September i, 1904] 



NATURE 



433 



botanist : 1 value flowers according, not to their rarity, but 

 to their abundance, from the artist's, not the collector's, 

 point of view. But it is impossible not to take interest 

 in such matters as the variations of the gentian in different 

 regions, the behaviour of such a plant as the little Edelweiss 

 (once the token of the Tyrolese lover, now the badge of 

 every Alp-trotter), which frequents the Alps, despises the 

 Caucasus, reappears in masses in the Himalaya, and then, 

 leaping all the isles of the tropics, turns up again under 

 the snows of New Zealand. I may mention that it is a 

 superstition that it grows only in dangerous places. I have 

 often found it where cows can crop it ; it covers acres in 

 the Himalaya, and I believe it has been driven by cows off 

 the .\lpine pastures, as it is being driven by tourists out 

 of the .Alps altogether. 



The Italian botanists, MM. Levier and Sommier, have 

 given a vivid account of what they call the Makroflora of 

 the Central Caucasus — those wild-flower beds, in which a 

 man and horse may literally be lost to sight, the product 

 of sudden heat on a rich and sodden soil composed of the 

 vegetable mould of ages. Has any competent hand cele- 

 brated the Mikroflora of the highest ridges, those tiny, 

 vivid forget-me-nots and gentians and ranunculuses that 

 flourish on rock-island " Jardins " like that of Mont Blanc, 

 among the eternal snows, and enamel the highest rocks 

 of the Basodano and the Lombard Alps? A comprehensive 

 work on a comparison of mountain flora and the distribution 

 of .Alpine plants throughout the ranges of the Old World 

 would be welcome. We want another John Ball. Allied 

 to botany is forestry, and the influence of trees on rainfall, 

 and consequently the face of the mountains, a matter of 

 great importance, which in this country has hardly had the 

 attention it deserves. 



From these brief suggestions as to some of the physical 

 features of mountains I would ask you to turn your atten- 

 tion to the points in which mankind come in contact with 

 them, and first of all to History. 



I fancy that the general impression that they have served 

 as efficient barriers is hardly in accordance with facts, at 

 any rate from the military point of view. Hannibal, Caesar, 

 Charles the Great, and Napoleon passed the Alps success- 

 fully. Hannibal, it is true, had some difficultv, but then 

 he was handicapped with elephants. The Holy Roman 

 Emperors constantly moved forwards and backwards. 

 Burgundy, as the late Mr. Freeman was never weary of 

 insisting, lay across the Alps. So until our own day did 

 the dominions of the House of Savoy. North Italy has 

 been in frequent connection with Germany : it is only in 

 my own time that the -Alps have become a frontier between 

 France and Italy. But questions of this kind might lead 

 us too far. Let me suggest that some competent hand 

 should compose a history of the Alpine passes and their 

 famous passages, more complete than the treatises that 

 have appeared in Germany. Mr. Coolidge, to whom we owe 

 so much, has, in his monumental collection and reprint of 

 early .Alpine writers, just published, thrown great light on 

 the extensive use of what I may call the by-passes of the 

 Alps in early times. Will he not follow up his work by 

 treating of the Great Passes? I may note that the result 

 of the construction of carriage roads over some of them 

 was to concentrate traflic ; thus the Monte Moro and the 

 Cries were practically deserted for commercial purposes 

 ■when Napoleon opened the Simplon. The roads over the 

 Julier and Maloya ruined the Septimer. Another hint to 

 tho^e engaged in tracing ancient lines of communication. 

 In primitive times, in the Caucasus to-day, the tendency of 

 paths is to follow ridges, not valleys. The motives are on 

 the spot obvious — to avoid torrents, swamps, ravines, earth- 

 falls, and to get out of the thickets and above the timber- 

 line. The most striking example is the entrance to the 

 great basin of Suanetia, which runs not up its river, the 

 Ingur, but over a ridge of nearly 9000 feet, closed for eight 

 months in the year to animals. 



From the military point of view mountains are now re- 

 ceiving great attention in Central Europe. The French, 

 the Italians, the Swiss, the Austrians have extensive .Alpine 

 manoeuvres every summer, in which men, mules, and light 

 artillery are conveyed or carried over rocks and snow. 

 Ofticers are taught to use maps on the spot, the defects in 

 the official surveys are brought to light. It is not likely, 

 perhaps, except on the Indian frontier, that British troops 



NO. 18 18, VOL. 70] 



will have to fight among high snowy ranges. But I feel sure 

 that any intelligent officer who is allowed to attend such 

 manoeuvres might pick up valuable hints as to the best equip- 

 ment for use in steep places. Probably the Japanese have 

 already sent such an envoy and profited by his e.xperience. 



A word as to maps, in which I have taken great interest, 

 may be allowed me. The ordnance maps of Europe have 

 been made by soldiers, or under the supervision of soldiers. 

 At home when I was young, it was dangerous to hint at 

 any defects in our ordnance sheets, for surveyors in this 

 country are a somewhat sensitive class. Times have altered, 

 and they are no longer averse from receiving hints and 

 even help from unofficial quarters. Since the great surveys 

 of Europe were executed, knowledge has increased so that 

 every country has had to revise or to do over again its 

 surveys. In three points that concern us there was great 

 room for improvement, the delineation of the upper region 

 as a whole, and the definition of snow and glaciers in 

 particular, and in the selection of local names. In the two 

 former the Federal Staff at Bern has provided us with an 

 incomparable model. The nuinber of local names known 

 to each peasant is small, his pronunciation is often obscure, 

 and each valley is apt to have its own set of names for the 

 ridges and gaps that form its skyline. Set a stranger, 

 speaking another tongue than the local palois, to question 

 a herdsman, and the result is likely to be unsatisfactory. 

 It has often proved so. The Zardezan is an odd transcrip- 

 tion of the Gias del Cian of patois, the Gite du Champ in 

 French. The Grand Paradis is the last term an Aostan 

 peasant would have used for the Granta Parei, the great 

 screen of rock and ice of the highest mountain in Italy. 

 The Pointe de Rosablanche was the Roesa Bianca, or white 

 glacier. Monte Rosa herself, though the poet sees a refer- 

 ence to the rose of dawn, and the German professor detects 

 " the Keltic ros, a promontory," is a simple translation of 

 the Gletscher Mons of Siniler, or rather Simler's hybrid 

 term is a translation of Monte della Roesa. Roesa, or 

 Ruize, is the Val d 'Aostan word for glacier, and may be 

 found in De Saussure's "Voyages." 



An important case in this matter of mountain nomen- 

 clature has recently come under discussion — that of the 

 highest mountain in the world. Most, if not all, moun- 

 taineers regret that the name of a Surveyor-General, how- 

 ever eminent, was fifty years ago affixed to Mount Everest. 

 The ground for this action on the part of the Survey was 

 the lack of any native name. Some years ago I ventured 

 to suggest that the 2g,002-feet peak (No. XV. of the Survey) 

 was probably visible from the neighbourhood of Katmandu, 

 even though the identifications of it by Schlagintweit and 

 others might be incorrect, and that since some at least of 

 the summits of the snowy group east of that city are 

 apparently known in Nepal as Gaurisankar, that name 

 might, following the practice which gave its name to Monte 

 Rosa in the .Alps, legitimately be applied to the loftiest 

 crest of the mountain group of which the Nepalese 

 Gaurisankar formed a part. 



Recently, by the kindness of Lord Curzon, acting on a 

 suggestion of my own. Captain Wood, a Survey officer, 

 has been deputed to visit Katmandu and ascertain the facts. 

 He has found that, contrary to the opinion of the late 

 General Walker and the assertion of Major Waddell, 

 Peak XV. is visible from the hills round the capital, and 

 that the two highest snowpeaks visible from the city itself 

 in the same direction were known to the Nepalese " nobles " 

 as Gaurisankar. 



These latter peaks or peak are about 36 miles distant 

 from Peak XV., but are connected with it by a continuous 

 line of glaciers. According to the principles that have pre- 

 vailed in the division of the Alps, they would undoubtedly 

 be considered as part of the same group, and the name, 

 which, according to Captain Wood, is applied to a portion of 

 the group, might legitimately be adopted for its loftiest peak. 



But the chiefs of the Indian Survey take, as they are 

 entitled to, a different view. They have decided to confine 

 the name Gaurisankar to one of the peaks seen from Kat- 

 mandu itself. I do not desire to raise any further protest 

 against this decision. For since, in 1886, I first raised the 

 question its interest has become mainly academical. A 

 local Tibetan name for Peak X\'., Chomo-Kankar, the Lord 

 of Snows, has been provided on excellent native authority, 

 confirmed by that competent Tibetan scholar, Major 



