On the other hand, science can often assist the climbing. The engineer can triumph with applications of the rope. He can tell us some facts worth knowing on the value of friction as an aid to stability, on the use of an axe as a support or as a lever, or on the safe methods of negotiating loose stones. The man who knows something of geology is a useful member of an exploring party; he is often able to guess correctly where available passages occur in a wilderness of rock, and can judge at a distance what quality of climbing the party may expect. The expert in mountain weather does not exist; perhaps he does not dare to, or perhaps the subject is too complicated for a nineteenth-century scientist. However this may be, it is worth while paying a little attention to meteorology and noting the quality of weather that follows any definite condition of the wind, the barometer, or the atmospheric temperature. The causes that have resulted in the publication of this little book are as difficult to define as those that produce a rainy day in the Alps; and, now that the book is written and nothing remains but an introduction, I wish that the reverse order of proceeding had been adopted, and that the introduction had been written as a peg on which succeeding chapters might have been definitely hung. From the outset the illustrations have been regarded as the chief feature of the book, and it was my good fortune early to obtain the co-operation of Messrs. G. P. Abraham & Sons in the production of good photographs of the most interesting pieces of rock scenery that the Lake District affords. Messrs. George and Ashley Abraham have accompanied me on several climbing excursions with the express purpose of obtaining artistic and yet accurate photographs of the main difficulties that beset the cragsman’s course, and I am bound to add that they are as skilful in tackling severe pitches as they are in taking successful pictures. The practical troubles in manipulating heavy photographic apparatus where most people find work enough in looking solely to their own safety, the frequent impossibility of finding a sufficient contrast in light and shade among the crag recesses, and the subsequent difficulties in development of such awkward subjects, will convince the reader that theirs has been no light task, and at the same time will offer sufficient excuse for certain small defects that we have been unable to eliminate from the photo-mechanical reproductions. These are in collotype on platino-surface paper which shows the fine texture of the rock structures.