Whether he walks on them, climbs their precipices, or merely looks at them, any one who cares for mountains will find something in this book that is for him. It is a collection of extracts from a very wide range of authors, foreign as well as English, though it is in the latter language that every one of them is presented.

The passages vary in length from a single line expressing a particular thought to a number of pages sufficient to provide material for a pleasant entry to the land of dreams or retrospection. They have been grouped in sections which each follow a roughly chronological sequence. They tell, in the words of actual experience, how mountains have appealed to men, how men have answered that appeal and the adventures they have had in doing so; they tell of the effect those experiences have had on men, and there are portraits of some of the men whom mountains have attracted and produced.