It is not easy to stop if one begins to catalogue the distinguished men who helped to build up the triumphs of this period. Professor Bonney, an early president, was a widely travelled mountaineer, and a scientist of world-wide reputation. His recent work on the geology of the Alps, is perhaps the best book of the kind in existence. The Rev. Fenton Hort had, as we have seen, a great deal to do with the formation of the Alpine Club. His life has been written by his son, Sir Arthur Hort. Of John Ball and Mr. Justice Wills, we have already spoken. Of Whymper we shall have enough to say when we summarise the great romance of the Matterhorn. He was a remarkable man, with iron determination and great intellectual gifts. His classic _Scrambles in the Alps_ did more than any other book to make new mountaineers. He was one of the first draughtsmen who combined a mountaineer’s knowledge of rock and ice with the necessary technical ability to reproduce the grandeur of the Alps in black and white. One should compare the delightful woodcuts from his sketches with the crude, shapeless engravings that decorate _Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers_. His great book deserved its success. Whymper himself was a strong personality. He had many good qualities and some that laid him open to criticism. He made enemies without much difficulty. But he did a great work, and no man has a finer monument to keep alive the memory of his most enduring triumphs. Another name which must be mentioned is that of Mr. C. E. Mathews, a distinguished pioneer whose book on Mont Blanc has been quoted in an earlier chapter. He was a most devoted lover of the great mountain, and climbed it no less than sixteen times. He was a rigid conservative in matters Alpine; and there is something rather engaging in his contempt for the humbler visitors to the Alps. “It is a scandal to the Republic,” he writes, “that a line should have been permitted between Grindelwald and Interlaken. Alas for those who hailed with delight the extension of the Rhone Valley line from Sion to Visp!” It would have been interesting to hear his comments on the Jungfrau railway. The modern mountaineer would not easily forego the convenience of the trains to Zermatt that save him many hours of tiresome, if romantic, driving.