February 15, 1906] 



NATURE 



363. 



Canadian Rockies by himself and by other kindred 

 spirits. 



Though essentially and avowedly a mountain- 

 climber's book, it incidentally places before the reader 

 much information regarding- the physical geography 

 of an imperfectly known region that is full of interest. 

 The author's sympathy in the natural beauty of this 

 magnificent country is expressed simply and moder- 

 ately, and his descriptions therefore, though not par- 

 ticularly vivid, ring true. The aim and effort of his 

 toilsome journeyings was ever to reach the mountain- 

 tops— preferably the tops hitherto untrodden — and all 

 other considerations were subordinate to this desire. 

 How difficult often was the attainment, and yet how 

 great was his success, is faithfully chronicled in these 

 pages. Along the main chain of the Rockies — those 

 huge stratified wedges left by Nature's Quarriers to 

 show how much has been excavated — from Mount 

 Columbia (12,500 feet) in the north to Mount Lefrov 

 (11,290 feet) in the south, and also on the crests of 

 the Ottertail Range outstanding to the west — Mr. 

 Outram and his Swiss guides have scored their 

 innocent conquests and have brought back increased 

 knowledge of forests, glaciers, snow-fields, and craggy 

 peaks. 



By conveniently interweaving in his narrative full 

 extracts from the records of other explorers, the author 

 enables us to recognise the salient features of this 

 wilderness of mountains, and in so doing to increase 

 our sense of enjoyment in them. For, as the author 

 has noted, it is curious how, when confronted by 

 some wide and novel prospect, we instinctively search 

 for some feature already known, upon which our new 

 perceptions may form themselves; and great is the 

 relief to our confused senses as soon as a recognisable 

 point is found. In mountain scenery, lack of 

 familiarity usually implies also lack of that knowledge 

 of distances and heights which is an essential ingre- 

 dient to the full impressiveness of the prospect : for it 

 is not the low-angled picture in the eye, but the inter- 

 pretation of it, that stirs emotion. The ancients did 

 not know their mountains well enough to appreciate 

 them. 



For the same reason it is essential that mountains 

 should have names; but it seems deplorable that 

 almost all the peaks of the Canadian Rockies should 

 have had meaningless personal names attached to 

 them. Better the most tongue-twisting native term 

 or the most bizarre appellation of the backwoodsman ! 

 Yet it must be admitted that we agree with the author 

 in desiring something less cumbrous than " The West 

 Branch of the North Fork of the North Saskatche- 

 wan " as the name for a stream ! 



The book is well illustrated by reproductions from 

 photographs of many • of the mountains and other 

 striking features in the scenery of the region. But 

 photographs of this kind, and still more the process- 

 illustrations prepared from them, yield only a feeble 

 image, useful perhaps as a reminiscence to anyone 

 who has experienced the scene, but always un- 

 satisfying. 



By an evident oversight, no scale is attached to the 

 two maps interleaved in the text, though these are 

 NO. 1894, VOL. J $] 



not on the same scale as the folder at the end of the 

 volume. And is it by accident or design that the 

 seven-line quotation of Sir Edwin Arnold's verse 

 which is given at the beginning of the first chapter 

 of the book is repeated, with a slight variation, at the 

 end of the last chapter? G. W. L. 



SCIENCE AND ART OF CARPENTRY. 

 A Manual of Carpentry and Joinery. By J. W. Riley. 

 Pp. viii + 500. (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 

 1905.) Price 65. net. 



"PHIS is a handy little volume on a well-worn sub- 

 ject, about which there are many works extant, 

 but it contains a good deal of useful information for 

 the student in one of the noblest of the crafts. It was 

 Lord Avebury who compared wood to metal, and 

 dwelt on the higher qualities of the former material 

 as a field for the perpetuation of the more enduring 

 forms of art. 



The present manual, besides dealing with the 

 various operations of the carpenter, starts with the 

 consideration of geometry, mensuration, and mech- 

 anics as a necessary preliminary for his education if 

 he would work with benefit to himself and his 

 employers. The qualities of various kinds of timber, 

 its structure and growth, method of conversion, de- 

 fects, and preservation are explained. Chapters on 

 plane and solid geometry and mensuration in relation 

 to carpentry follow, and these are probably the best 

 chapters in the book, because of their importance to 

 the Mudent in their relation to the craft. 



The chapter on tools is well illustrated— saws, 

 planes, chisels, gouges and centre bits being shown. 

 The inclusion of wood-working machinery is an in- 

 novation which will be welcomed because of the in- 

 creasing importance of machinery in these days. 

 This chapter is also well illustrated with woodcuts 

 of sufficiently large size to render them useful and 

 explanatory. In fact, although some might say that 

 machines are hardly a part of a student's education, 

 we think the author is right in including them, and 

 it certainly is a novel feature in a text-book for 

 elementary students. Joints and fastenings in floors, 

 roofs and beams, dovetails of various forms used in 

 joinery, and keying and clamping are then described. 



The various kinds of wooden floors, the method of 

 " trimming " round fireplaces, and the joints of 

 different kinds between floor boards are also dealt 

 with. We should like to have seen a condemnation 

 of the usual system of constructing floors with a 

 hollow space between floor boards and plaster ceiling, 

 forming a series of continuous dustbins for the collec- 

 tion of filth of all kinds. Many architects frequently 

 omit the plaster ceiling altogether. 



The usual types of wooden roofs and trusses and 

 the method of finding bevels for rafters at different 

 inclinations, the different kinds of partitions, scaffold- 

 ing, jib cranes, shoring of buildings, are all parts of 

 the craft which Mr. Riley has carefully explained 

 with illustrations. The chapter on the mechanics of 

 carpentry and the theory of the parallelogram of 



