Manual of American Mountaineering, edited by Kenneth A. Henderson. American Alpine Club, New York. Privately printed for purposes of copyright and not available for distribution. Trade edition to be issued by Houghton Mifflin Co. early in 1942.

This little book represents the successful accomplishment of a very difficult feat: the production in a few months by a group of experts of an authoritative manual covering the fundamentals of living and movement in rugged wilderness country at all times of year. It is part of the war effort of the American Alpine Club and is designed to facilitate the training of our defense forces for operations in such terrain.

This, of course, is breaking new ground. But one must note another innovation which the title high-lights—the fact that it is the first manual to treat American Alpinism as a subject by itself; to indicate that our mountaineering demands now a text of its own.

The present format, with matter and pictures in separate booklets, is temporary. Later they will be combined into a single volume under the title Handbook of Mountain Climbing and Travel. Until then, detailed comment is idle, but the intimation may be permitted that never before in a book of this kind have explanatory pictures been so lavishly utilized—over 300 of them.

H. P.