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Sierra Club Bulletin 



"The Rocky Mountain Enos A. Mills is one of those refreshing and 

 Wonderland"* satisfying authors who writes, not because he 



wishes to make himself heard, but because he 

 has something really worth while to say. His books are all records of 

 the observation and experience of many years. His studies of the forests 

 and wild animals are particularly interesting. In his descriptions of the 

 wild animals he is at his best, for he is not only their observer, but their 

 friend, who has grown into intimate knowledge of their lives and habits 

 through long association with them. His style is crisp and vigorous, na- 

 tural and direct. His latest book, The Rocky Mountain Wonderland, is 

 full of interesting matter. Many of its chapters should prove no less ab- 

 sorbing to children than to their elders. For Sierra Club members it has 

 special value as it describes many features of our newest national park. 



M. R. P. 



Mount McKinley The Mount McKinley controversy is reopened by 

 AND Mountain Edwin Swift Balch in a very interesting mono- 

 Climber's PROOFsf graph entitled "Mount McKinley and Mountain 

 Climber's Proofs." Mr. Balch is himself a noted 

 mountaineer and traveler, and his word carries with it the authority of 

 experience. He adopts the ingenious device of printing in parallel col- 

 umns quotations from the published descriptions of the three claimants 

 to the honor of the first ascent of McKinley — Dr. Frederick A. Cook, 

 1906; Thomas Lloyd and party, 1910, and Dr. Hudson Stuck, 1913. A 

 fourth column includes the description by Belmore Browne of the at- 

 tempt made by him and Herschel C. Parker on Mount McKinley in 1912, 

 when they reached a point within a few hundred feet of the summit, but 

 were driven back by storms. The case for Dr. Cook is strengthened by 

 the fact that his account of the climb was published long before that of 

 any of the others. In Mr. Balch's opinion the "facts seem to be that the 

 four climbers who say they have been on or nearly on the top of Mount 

 McKinley told the truth, as well as they knew how, about their experi- 

 ences. That Cook, Lloyd, Brown and Stuck, reporting as they do, though 

 in different words, much the same facts and much the same experiences, 

 corroborate one another." The discussion of Dr. Cook's disputed photo- 

 graph of the summit would have been aided by a reproduction of that 

 photograph and the alleged parallel by Dr. Browne. The last word has 

 not been spoken on the subject, but Mr. Balch's able presentation of one 

 of the most confused and disputed cases of mountaineering history de- 

 serves the careful consideration of all who are interested in the first as- 

 cent of America's greatest mountain. M. R. P. 



* The Rocky Mountain Wonderland. By Enos A. Mills. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 

 Boston and New York. 1915. With illustrations from photographs. Pages, 353. Price, 

 $1.75 net. 



t Mount McKinley and Mountain Climber's Proofs. By Edwin Swift Balch, 

 Philadelphia, Campion and Company, 1914. Pages 142. 



