Lettres de H.-B. de Saussure à sa femme, edited by E. Gaillard and H. F. Montagnier. 8vo., pp. 127, with frontispiece and notes. Chambéry : Librairie Dardel, 1937.

With climbers what they have become, these letters are sweeter than mountaineering widows are apt to get in these days, when postcards with quotations from the current state of the barometer are about all the girls can expect.

Saussure, although making greater use of geological hammer than of alpenstock, could never allow either to interfere with his correspondence in the grand manner. “Ton adorable lettre, mon bon ange (his typical expression of endearment), ‘'m’est parvenue au plus haut col du Mont-Cervin dans le moment où, seul, le marteau à la main, j'étudiais la structure d un rocher.” Geologv comes out a poor second, as well it should.

This slender volume contains transcripts of sixty-three letters written between 1767 and 1792, chiefly during his summer excursions in the Alps. Saussure had the advantage of living at Geneva, never venturing further afield than adjacent districts of the Central or Western Alps. In his day, however, these areas were unfrequented. and consequently his epistles form a charming record of a lavender-scented era, an example for errant wanderers, and a welcome commentary on the young Geneva scientist, whose banner bore (device now strange) his heart.

J. M. T.