as difficult and complicated to estimate, we will briefly consider the
question of the ordinary angle that the foot makes with the leg so far
as it is less than a right angle, and whether the trained guide has any
advantage over the amateur in this respect.
[Illustration: FOOT OF AN INFANT FIVE WEEKS OLD, SHOWING THE INSTEP
TOUCHING THE SHIN ON SLIGHT PRESSURE OF THE FINGER.
The adaptation of the foot for progression on all fours. The baby is
wrapped in a napkin and black velvet, and held by a nurse.]
To begin with the foot of an infant, we notice that the foot, like the
hand, is all adapted for climbing. Dr. Louis Robinson has shown that the
infant’s hand-grip is so strong, that the whole weight of its body can be
borne by the prehensile power of the hand. The miner in Bret Harte’s _The
Luck of Roaring Camp_ realized this strength of grip when he said after
an experience with a cradled infant, “He wrastled with my finger, the
d——d little cuss!”
The following photographs show how the child’s foot can be made by a
touch of the forefinger to approximate the instep to the leg until there
is actual contact. The toes curl round to take a great grip of the object
pressing against the sole, and generally speaking there is the most
wonderful adaptation both for climbing and for progression on all fours.
The infant chosen for the first photograph was rather an unusually thin
baby, but it had a fair amount of vitality, and illustrates better than
a chubby child the points which it is necessary to bring out. If, with
tracing paper placed over the picture, a pencil line be drawn along the
bearing surface of the sole of the foot, and another along the leg to
meet the former line below the heel, the angle made by these two lines
will measure about twenty degrees.
[Illustration: FOOT OF AN INFANT FIVE WEEKS OLD TOUCHED WITH THE FINGER
TO SHOW THE ANGLE OF THE FOOT WITH THE LEG AND THE PREHENSILE TOES.
The baby is wrapped up in a napkin and black velvet, and held by a
nurse.]
Some may claim that this wonderful function in the infantile foot is a
remnant of its former arboreal existence. “Hush-a-bye baby on the tree
top” is evidence on this point also according to other most learned
people. This remarkable function of the infantile ankle-joint is probably
an evidence of our origin, and if we have really descended from apes
we should rather be proud of our present position than ashamed of our
ancestry. We may well suppose that in the pre-natal state, the child was
continually occupied in climbing the walls of its narrow prison, like
an infantile Sisyphus, and the flexibility of the ankle-joint was an
advantage for the maternal structures.
[Illustration: FOOT OF AN INFANT FIVE WEEKS OLD. THE INSTEP IS MADE TO
TOUCH THE SHIN BY SLIGHT PRESSURE OF THE FINGER.
The foot is adapted for climbing and progression on all fours. The baby
is wrapped in a napkin and black velvet, and held by a nurse.]
In the very tiny infant then of a few weeks old, nothing stops the foot
from making the most acute angle with the leg except contact. The child
a year or so old has lost some of this freedom, and begins to be adapted
for the upright position; later on will begin to “feel its feet,” as the
nurses say, and soon to rear itself upon its hind-limbs. The infant’s
foot is plantigrade, and gradually during growth becomes adapted for the
erect posture, and loses freedom of movement as it gains in strength.
[Illustration: FOOT OF AN INFANT NEARLY A YEAR OLD.
On pressure with the finger the angle of the foot with the leg is less
acute and more adapted for the erect posture.]
In the adult, in order to measure the angle required, it is necessary
to get the long axis of the leg and the long axis of the foot, and
then take the angle both when the foot is pressed upon and also when
no pressure is permitted. To obtain this angle shadows may be tried;
photographs are good, from which diagrams may be made with tracing paper
and pencil; also mechanical plans, such as placing the back of the leg
on a plane surface (as a table) allowing for the calf by a block behind
the ankle, and then pressing a thin board against the sole of the foot,
measuring with a suitable instrument the angle the board makes with the
table at moments of extreme position, both with pressure and without.
With the sole of the foot on the floor, and the heel well down when the
leg is carried forward to the extreme position, the angle that the leg
makes with the floor will indicate sufficiently, much as is shown in the
picture of sitting down using only one limb. Whatever method is used the
result is only approximate, but they will all agree, and are sufficient
for our purpose. The measurements made when the feet are pressed gives
alike in the Swiss guides and in the adult amateur an angle of about 60
degrees; without pressure the angle is nearer 70 degrees, and I measured
two rowing men who could get no more acute angle than 70 degrees under
any conditions. Always remembering that there is a fairly considerable
“personal equation,” we may conclude that if there be any difference
between guides and amateurs it will not be enough at any rate to explain
more than a trifling part of the superiority of the guides in walking up
a slope. The height of the boot heel may be taken to be the same in all
mountain boots, but the guides tend to wear heels rather high.
[Illustration: FOOT OF AN INFANT NEARLY A YEAR OLD.
Already the angle of the foot with the leg is less acute and more
adapted for the erect posture. The child is wrapped up by a nurse in a
black velvet covering.]
At Zermatt, on a sunny afternoon, Alois Kalbermatten and Peter Perren
were good enough to allow me to pose them with their bare feet on a
well-known rock, appropriately named the Shoehorn, while Captain Abney
made admirable photographs, from which the reproductions accompanying
this chapter were selected.
The guides laughed like schoolboys over the business, or over my
solemnity at a scientific experiment. The photographs show very well
the climbing position of the foot, and, if a comparison be made of an
amateur’s foot, it does not appear that the angle made by the foot with
the leg is more acute in the case of the guide. Even with Röntgen’s rays
I do not think that any structural difference in the bones of the foot
would be discovered.
In the case of the infant, so much of the bones of the foot is in the
cartilaginous stage that nothing of the configuration could be studied
with these searching rays, because cartilage shows so little shadow.
The foot then of the infant can be flexed until it is almost parallel
with the leg; during growth it loses flexibility as it gains in strength
and becomes adapted for the erect position and for walking, which is the
natural gait of man. The angle made by the foot with the leg in adults
is fairly fixed, and a difference between guides and amateurs in this
respect is not easy to discover.
Nevertheless, there may be more power on the part of the experienced to
keep a straight knee under the conditions of a flexed foot, and as the
straight position is the strong position of the knee, the guides may well
have an advantage there.
Mr. Clinton Dent has so ably described the mechanism of the uphill walk
in the Badminton book on mountaineering, that it is only necessary to
remind sportsmen of the figure therein of “ein junger,” page 92, going
on his toes, using so much his calf muscles, and so little his greater
powers above.
[Illustration: GUIDE’S FOOT IN CLIMBING POSITION AGAINST THE SHOEHORN
ROCK AT ZERMATT.
Alois Kalbermatten photographed by Captain Abney. The angle made by the
foot with the leg is about 60 degrees.]
It is in balance that the guide has such strength. _He maintains his
equipoise under all conditions with the minimum of muscular effort_, so
that even under adverse conditions of sudden blasts of wind, pulls on the
rope or other disturbances, he can keep his feet firmly planted, and his
balance sure. At the end of a long day’s climb he is little wearied, and
at the end of a long life he has a lot of climbing left in him. Let it
not be supposed that great muscular strength is not there, because the
guide does not put it out injudiciously. That great observer, Charles
Darwin,[1] writing on balance in riding, makes the following interesting
remarks on this very important subject:
[Illustration: GUIDE’S FOOT IN CLIMBING POSITION AGAINST THE SHOEHORN
ROCK AT ZERMATT.
Peter Perren photographed by Captain Abney. The angle made by the foot
with the leg is about 60 degrees.]
[Illustration: GUIDE’S FOOT, TO SHOW THE ANGLE MADE BY THE FOOT WITH THE
LEG WITHOUT PRESSURE.]
“The Gauchos are well known to be perfect riders. The idea of being
thrown, let the horse do what it likes, never enters their heads. Their
criterion of a good rider is a man who can manage an untamed colt, or
who, if his horse falls, alights on his own feet, or can perform such
exploits. I have heard of a man betting that he would throw his horse
down twenty times, and that nineteen times he would not fall himself. I
recollect seeing a Gaucho riding a very stubborn horse, which three times
successively reared so high as to fall backwards with great violence. The
man judged with uncommon coolness the proper moment for slipping off, not
an instant before or after the right time; and as soon as the horse got
up the man jumped on his back, and at last they started at a gallop. _The
Gaucho never appears to exert any muscular force._ I was one day watching
a good rider, as we were galloping along at a rapid pace, and thought
to myself, surely if the horse starts, you appear so careless on your
seat, you must fall. At this moment a young ostrich sprang from its nest
right beneath the horse’s nose. The young colt bounded to one side like
a stag; but as for the man, all that could be said was that he started
and took fright with his horse.” And again Darwin writes in reference to
balance without apparent muscular effort, “Each morning, from not having
ridden for some time previously I was very stiff, I was surprised to hear
the Gauchos, who have from infancy almost lived on horseback, say that
under similar circumstances they always suffer. St. Jago told me that,
having been confined for three months by illness, he went out hunting
wild cattle, and, in consequence, for the next two days his thighs were
so stiff that he was obliged to lie in bed. _This shows that the Gauchos,
although they do not appear to do so, yet really must exert much muscular
effort in riding._” The guides, in the same way, do not appear to exert
much muscular effort, but great power is there both latent and manifest,
and none of it is wasted in a useless manner. There is even found in
climbing that _ars celare_ which is so pretty in figure-skating.
[Illustration: FOOT OF A SWISS GUIDE.
The angle made by the foot with the leg without pressure. From a
photograph by Captain Abney.]
For an example of strength in balance, combined with bending at the
ankle-joint, a climbing friend of mine, who is as graceful as a Greek
athlete, and has a good balance, maintaining his equilibrium with the
least possible muscular effort in mountaineering, has given me the study
of carpet athletics photographed below. It represents two positions in
the feat of standing on one foot, sitting slowly down, and then getting
up again with the same leg without touching the floor except with the
buttock. It is best not to attempt this performance often after the age
of fifty, but it is no matter to mountaineers, for on the Alps all of
them are of the same age, _i.e._ _about five and twenty_.
[Illustration: THE ACT OF SITTING DOWN, USING ONLY ONE LIMB, TO SHOW THE
BALANCE WITH THE BENT KNEE AND ANKLE.
First position.]
[Illustration: FOOT OF AN EXPERIENCED AMATEUR, TO SHOW THE ANGLE MADE BY
THE FOOT WITH THE LEG.]
[Illustration: THE ACT OF SITTING DOWN, USING ONLY ONE LIMB, TO SHOW THE
BALANCE WITH THE BENT KNEE AND ANKLE.
Second and more extreme position.]
On Accidents
Forethought should go with courage—A life saved by the use of a
big knife—Dr. Jenner’s ride in a snowstorm—Death by lightning
on the Drym—Mr. Justice Wills’ warning—The three great dangers
of the Alps—Climbing accidents among British labourers—Our
plans of prevention far behind our methods of cure—Value of
collective investigation—Sure-footedness more important than
speed—Pace not to be hurried.
As accidents will happen in so dangerous a sport as mountaineering, it is
the duty of every climber to study the causes of these accidents, as far
as possible to prevent them, and to remember that in danger “presence of
mind,” as it is called, is generally due to careful thought beforehand,
and to the rehearsal in imagination of every possible disaster.
It is curious that men should brave more danger when most they are in the
enjoyment of life, and that loving life the most they should then fear
the least to die. “For surely the love of living is stronger in an Alpine
climber roping over a peril, or a hunter riding merrily at a stiff fence,
than in a creature who lives upon a diet, and walks a measured distance
every day in the interest of his constitution.”
Climbers must take care that the courage born of fresh air and fine
training does not develop into foolhardiness. In my notice of the ascent
of the Meije with a broken rib, this warning is conveyed.
In these pages various accidents have been mentioned without much effort
to point the moral, though in every case an attempt has been made to
suggest the cause of casualties, however slight.
In connection with the risk that a man runs who climbs alone without
a companion, or who climbs over a serious place without his axe (thus
Mr. Eyre lost his life), it is well worth giving an account of the
narrow escape related to me by an old climber, who was once travelling
over a mountainous path in the dusk. He wandered off the track, and not
having even a pointed stick with him, he slipped over the edge of a
dangerous slope, the turf and vegetation gave way at his clutches, so
that he ceased struggling, and hung in a cold sweat over a dark abyss.
Fortunately, at that moment he thought of his big knife which hung ready;
he was just able to open it, dig it in, and anchor himself safely,
until courage and strength saved his life, leaving a never-forgotten
experience, which is recorded because in some such emergency a strong
knife might prove again a good friend.
Frost-bites, and the losses of limb or life from cold, are not confined
to Alpine snows. Phenomenal weather occurs even in England, and the
account by so good an observer as Dr. Jenner, in his own words, of a
snowstorm to which he was exposed, will interest many mountaineers.
The late Dr. Edward Jenner, of Gloucestershire, gives the following
account of a ride through a snowstorm which he had to undertake in the
above-named year.[2]
“January 3rd, 1786. I was under the necessity of going hence (Berkeley),
to Kingscote. The air felt more intensely cold than I ever remember to
have experienced it. The ground was deeply covered with snow, and it blew
quite a hurricane, accompanied with continual snow. Being well clothed, I
did not find the cold make much impression upon me till I ascended the
hills, and then I began to feel myself benumbed. There was no possibility
of keeping the snow from driving under my hat, so that half my face and
my neck were for a long time wrapped in ice. There was no retreating, and
I had still two miles to go—the greatest part of the way over the highest
downs in the country. As the sense of external cold increased, the heat
about the stomach seemed to increase. I had the same sensation as if
I had drunk a considerable quantity of wine or brandy, and my spirits
rose in proportion to this sensation. I felt as if it were like one
intoxicated, and could not forbear singing, etc. _My hands at last grew
extremely painful_, and this distressed my spirits in some degree. When
I came to the house I was unable to dismount without assistance. I was
almost senseless; but I had just recollection and power enough left _to
prevent the servants bringing me to a fire_. I was carried to the stable
first, and from thence was gradually introduced to a warmer atmosphere.
I could bear no greater heat than that of the stable for some time.
_Rubbing my hands in snow_ took off the pain very quickly. The parts
which had been most benumbed felt for some time afterwards as if they
had been slightly burnt. My horse lost part of the cuticle and hair at
the upper part of the neck, and also from his ears. I had not the least
inclination to take wine or any kind of refreshment. One man perished a
few miles from Kingscote at the same time and from the same cause.
“The correspondent who sent us the above extract from a letter of Edward
Jenner, being a medical man, must feel, as we do, grateful that January,
1896, has not opened with the rigour of January, 1786. We print it
because it paints a remarkably true and vivid picture of the alteration
of sensation under the influence of extreme cold.”
The pain poor Jenner suffered, when occurring so immediately after
exposure, should rather have cheered him, as a sure sign of recovery of
frozen limbs; and he was indeed fortunate in retaining sufficient power
to prevent the servants bringing him to a fire. The rubbing with snow and
gradual introduction to warmth saved his hands, and Dr. Jenner lived to
give the world his experiments on vaccination some years later.
In the height of summer, often in extremely hot weather, weather of
the finest, there comes another risk, that of thunderstorms. A climber
soaking wet, with his iron-shod boots, his steel-pointed axe, and metal
framed goggles, makes as good a lightning conductor as could well be
found without manufacturing a lighting-rod.
The ice-axe fizzling in the hand, and the spectacles upon the head, with
hairs of the scalp set all bristling,—these are signs which at any moment
may appal the stoutest heart that ever faced a storm.
In July last again, another country doctor, Mr. Reese, who lived at the
village of Ystradgynlais, in the Swansea Valley, made his way to an
urgent case of a poor child accidentally burnt, over a mountain called
Drym.
When at the summit he apparently entered the focus of a severe storm,
and a discharge of lightning took place through his body and that of
his horse, killing them both instantaneously. A mountain-top is a most
dangerous place in a thunderstorm; a cloud is attracted by the most
elevated point, and any one crossing is extremely likely to be struck
by lightning. The doctor was probably wet, and, being on a horse, had
a good earth connection by means of the horse’s iron shoes, so that
any discharge between the earth and the cloud would be very likely to
traverse his body. If he could only have waited on the lower slopes he
would have been safer, but his anxiety to reach the patient led him to
his most honourable death.
Mr. Reese no doubt knew his risk perfectly well, and took his chances at
the call of human need. In pointing out the warning to keep off prominent
peaks and buttresses of a mountain in such a storm, I should be sorry to
withdraw attention from this noble devotion to duty. To bear their silent
testimony, three thousand friends attended the funeral of this brave man.
To avoid being a prominent object when on a mountain may be difficult,
for self-effacement is not an easy thing. Moreover, on the plains a man
may be killed, as offering the best conductor for the lightning, and
determine the direction of the discharge, no tree or other high point
being near.
The traveller should find a hollow place or hole as soon as possible, and
stay there until the storm has abated. The sensitive aneroid may have
given warning of the approaching clouds, a warning to take, as sailors
say, “any port in a storm.”
The danger of standing under a tree is well known, but this applies
rather to trees that offer a prominent mark. In large forests it appears
that the lightning does not always single out the tallest trees, and
the trees when struck are seldom set on fire, though foresters find the
lightning a convenient excuse for their own carelessness.
In the huge forests of Russia and Norway, the pines, with their thousand
masts and millions of pointed leaves, are said to act as protectors
for themselves and to relieve tension for the whole district by their
distribution.
Mr. Justice Wills sounds a true note of caution in the introduction
to Mr. Dent’s Badminton book, when he says: “There are three things
specially to be dreaded on the mountains as beyond human control and
occasionally beyond human foresight: bad weather, falling stones, steep
grass slopes, with herbage, either short or dry, or long and wet and
frozen. I do not think it possible for any one who has not felt it to
have any idea what very bad weather means in high places, even in places
by no means of the highest; or to imagine the rapidity with which, under
unsettled atmospheric conditions, the destructive forces of nature can
be raised, and the worst assaults of the enemy delivered.
“Falling stones may come from the most unexpected places, and I have seen
from my own Alpine home a whole flake of mountain side peel off without
warning, and sweep with a cannonade of thirty hours’ duration a gully
that I and mine have used for years as a highway to the upper world.
“Slopes of grass look so easy, and are so treacherous, that it is
scarcely possible to secure for them the respect which they have a
deadly fashion of enforcing. There are few other dangers which care and
knowledge will not eliminate.”
It will be pardoned me, I trust, if, making a digression from the special
to the general, I pass from Alpine accidents to consider others connected
with climbing, which frequently occur to workmen. It was my sympathy
with climbing which first drew my attention to the number of disabling
accidents resulting to labourers from using only one hand in climbing
ladders and carrying something, however slight, which hampers the other
hand. There is no general understanding or training among workmen on this
point. The weight could nearly always be so slung or balanced as to keep
both hands free for climbing steps or ladders.
Scaffolders often run greater risks than bricklayers in attempting to
climb ladders, using one hand instead of both. Under my care lately was
a scaffolder who fell thirty feet, breaking his collar bone and several
ribs, lacerating his right lung and the liver. From the latter injury, by
an abdominal operation, I drained away several pints of bile and blood
clots. He made a good recovery and returned to his wife and six children
still able to earn a living for them. He tells me that never again will
he carry a bundle of shavings under one arm when climbing a long ladder.
On nearing the top, and in making the traverse to reach the platform, the
slip occurred which was so nearly fatal. Both the balance and the grip
were wanting at the critical point.
The slightest slip or want of balance when only one hand is at work may
lead to a fall. When an Alpine climber comes to any hair-erecting place
on rocks, he takes care to have both hands free, his ice-axe is slung
round his arm or wrist, so that his grip is secure. There is no pretence
that mountaineering is not a dangerous sport; but the dangers are reduced
by forethought, and when accidents occur it is generally from the neglect
of simple measures of precaution. Rules for avoiding dangers are made,
and it would be quite unsportsmanlike to cross névé without a rope, or
show other sign of inexperience in mountain craft.
It is significant that the members of the English Alpine Club—though the
mortality is far too heavy—do not provide the most victims of accidents,
and certainly this is not from any want of adventurous activity in the
Alpine Club.