Book excerpt: This one volume contains two pioneering works of outdoor adventure and study from celebrated naturalist John Tyndall. A physicist and educator by profession, Tyndall began visiting the Alps annually in 1849 to explore the glaciers: he climbed Mont Blanc several times, made the first ascent of the Weisshorn, and attempted to summit the Matterhorn.The Glaciers of the Alps, first published in 1860, and the following year's Mountaineering in 1861 combined his climbing feats and scientific observations in works that riveted the scientific world of his day. Considered classics of the Golden Age of mountaineering, these delightful books, written with an intelligent enthusiasm, remain absorbing today.AUTHOR BIO: Irishman JOHN TYNDALL (1820-1893) rose from humble roots and little education to become one of the most respected and influential scientists and philosophers of science of the 19th century, ranked with Charles Darwin and Thomas Henry Huxley. A man of diverse accomplishment, he invented the fireman's respirator and was the first to successfully tackle the question "Why is the sky blue?" Other notable works among his 16 books and 145 papers include Faraday as a Discoverer and On the Scientific Use of the Imagination.