Reviews

Mountaineering Ventures: by Claude E. Benson. (T. C. & E. C. Jack & Co. Ltd., pp. vii. and 224, 6s od. nett). This little volume is a summary of a few of the great epic stories of the mountains, cast in that happy vein of mingled jest and earnest with which the author has so often entertained his fellow clubbistes. He takes each story in turn, pulps it, dresses it afresh in his own language, and presents it with such a wealth of description and display of intimate knowledge of the terrain that the reader might well be pardoned for thinking he had actually formed one of the party. In this way he deals with the doings of great climbers–de Saussure , G.W. Young and others on Mt. Blanc and its Aiguilles, Whymper on the Matterhorn, Slingsby on “Skag,” and of others on the Meije, Aorangi (N.Z.) and elsewhere – concluding with an eloquent summary of the attempts on Mt. Everest. Nor does he fail to “point a moral and adorn a tale ” with apt and frequent comment and advice on all articles of the mountaineering code, meant to bring home to every climber the truth of the saying ” the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” His comparisons of small things with great – of British hill climbs with their big Swiss brothers – will help those who only know the former to understand the latter. The book will send many readers to the original narratives and some, let us hope, to the mountains themselves.

The illustrations (photographic) and especially the “jacket” are worthy of the text.–W.A.B.

Climbers’ Guide To Snowdon And The Beddgelert District : by H. R.C. Carr – 1926 . 143 pp., 12 plates, 9 diagrams, 3 sketch-maps. 5s. (Burrup, Mathieson & Co.) The fourth of the series of guides published by the Climbers’ Club completes the task undertaken for North Wales twenty years ago. The number of crags, great and small, described or located by the book is astonishing, and it is a delightful hunt, reminiscent of happy days, to try to find any omission.

But completely and pithily though the climbs are described, the book is also a most useful guide to the many grand mountain walks of the area. We congratulate Mr. Carr and his assistants both on the contents and on the convenient size of their publication. It should have a great sale.

The Open Air Guide, by J. R. Ashton and F. A. Stocks – 1928. 210 pp., 3s. 6d. (John Heywood). A handy book of reference for wayfarers of all kinds in their early stages. There is a good chapter on roads, and other chapters give useful information on maps, camping, stars, weather, architecture, etc., to find which would otherwise entail some trouble. An appendix contains lists of high passes and of peaks over 2,500 feet in England and Wales.

Hills And Highways, by Katharine C. Chorley – 1928. 232 pp., 6s, net (J. M. Dent & Sons). A volume of walking essays and of very pleasant reading, dominated by Lakeland and the Alps. Wastdale, Will Ritson, and the Patriarch of the Pillar appear in it – Scotland and Italian painters.

The passages about the walker and the motorist in “Lake Country Inns” have a more subtle humour possibly than when they were written, for nowadays the walker is, except on highdays and holidays, a motorist too. We applaud the sound distinction the author draws between inns and hotels.

There is a local study, “Cities of the Pennines,” – a frank expression of opinion about the stone towns of E. Lancashire. We plead guilty to feeling no disagreement with the epithets Mrs. Chorley applies to the industrial north or to the moors of the Southern Pennines – she knows the latter better than we do – but we cannot help noting that she has, like many other northerners, forgotten in the pain of the moment that beyond the industrial north lies the Enchanting North, where Pennine moors are not blasted like those of the Southern Pennines, nor are stone towns like the horrors of the gritstone. Even in Lancashire, N. of Rivington Pike, the towns are not one with the moors, and one passes from a world of grime to a world of colour.

Alpine Journal. – Each number now runs to some two hundred pages, packed with interesting articles. During the last two years those of most outstanding general interest appear to be “The Ascent of Mount Logan” by A. H. MacCarthy, and ” Mount Tasman and its Satellites ” by H. E. L. Porter, while we at least will include Smythe’s full accounts of his expeditions of 1927.

Two articles on knots seem to leave nothing more to be said except that pot-holers are strictly forbidden to employ in the dark any but the simplest knots over which no mistake can be made.

Kindred Club Journals. – The Club possesses full sets, and members are urged to make greater use of the opportunities of reading the current numbers, even if they do not feel sufficiently well-off to buy them. The Editor, well aware of the traps which await reviewers, has no desire to deal with them at great length, but acknowledges with gratitude the kindness of the Clubs with which we exchange publications.

We regret to learn of the death of Mr. G. B. Green, Editor of the Scottish Mountaineering Club Journal. He is succeeded by Mr. Jack MacRobert, to whom we wish every success. His first two numbers have been distinguished by the beauty of the photographs.

The Cairngorm Club Journal records that Mr. J. A. Parker has joined the little band who have done all the “Munros ” or Scottish 3,000 footers. This Journal still adheres faithfully to its own district.

The last number of the Journal of the Fell and Rock Climbing Club contains an article of grave importance by the Editor on the staff work and planning which will be required to be done by some one if an injured man is to be brought in with all speed after an accident. The previous number contains the Langdale Guide and an account of the round of the Coolins by Frankland and Miss Barker.

The second number of the Pinnacle Club Journal shows the women’s club going strong. Miss Bray has an interesting and amusing article “Climbing with Foreigners,” including the crossing to the Guglia di Amicis by an 80 ft. rope bridge, hanging by one leg and hands, and apparently a cord loop.

The Gritstone Club Journal is again pluckily produced by typing. In an article by Hastings, “Low Douk,” we recognise a record of the first traverse from Gavel Pot to Short Drop, in 1885, but unluckily not quite completed.

To the Wayfarers’ Club Journal, a new comer, we wish a long run. If the Editor is as successful in collecting articles in the future as his assistant has been in finding advertisements, the W.C.J. is going to strike out a new line in climbing journals. It contains a surprising number of articles and the only good picture of the Cima del Largo we have ever seen.

The Proceedings of the Bristol Spelaeoligical Society record that the Society is persistent and successful in the patient and careful excavation of rock shelters for prehistoric remains, of late at Ross and Cheddar.

After reading the British Ski Year Book, a splendid volume of 300 pp., all we feel able to say is that we envy those people who have time to learn ski-ing, and a second long holiday in which to practise the art.

The Climbers’ Club Journal contains an interesting symposium on how the three writers began to climb. It records a long wanted discovery of rocks near Birmingham, by Mr. T. S. Knowles who, unhappily, has perished at the hands of bandits in China.

Last, but not least, comes the Rucksack Club Journal, now edited by Mr. J. H. Doughty. It contains several new departures, and, remembering the pleas of a contemporary for a really literary climbing journal, its introduction of fiction and a prize competition, we are inclined to think that the “literary journal ” has now arrived. All other climbing fiction is amateurish by the side of the thrilling serial for which Mr Doughty has found authors.

Humour is certainly not lacking in the Rucksack Club. It is therefore remarkable that the reviewer of Y.R.C.J. No. 17, should have taken the opening remarks of Frankland’s article seriously and failed to recognise Mummery’s well known joke about an inaccessible peak, etc

Climbing Mechanics and a new technique, the carrying of chockstones, are other points which make the Rucksack Club Journal one to be watched