have made possible in their 

 Alpine territory. On the other hand, an economical tour 

 in the Valais is almost impossible. Care seems to be 

 taken by the people there not to put up a single signboard 

 for the guidance of the walking tourist ! This certainly 

 leaves nature's beauty unimpaired ; but we fear it is the 

 commercial instinct, and not the love of beauty, which 

 rules the Swiss. 



Little can be said of the numerous illustrations contri- 

 buted by Mr. A. D. M'Cormick to Sir William Conway's 

 book. They are^ drawn from photographs ; but, although 

 interesting, they lack the artistic freedom and cleverness 

 which made the charm of Mr. M'Cormick's original 

 sketches for " Climbing in the Himalayas." 



THE ARCHEGONIATE SERIES OF 



CRYPTOGAMS. 



The Structure and Development of the Mosses and Ferns. 



By Douglas Houghton Campbell, Ph.D., Professor of 



Botany in the Leland Stanford Junior University. 



Pp. vi -f- 544. (London : Macmillan and Co., 1895.) 



BOTANISTS have been waiting with considerable 

 expectation for the appearance of Prof. Campbell's 

 book on the Archegoniate Series of Cryptogams. Neither 

 the mosses nor the ferns and their allies have been 

 comprehensively treated for some years, and thus, whilst 

 much individual work has been accomplished in this- 

 department within recent times, it has become exceed- 

 ingly difficult for those whose special interests happen to 

 lie in other directions, to keep abreast of the ever-flowing 

 tide of information respecting these most important 

 families of plants. 



Thus, had Dr. Campbell merely given us a text-book^ 

 in the sense in which that word is too often used — or 

 misused — his claims to the gratitude of the morphologist 

 might have been by no means inconsiderable. But in 

 reality his treatise can scarcely be termed, with propriety, 

 a text-book ; and herein lies at once its strong and, we 

 may venture also to add, its weak points. It is the out- 

 come of a very extensive series of researches on the 

 development and structure of the plants denoted as 

 archegoniate cryptogams ; and there is a peculiar fresh- 

 ness in the treatment, which can only be attained as the 

 result of personal and intimate knowledge of the objects 

 under discussion. This quality at once raises it far above 

 the level of the ordinary book, in which the character of 

 the compiler is often but too painfully apparent. 



