laid down the main lines of its form. Thus it is not surprising that the first serious attempt to depict a great mountain region with any kind of accuracy was made by the Swiss Government. The twelve sheets of the Dufour map were published between 1845 and 1865. It is only necessary to compare the maps in Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers' with those of to-day to see the extraordinary improvement that has taken place; yet when those maps were published they were eagerly seized upon by climbers as a great help towards their future expeditions. The lead thus taken by the Swiss Government surveyors has been kept ever since, and the last sheets of the present Siegfried map are still far the best of their kind in the world.

In nothing has the Alpine Club been more influential than in the furtherance of mountain exploration in other parts of the world. It early perceived that the craft which had been learned in the Alps was capable of universal application in other snowy ranges. Already, in 1861, Mr William Longman called attention to work to be done in Iceland, and the second series of Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers' contained an account of an Iceland journey. Mr Packe devoted his attention to the Pyrenees and contributed papers upon those mountains. Then, in 1868, Mr Freshfield and his companions, by climbing Elbruz, began that remarkable series of exploring journeys in the Caucasus, mainly accomplished by English climbers, which have made that region one of the best known beyond the Alps. Whymper, in 1880, annexed the great Andes of Equador by climbing Chimborazo and the other giants near. He likewise, in the book describing that journey, once again fixed a type, that of a book of mountain exploration in which not merely adventure, but the acquisition of accurate knowledge was shown to be the traveller's purpose. The mountains of North America have been visited by numerous English and American explorers and are now fairly well known. Other expeditions to the Andes have followed. The Himalayas have been repeatedly visited and elaborately examined in some portions of their immense extent. The New Zealand ranges have been the goal of several important expeditions, and are now frequently climbed by local mountaineers of much skill, courage, and resource

In Africa the Germans climbed Kilimanjaro, the English Kenia, the Italians Ruwenzori. The small but difficult and intricate mountains of Spitzbergen have been visited by two expeditions. German and Swedish explorers have revealed some of the secrets of Central Asian ranges. The mountains of Japan are described in more than one paper in the Alpine Journal, and even Tierra del Fuego has been visited by a member of the Alpine Club.

The photographer, in late years, has always been a member of every expedition of mountain explorers ; some have likewise been accompanied by an artist. The Himalayan pictures by Mr A. D. M'Cormick are in some respects the most noteworthy, not alone for their artistic excellence, but for the large area of mountain country they depict and the recondite regions where they were painted. He alone amongst artists has painted elaborate sketches at an altitude of 20,000 feet above sea-level. The Alpine Club has from the first done its best to foster mountain art. It has numbered remarkable painters among its members, such as Elijah Walton, Williams, Parsons, East, Colin Philip, and M'Cormick. It has held numerous exhibitions, which, like all else that it has done, have arisen almost as it were by accident. At first members used to bring a few paintings to decorate the ante-room on the occasion of the annual winter dinner. In process of time this became a recognised exhibition. When the club moved into new quarters it was felt that a meeting-room suitable to be used as a picture gallery was an essential, and an admirable room was found in Savile Row, once an auction room, mentioned in the letters of Horace Walpole. As photography developed exhibitions of mountain photographs became of increasing importance and are now an annual feature.

Side by side with Alpine literature and art there has arisen a special Alpine scholarship, undreamt of fifty years ago. Its great exponent to-day is the Rev. W. A. B. Coolidge, who, for a dozen years or more, edited the Alpine Journal. Confining his attention to the Alps, he has made the history, the topography, and the minute exploration of that range the chief business of a most industrious life. Leaving to others the pursuit of the natural sciences, he has confined himself within a definite though large area of research, and by pursuing that in

the truest scientific spirit of accuracy, and with unfailing faith in the value of his work, has now attained a European reputation, in this new branch of learning, which is unrivalled and not likely soon to be repeated. The Alps that interest him are the Alps in their relation to man. He has hunted out the history of every ancient pass, knows what emperors, what armies, and what peasants crossed it, and when; knows the history of each mule-track and carriage-road; knows also the political history of each valley and even of many an Alpine pasture. He has studied the archives of the mountain districts as carefully as he has the records of the most recent new routes up recondite minor peaks. He has based this knowledge upon a larger series of Alpine climbs than has been made by the most energetic athlete. Has an obscurity been detected in the accounts of the ascent of some peak? He has gone to the place and tested the accounts on the spot. From the Maritime Alps to the Ortler the whole range is familiar to him. Moreover, his influence upon the preparation of climbing records has been immense. As editor of the Alpine Journal he was able, for a long series of years, to teach climbers how to state clearly where they had been. He has edited or written numerous guide-books, especially several of those 'pemmicans of Alpine literature' the Climber's Guides. If amongst actual climbers, of English nationality, at any rate, perhaps of any, the name of Mummery stands foremost for bold and skilful achievement, amongst scholars who have opened the way into a new learning that of Coolidge is no less eminent.

MARTIN CONWAY.

Art. XIII.-MR BIRRELL'S RECORD IN IRELAND.

ONCE again the outbreak of social disorder in many counties in Ireland and the paralysis of the law as administered by the present Irish Executive have turned the attention of the British public to that part of the United Kingdom. When law ends, tyranny begins,' and for months past lawlessness and intimidation have run riot in Ireland without punishment or fear of punishment. When, after two years of Liberal administration in Ireland, the Irish Attorney-General speaks of the condition of things in certain parts of Ireland as 'worse than was to be met with amongst the savages of West Africa-nothing more or less than mob law-one naturally asks, to what is this condition due, and who is to be held responsible? 'One can scarcely credit we are living in a civilised country,' said one judge when addressing the grand jury of the county of Meath, hitherto one of the most peaceful counties in Ireland; and, with reference to 'cattle-driving,' the Lord Chief Justice, addressing the grand jury of the county of Cork on December 3 last, said 'It was absolutely undisguised and committed in open defiance of the law. The law was publicly spurned; and he said with the deepest regret that, in reference to this offence, the executive authorities responsible for the peace of the country were openly derided by those who break the law, openly flouted and treated as though of nothing.' The series of trials instituted by the Government, which have just terminated, has exhibited the paralysis of the law in all its naked deformity. In the plainest cases, no defence being offered, and notwithstanding the distinct rulings of the several judges who tried the cases, juries, in disregard of their oaths, have either disagreed or refused to convict. It is the most degrading experience that I have had since I have been on the bench' said one judge, sitting in the capital of Ireland. That this social disorder, intimidation, and paralysis of the law is due to the failure of the policy of the present Government in Ireland, and more especially to the weakness, if not connivance, of the present Chief Secretary, can, we think, be demonstrated by a very brief examination of political events in Ireland since the

advent to office of the present Government. The indictment against the Government is that Ireland was handed over to them in a peaceful condition, that they have in the House of Commons a majority unparalleled and independent of the support of the Irish Nationalist members, that they have had at least a friendly neutrality on the part of the Irish Nationalist representatives, and that, in spite of these facts, they have failed both in their elementary duty to protect property and maintain order in Ireland, and in their attempt to carry the chief measure of their programme, the Irish Councils Bill, notwithstanding their assurance that such a measure was absolutely necessary for the good government of Ireland. The wreck of this Bill left the Government without any policy in Ireland, and in their efforts to please their Irish supporters by governing Ireland according to Irish ideas,' they have shown themselves impotent, incompetent, and not impartial in the administration of the law, upon which depends the whole basis of society.

Of the condition of Ireland when it was handed over to the present Government in December 1905 we are left in no doubt by the admission of the Government representative. Speaking in the House of Commons as Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, on February 21, 1906, Mr Bryce said, 'This is a moment of tranquillity, of peace, and of comparatively well-settled order. Seize the precious opportunity—seize it while you can!' He announced that he was resolved 'to govern Ireland according to Irish ideas,' whatever that phrase may mean, and, forgetful of the wise words of Sir William Harcourt, spoken many years before, that if you were to govern Ireland according to Irish ideas you would not govern it at all,' he prevailed upon his colleagues, as a first instalment, not to renew the Peace Preservation Act; and thus, after a period of some twenty-five years, the Irish disaffected peasantry were given free liberty to arm themselves without licence or control! The career of Mr Bryce as Chief Secretary was not a glorious one. On the eve of his departure he propounded, on behalf of the Government,' a scheme for the settlement of the demands of the Irish Roman Catholic hierarchy for a Catholic University, which raised on the one side hopes that time has shown were doomed to be disappointed, and on the