Abstract
NOTWITHSTANDING what has been done by Coolidgeand Freshfield, by C.E. Mathews and F. Pollock, for the pioneers in mountain climbing, there is still room for a book so comprehensive as that before us. Mr. Gribble has collected a quantity of interesting information, and prints at the end of his work several rare and curious documents. It is, moreover, not wholly restricted to the Alps, for it touches on early ascents in the Pyrenees and the Apennines. These, however, are distinctly subordinate; the interest, as is only natural, centres on the mountain backbone of Europe. This is many-sided, but on the present occasion we must restrict ourselves to aspects more or less scientific. A wide question is suggested at the outset: What caused that horror of mountains which was evidently so genuine among the chief nations of Europe till a period comparatively late in history? It was not felt by the Hebrew, as Mr. Gribble shows, but the Greek seems to have cared little for them, and the Roman detested them. Perhaps the practical nature of this people viewed them as an impediment to “imperial expansion,” a sentiment hinted at in Napoleon's question, “When will the Simplon be practicable for cannon?” Moreover, in Rome's more luxurious days the rough roads, hard fare, and bad lodging of a journey across the Alps would naturally be objectionable. Classical influences, with a certain sympathetic similarity, may have caused the dislike once so general among our own countrymen, which has only been changed during the last thirty or forty years. These have witnessed a revulsion of sentiment which, whatever be its cause, is certainly one of the remarkable features in the later part of the nineteenth century.
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BONNEY, T. Pioneer Climbers1. Nature 60, 274–275 (1899). https://doi.org/10.1038/060274a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/060274a0