Book Reviews 



261 



ways an artist. His descriptions are full of color, full of sunshine, full 

 of the flashing gleam of high mountain-tops, full of the roar of cataracts 

 and waterfalls. He lacks the intimate knowledge of John Muir and the 

 science of Joseph Le Conte, but his book in every way is worthy of 

 consideration. George C. Thompson 



"Wild Life Wild Life in the Rocky Mountains, by George Freder- 

 IN the ick Ruxton, is the story of the author's trip, during the 



Rocky winter of 1846-1847, from Chihuahua, Mexico, up along 



Mountains"* the Rio Grande to Pueblo, Colorado, where he spent a 

 number of months in companionship with the mountain 

 trappers and hunting in the "Bayou Salado." Thence, in May, 1847, in 

 company with a wagon-train, he proceeded easterly to Fort Leaven- 

 worth, Kansas, and from there, by river steamer, train and boat, back to 

 England, arriving in August. He returned again almost immediately to 

 the wilds of the United States, only to die in St. Louis, in September, 

 1848, at the age of twenty-eight. The season of the year, the wild life 

 and beauty of the country, the romance of the period, the danger of the 

 undertaking, and his hairbreadth escapes, both from the severity of the 

 weather and from scalping by the Indians, combine to make the interest 

 of the book. The description of the blizzard in South Park, in which 

 he spent the night kneeling in the snow with a saddle-blanket over his 

 head and his head pressed to his knees, smoking a pipe which finally 

 "caught fire and burned completely to the stem," his mules groaning 

 aloud, falling down in the snow, and then again struggling on their legs, 

 gives one a good picture of the wildness of the time as well as an in- 

 sight into the character of the writer. 



The descriptions of wild life are interesting, and in their number 

 symbolic of the period. The buffalo, the grizzly bear, the elk, the big- 

 horn, or mountain-sheep, the antelope, the wolf, the beaver, and even 

 the little prairie-dog, are among the animals described with whom he 

 seemed to have an intimate acquaintance. The book gives the atmos- 

 phere of the times and is well worth reading. Daisy C. Huber 



"Camping "An encyclopedia of information on living in the open" 

 AND is the publisher's foreword. There is a multiplicity of 



WooDCRAFT"t detail, somewhat bewildering both to the tenderfoot and 

 to the seasoned camper, but very good to use as a refer- 

 ence in making selections. Rough and ready western mountaineers will 

 not be likely to need many of the comforts suggested by Mr. Kephart, 

 but any one of them will enjoy the capital skunk story told in the course 

 of the narrative. H. M. Le Conte 



* Wild Life in the Rocky Mountains. By George Frederick Ruxtok. Outing 

 Publishing Company, New York, 1916. Price, $1.00. 



^Camping and Woodcraft. By Horace Kephart. Outing Publishing Company, 

 New York, 1916. Price, $1.50 net. 



