Reviews—Ball’s Alpine Guide. 173 
(Book iv. § 193, e¢ seg.) is well worth reading. From these vibra- 
tions it results that, wherever seasons are divided into wet and dry, 
‘it is the rainy season when they have the sea to windward of them, 
and the dry when they have the sea to leeward of them,” p. 47. 
The directions of the prevalent winds in connection with the form 
and features of the land are shown to account for the extremely dis- 
cordant vegetations of Australia and South America. In the latter 
the trade-winds, loaded with moisture as they arrive from the sea, 
strike the land to leeward of them, nearly at right angles to their 
course, and penetrate up the great valleys to the mountains) draining 
as they g eo. In the former the SE. trades coast the land, and never 
enter far, fringing only a narrow strip near the shore with occasional 
showers. Further illustrations of the same nature are equally in- 
teresting. Considerations like these should not be lost sight of when 
geologists are speculating on the possible modifications of climate 
and the form of land at distant geological periods, when the distri- 
bution of land and sea may have been altogether the converse of 
those that exist at present in given latitudes. 
Tue Arpine Guipe: Tur Centrat ALPS, INCLUDING THE BERNESE 
OBERLAND AND ALL SWITZERLAND, EXCEPTING THE NEIGHBOUR- 
HOOD OF Monte Rosa anp THE GREAT St. BERNARD, WITH 
LoMBARDY AND THE ADJOINING PORTION OF THE Tyron. By 
JouN Bart, M.R.IA., F.L.S., &c., late President of the Alpine 
Club. London: Lonemans, 1864. 8vo. pp. 502. 
Me MURRAY and one, at least, of bis familiar red-books have 
found a formidable rival in the ‘Alpine Guide,’ of which the 
second part is before us. Provided with an excellent and accurate 
general map, on a scale of ten miles to an inch, five maps of small 
districts on a larger scale, and an important geological map, besides 
sundry views, it gives the experience of one of the most indefatigable 
of Alpine travellers, and one who has travelled with his eyes open 
and with every advantage of circumstance. For the carriageable 
tour of a month’s duration, and the more exhaustive pedestrian tours 
of three months or more, clear outlines are given, and the knowledge 
and experience of the ar naye ensure the strictest accuracy. The 
definite routes are at once so numerous and so well grouped as to 
include almost everything that a traveller requiring a published 
guide can need. Mr. Ball is well acquainted with what has been 
done in the Alps both by natives and foreigners, and has done much 
himself. 
The essential and, as it seems to us, the characteristie difference 
between the new Alpine Guide and the Swiss Hand-book is that 
the former is more purely suggestive and descriptive with regard to 
the travelling and the scenery; while the latter is more didactic, 
giving more notices of history and art than description. No doubt 
some travellers look for and prefer one method, and others the other; 
chacun a son gout. ‘To geologists we recommend the guidance of 
Mr. Ball. 
