76 



Sierra Club Bulletin. 



BOOK REVIEWS. 



Edited by Marion Randall Parsons. 



"South One of the strongest impressions left by Mr. Bryce's 



America/' * "South America" is that it must have been written by a 

 man of wide experience, keen perceptions, and unusually 

 open mind. Many a world-famous traveler, devoting only four months 

 to the study of seven widely separated republics, could give as the sum 

 of his experience only a superficial idea of their physical, social or 

 economic aspects. Mr. Bryce's observations, covering these three fields, 

 are never superficial. Throughout the book one feels that an intimate 

 knowledge of the life history of nations is directing and giving value to 

 his impressions. He has the gift, all too rare among travelers or chron- 

 iclers, of illuminating historical facts with philosophical significance. 



The earlier parts of the book are mostly descriptive. In his introduc- 

 tion Mr. Bryce says : "It is Nature that chiefly engages the traveler's 

 mind in Peru and Bolivia, as it is economic development which interests 

 him in Argentina and Uruguay. In Chile and Brazil he must always be 

 thinking of both. ... It is only in Peru and BoHvia that any prehis- 

 toric monuments exist. ... I have endeavored to individualize, so to 

 speak, the chief countries of South America, so as to bring out the chief 

 characteristics, natural and human, of each of them. But . . . they 

 have all something in common, something that belongs to South Ameri- 

 ca, as opposed to Europe or North American or Australia. There are 

 also certain general questions affecting the whole of the continent which 

 . . . need to be discussed upon broad and general lines. * To these ques- 

 tions the last five chapters of the book have been devoted." 



Mountaineers will be particularly interested in the chapters relating 

 to the Andes, more especially as Mr. Bryce has as wide a knowledge of 

 mountain chains as of nations. He finds "nothing in the Andes which 

 better combines beauty with majesty than the Yosemite and its sister 

 canons in the Sierra Nevada of California." A member of the English 

 Alpine Club, and a member and honorary vice-president of the Sierra 

 Club, Mr. Bryce is in full sympathy with our objects, as these words, 

 applying to the southern Andes, indicate : "The day will come . . . 

 when the townsfolk of a then populous Argentina . . . will find in this 

 wilderness of lake and river and mountain such a place wherein to find 

 rest and recreation in the summer heats, as the North Americans of 

 the Eastern States do in the Appalachian hills, and the North Americans 

 of the West, in the glorious ranges along the Pacific Coast. . . . This 



* South America. Observations and Impressions. By James Bryce. The Mac- 

 Millan Company, New York. 1912. With maps. 611 pages. Price, $2.50 net. 



