Chippings
Alpine Club and Kindred Clubs.—F. H. Slingsby has been elected a member of the Alpine Club. T. R. Burnett was President of the Fell and Rock Climbing Club in 1927, 1928, and 1929. We regret that this honour was not recorded at the time. W. M. Roberts became in 1931 President of the Association of British Members of the Swiss Alpine Club.
The Centre of the Climbing World.—There were once no two answers to the question—where in this country is it to be found ? One only—Wastdale Head, and the precise point round which the climbing world revolved was the famous billiard table with its game of fives. Mountaineers hear with a shock that the billiard table has gone ! Now is the time to secure a leg, or a piece of the cloth, or even of the slate, for the remains are stored somewhere in the barn. Such relics may be of untold value in generations which will regard the removal as on a parallel with the destruction of other antiquities, and from such events will trace the downward path to, say, the removal of the ” wall ” at Zermatt, or the Kapelle Weg at Saas.
The idea of motorists lounging where mountaineers smote and cheered fills one with a sense of ludicrous incongruity. No more will the smokeroom empty when wild howls, the thud of feet, and the crash of the ball announce that ” the lamp is lit.” We can hear them now.
Wastdale Head can scarcely be itself again till the billiard table has faded into a distant memory.
Dow Crags or Doe Crags.—The Editor has no use for the iniquities of English spelling, and once more complains thai he has got let in. The F. & R.C.C. guide-book being entitled ” Doe Crags,” he supposed that his own pronunciation of Dow (to rhyme with Cow) was locally incorrect, and altered the spelling of the place in Benson’s last article to the class=”pos_right”class=”pos_right”official form.
Forthwith he learnt from the wonted amusing post-card that the author’s ” face had been blackened,” that Benson was a protagonist in a furious controversy—Dow or Doe ?—on the side which rhymes Dow with Cow. For his action the Editor immediately presented his most humble apologies, and endeavoured to provoke another to share his indignation with our preposterous spelling, which makes the proper recording of our dialects and of our colloquial speech impossible.
Benson followed up with an article in the 1931 Climbers’ Club Journal in which he proved beyond contradiction that Dow rhymed with Cow, all in his usual delightful vein. Unluckily Haskett-Smith also wrote an article, in the 1930 (i.e., 1931 )F. & R. C. C. Journal, which leant the other way. The latter, however, hinted that Lakeland dialect speakers are not clear between the two vowels ; only such a fact can make one of his statements credible.
Fashion and Popularity. One of the amusing Press stunts of the last year or so has been the attention given to ” hiking ” and ” hikers.” Originating in Manchester and Sheffield, the fashion of going about on Sunday in a particular type of costume has spread to other towns, and boomed by the Press has reached even to Punch and the shop windows.
Apart from Derbyshire, which appears to have been flooded with people every Sunday for years, there is undoubtedly a marked increase in the number of walkers close in to large towns and along certain routes. How far the movement really goes is a matter of dispute. The number of visitors to the Ingleborough area may not have increased, but certainly on some routes in the Leeds district there are innumerable parties of walkers to be seen, where once there were few. Conway’s point, that the extension of transport facilities tends to fix the crowd more firmly to certain lines, has still much force. The best districts of our immediate area are, at the moment, no more visited than formerly, and the only hiker the writer has met, off the fixed routes, turned out to be a Rambler with his jacket packed up.
How long will the present fashion last ? Some people hold that most of it is only a modern form of ” petting party,” others that the walkers will once again revert to cycling. The latter sport has never ceased to attract a host of stout fellows, and plucky girls, but the turning of the roads into railway tracks, the bad behaviour of many motorists and the ill-temper exhibited by most towards cyclists, have introduced a peril and discomfort into cycling which in the Editor’s opinion must make ” hiking ” a more permanent competitor with cycling that has hitherto been the case.
A regrettable feature is the distinct tendency in the Press to ascribe all sorts of hooliganism and misbehaviour to ” hikers.” This kind of thing is performed by exactly the same classes and types as before the present fashion, and it makes no difference to them whether they have motored or walked—at the present day they are more likely to have come by motor, public or private.
An unfortunate consequence of this campaign of innuendo and depreciation may be a growth of hostility towards ordinary well conducted people on the part of employees of the landowners. The worst of it is the landowner would be the sufferer in the public esteem. Lack of discretion towards the classes sympathetic with them, towards ladies and children, would recoil on them. Argue as people like, there is a distinction between trampling through crops, and walking along a lonely private road or over rough pasture.
Travelling Changes.—It will probably be another fifty years before there are any improvements in the method of landing passengers from the cross-Channel steamers, but some sudden railway changes make one hope that the French companies may soon be able to afford chalk and blackboards sufficient to announce whence and when their trains leave.
The Southern Railway has abandoned its policy towards second class passengers and brought some old first-class trains into use for them. Both in 1930 and 1931 one was able to get not only a seat on the boat train but also lunch I
Sleeping compartments, second class, are now a possibility between Boulogne and Switzerland. We must not fail to add that the Fort William journey is also changed beyond belief by the introduction of third-class sleepers.
On the reverse side, the midnight train from Basel has changed for the worse, into a train of international coaches from a distance, and the chance of a comfortable seat is very small.
Martel.—Mons. E. A. Martel, the master ” stroller in caverns,” geologist and hydrologist, was elected in 1928 President of the Société de Géographie, and is still reigning, we believe.
In recognition of his work a monument carrying a bust of Martel and a relief of his splendid assistant, Armand, was erected in 1927 not far from Millau, in the region of the Gausses and the Gorges of the Tarn.
In 1928-29 M. Martel published two magnificent quarto volumes on the little known scenery of France in stupendous canons as well as in caverns, entitled La France Ignorée, indispensable to anyone who proposes to tour the remarkable regions described.
The Deepest Gulfs.—In La Geographie, November, 1930, Martel wrote an article (which he has sent us), Les Nouveaux Ablmes, founded on an Italian article by Sgr. Boegan of Trieste, which gave particulars of the five deepest abysses in the world. One of these, Grotta della Margna (G. Bertarelli), was noticed in this Journal, 1927, as then the deepest, but Italian cave explorers with official support and subsidy have since shown tremendous activity.
First comes Spluga della Prata (1927) (27 km. N. of Verona), 2,090 ft. deep = 637 m. Ten vertical shafts superposed, one of 420 ft.
Second, Abîme de Verco (1928) (N. of Goritz), 1,699 ft. = 518 m., attaining the drainage level of the neighbouring Isonzo.
Third, AbîmeMontenero (1926) (Idria, Carniola), 1,640 ft. = 500 m.
Fourth, Grotta Bertarelli (1925) (Raspo, Istria), 1,476 ft. = 450 m.
Fifth, Gonffre de Clana, (12 km. N. of Fiume), 1,378 ft. = 420 m.
Three other caverns descend over 300 metres, two in Italy, one in Montenegro. Twenty-two surpass 200 metres, eighteen in Italy and four in France : Morey (Doubs), 250 m. ; Rabanel (Herault), 212 m. ; Aven Armand (Lozere), 210 m. ; Le Paradis (Doubs), 200 m.
The great pot-hole, Chourum Martin (Hautes Alpes), supposed to be exceptionally deep, was found in 1929 to go down less than 200 metres to 623 ft., the great chamber being 200 ft. high and long and 100 ft. wide. The expedition lasted four days.
Extensive Yorkshire Caverns.—If one measures up all the passages to be found, Gaping Ghyll is obviously the greatest, with about two miles. Next comes Lost Johns’ with its immense Master Cave of some 1,500 yards, which must exceed a mile and a half in all. Fantastic claims are made for a cavern exploited near Ingleton, a simple stream passage which is probably not longer than Douk Cave, over half a mile.
Other long continuous passages are Clapham Cave, Long Churn, Scoska, Jingling Cave and Eglin’s Hole, but the only really remarkable long passage is allied to the Lost Johns’ Master Cave, deep down at the very bottom of Mere Gill Hole, the main stream being over 750 yards and its tributary, the Torrent, quarter of a mile.
Martel gives Bramabiau, 7½ km., under 5 miles, as the most extensive French cavern, but in this connection there has recently been noticed an unfortunate statement in Kendall and Wroot’s Geology of Yorkshire, that six miles of passage and chambers have been planned in Stump Cross Cavern. It is to be hoped this will not be copied by French writers, as so far there appears to be no ground for it. Mr. Simpson has supplied the Editor with a copy of Botterill’s plan of 1903, on which he was one of the workers, and the Old Cavern was then planned at 1,050 yards, to which Mr. Raistrick made some additions. The Editor visited again the 1922 extensions in July, and repeated his estimate for it of three-quarters of a mile in all.
Henry Humphreys saw Long’s 1922 plan of Stump Cross, and writes that it showed an extension of ¾-mile, and that Long did not claim he had planned six miles of passages. As to the figure of 1½ miles for old and new, the Editor is informed by Mr. Boord of Pateley Bridge that before the sale the cavern was surveyed by a well-known firm and that he would consider it an over-estimate.