Ball's Alpine Guide: the Western Alps

Abstract

THE issue of the first volume of the new edition of “Ball's Alpine Guide” will be welcomed by all those who seek their relaxation in the Alps. Though it is nearly ten years since this enterprise was taken in hand by the Alpine Club as a fitting memorial to John Ball, its first President, the character of the revision is so thorough, and the incorporated matter has been so judiciously assimilated with the original, that any delay will be readily forgiven. The task of producing this edition has fallen to Mr. W. A. B. Coolidge; and that this has been to him a labour of love, carried out on the lines laid down by Ball, there can be no question. What distinguished “Ball's Guide” from all others, and rendered it pre-eminent, was that in it one had, as it were, a companion leading one through the finest scenery in Europe, a man of culture with a true feeling for the mountains, and an accomplished naturalist who found an especial fascination in topography and plant distribution. Nor has Mr. Coolidge fallen from that high plane. With a skill so admirable has he interwoven in the original fabric the results of Alpine exploration of the last quarter of a century, that we have a book absolutely up to date and yet without any indication of patchwork or composite origin. And for this he merits the sincere gratitude of mountain lovers.

Ball's Alpine Guide: the Western Alps.

New edition, reconstructed and revised on behalf of the Alpine Club by W. A. B. Coolidge. Pp. xlix + 612. (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1898.)