wn and
I thought it a poorer game. It never entered my head that I could
traverse across any slope and so I always went straight down and only
by a fluke did I ever stand. Then Tobias Branger, who was a great
sportsman and kept a sports shop at Davos, imported several pairs of
Skis and practised the art himself.

About this time Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Mr. and Mrs. Hugh Dobson
took up the game and we spent many hours practising on the slopes
behind Davos Dorf.

The Richardson brothers, who had been to Norway, came to Davos about
1893 bringing with them knowledge of the sport and soon gathered round
them a keen lot of disciples. The Davos English Ski Club was formed
and from now on Ski-ing spread rapidly throughout Switzerland.

In the meantime, Ski Clubs were also being formed in the Black Forest
and other parts of Germany, as well as in Austria.

Doctor Nansen, in his book about Greenland, described the use of Skis
for Arctic exploration and his accounts fired a great many more people
to try the game.

I advise anyone who wishes to know more of the development of Ski
running to read Doctor Hoek's book "Der Schi," published in 1922, as
he gives a long account of the first forming of Clubs as well as the
gradual adoption of Skis as a means to winter climbing, and, further,
a useful list of the literature on the subject.

After the first beginnings in 1899, the Swiss became energetic and
enthusiastic runners. The children could be seen on barrel staves with
a pair of old boots nailed to the centre into which they slipped their
feet with their own boots on. It was not a particularly graceful game
in those days. Runners armed themselves with poles some 8 feet long on
which they leant heavily when running downhill. This school soon gave
way to the more modern school, which proved that the carrying of two
sticks was better than one only. A great many books on the technique
of Ski-ing followed each other fast and furiously--Zdarsky and
Lilienfeld, Caulfeild and Lunn, Roget Hoeg and others all contributing
to the controversy on technique.

Now there are innumerable Ski Clubs with their own year-books, and the
sport is so well launched, not only in Europe, but also in Australia,
New Zealand, East Africa and America and elsewhere, throughout the
world, that there is but little chance of its ever again dying out.

The British Ski Clubs include the Ski Club of Great Britain, the
British Ski Association, the Alpine Ski