38 
REVIEWS. 
of 
Tue Doromite Mountains. Excursions through Tyrol, Carin- 
thia, Carniola, and Friuli, in 1861-8. By Jostam GILBERT and 
G. C. Caurcuitt, F.G.8S. 8vo. Loneman, 1864: pp. 576. 
| [ieee Carinthian Alps have remained hitherto almost as unknown 
to English tourists as in the days when Goldsmith wrote the 
couplet which serves for motto in this sumptuous volume. The great 
highway of the Splugen commonly forms the eastern boundary of the 
Briton’s wanderings. Few reach the Stelvio, or the line of railway 
from Verona to Trent and Botzen, though they lead to Innspruck, 
the heart of the Tyrol ; and fewer still devote their holidays to the 
magnificent solitudes of the Eastern Alps. 
The geological party—if we may so term the two gentlemen, ac- 
companied by their ladies—whose excursions are now commemorated, 
have devoted the leisure of three or four successive summers to this 
comparatively unfrequented region. The field of their observations 
extends from the upper valley of the Adige eastward along the 
Drave, and among the mountains bounding it, to the cathedral town 
of Klagenfurt, and so on to Laibach, where the railroad from Trieste 
to Vienna forms the furthest and most important route to the Aus- 
trian capital. But the region of the Dolomites—that in which they 
form the prominent features of the scenery—is more limited, not 
extending much beyond the valley of the Piave. Some might 
think that the company of ladies must have proved an impediment 
in their wanderings ; as the curé of Saas told his visitor, ‘If he had 
only left his mother at home, they might have done something.’ 
But our authors found the travelling teapot and umbrella more 
useful than the alpenstock, and not only vindicate their policy but 
gallantly assert that the book itself would have been much better 
if the ladies had written it. 
We must admit that we have found the narrative of Mr. Gilbert 
much more readable than Mr. Churchill’s chapter on geology. But 
in this Magazine it will be more appropriate to refer the reader to 
the original work for all its tales and legends, of prince-bishops, dukes, 
and saints; of mansions plundered by the French, and castles de- 
stroyed by the Turks ; the Rosengarten, and the Dragon of Klagen- 
furt ;* of modern hostelries, good and bad; and of roads and passes, 
subjects of the highest interest to those about to visit a country for 
the first time. The narrative is illustrated by six chromo-lithographs 
and twenty-seven woodcuts, representing some of the principal 
mountain-groups and objects described by the visitors. 
There is a geological map of the Eastern Alps, by MM. Sedgwick 
and Murchison, in the 8rd vol. of the Geological Transactions, from 
* The inhabitants of Klagenfurt have preserved in the Rath-Haus a fossil skull 
of the Tichorhine Rhinoceros, which many of them believe to be a remnant of 
their old enemy, whose bronze effigy adorns their public square. We have been 
told by Professor Suess that a skull of the same kind of Rhinoceros, and a large 
fossil rib and thigh-bone, are suspended by a chain in the Cathedral of Cracow. 
