John Tyndall to Faraday   11 September 1856

Innsbruck. 11th, Sep, 1856.

My dear Mr Faraday

I believe my last letter¹ was posted to you at Feldkirch. Yesterday I reached this place and had one letter from the post office. It was from Magnus, dated August 17th, and had reference to a plan of a journey into which I had already plunged. He wanted to arrange matters so that we might meet somewhere but this will now be impossible. On crossing the frontier I was happy to find better people and better German. From Feldkirch I proceeded to Landeck: the first instance of the piety of the Tyrolese struck me here, on passing the kitchen of the hotel I heard a confused murmur of voices and looking in saw the whole household upon their knees praying aloud before going to bed. From a conversation with some guests I learned that the nearest glaciers were in Kaimserthal and up this valley I wandered next day. In the valley is a place of pilgrimage called Kaltebrunnen which is much resorted to by the devout. Near the chapel is a figure of Christ with a tube in his side from which is projected a stream of limpid water. The walls of the chapel are covered with offerings to the virgin, for here it is said she loves especially to dwell, and to shower her benifits upon her adorers. Tablets containing rude drawings of men and women in all possible positions of peril are hung along the walls; some half crushed under fallen rocks, others falling into rivers, women with carts overturned tumbling down precipices; most however were of men on mountain slopes lying under fallen pine trees. At the bottom of these tablets it was sometimes coolly stated that the person represented was saved by the manifest and immediate interposition of the Mother of God at Kaltebrunnen. I like the piety of the people, but cannot say that this form of it pleased me. Onward to the highest inhabited part of the valley and here I engaged a chamois hunter to be my guide on the glaciers for two days. About 10 miles higher up was the Gebatsch Alp to which the dwellers in the lower part of the valley send their herds in summer; and in a cowhouse on the Alp I proposed to take up my nights quarters, There were two huts, one of which was occupied by 4 herds, who milked the cows and made cheese and butter. A fine tall fellow with a wild countenance, his stockings, without feet, being drawn upon his legs, leaving a black zone of dirty skin between the upper rim of his stockings and the lower extremity of his breeches, asked me what he could cook for me. I asked for some milk and attacked the fare of the place, viz brown bread a month old, with the relish of hunger. The milk was rich and sweet, and I fared sumptuously. Went with my guide upon the glacier afterwards and remained upon it for several hours. The mass of ice was all in gray shadow, and a fringe of dying sunshine lay all along the opposite mountain summits as we finished our day’s work. On coming again to the chalet, my cook asked me what I wished to eat: my reply was “boiled eggs”. The four herds were there, all brownly sunburnt, the brown deepening into black with beard and dirt. The grouping of these men round the pine fire, which gave us our only light, was sometimes extremely picturesque. All of them smoked, and now and then one of them took a blazing torch from the fire to light his pipe, therby casting a ruddy glare upon his wild face. A quantity of flour was placed in a wooden dish; milk was gradually added and the mass stirred up, all being done by the gleam of the pine logs. A saucepan was taken and some eggs were broken into it, sometimes the yolk clung to the shell and on such occasions the cook, who was the chief of the establishment, scooped out the contents with his finger, shaking dexterously the portions which attached themselves to the latter into the general mass. I had seen his fingers before and only dreaded that through a misunderstanding of my request the eggs were intended for me. A small broom of stiff twigs was taken from two pegs which supported it, and with this the eggs were pricked and whipped into a liquid, which, to my unspeakable satisfaction, was poured into the wooden dish already referred to. Meanwhile my eggs were selected and boiled -- two of them were rotten -- I could not help admiring at times the fine straight figure of the cook as he stood erect in the firelight and talked in the intervals of his vocation with those around him. The fire was made on a platform of stone elevated three feet above the floor, there was no chimney but the smoke found ample egress through the fissions in the sides and roof. At one end of the chalet was a hook which turned a small wheel, which imparted an up and down motion to a churn dash, which in its turn again made the butter. The beams and rafters were covered cheeses drying in the warm wood smoke. The men had their supper and were the images of tranquil content afterwards. They all gathered round the fire, lighted their pipes and talked, with the gravity of philosophers, about those things which concerned them. Finding my interest alive as to his manner of making cheese the cook took me into his stores and explained the process to me. In one room were three gigantic masses of butter, and I amused my instructor very much by calling them butter glaciers[.]

As I have said there was a cowhouse near the chalet and above the ground floor a kind of cockloft was supported by pillars of pine, on the loft hay was strewn, and we reached it from the outside by means of a broken ladder. My guide shook up the hay and broke its nodules, piling up an eminence for my head. I lay down in my clothes with my scotch plaid as a blanket: my valet said I should find my feet cold before the morning, and to prevent this piled hay upon me up to the hips. He suggested the propriety of continuing the process till my head was covered, but this I declined. Before morning however the biting coldness of the air which, sometimes blew in upon us proved that there was some wisdom in the suggestion[.] Having set me right my chamois hunter prepared a place for himself, and soon his heavy breathing told me that he was in a state of blessedness that I could only envy. During the long hours of the night I found a melancholy amusement in watching the keen gleaming stars travelling across the apertures in the roof above me. Once as I opened my eye the Pleiades were there, twinkling in beauty: I strove to admire them, but an hour’s sleep would have been worth a score of constellations. Sometimes I did approach a doze, which, when on the verge of deepening into slumber, was rudely broken by the clamour of an unamiable group of pigs which occupied the ground floor of our dwelling. The commotion of these animals usually commenced by a small grunt; this, like the first rattle of a pebble which announces the incipient motions of an avalanche, ascended to a grumble, and broke out at length in vociferous and angry expostulation. Rose at 5 o clock greatly unrefreshed by my night’s attempt at sleeping, still strong enough to bear the fatigues of the coming day.

Spent five hours upon the glaciers of Gebatsch and learned a good deal: saw some marmots scampering over the rocks: returned to our hut, fortified ourselves, as far as it was possible to do with bread and milk, and faced the mountain, the summit of which we had to cross to reach Launtaufers Thal. After a rough ascent through the mossy pine clad Alp we came to the bare rocks. The weather has made havoc with the mountains broken them up into ruinous masses and showered them down the slopes. Among these we picked our way. Reached the end of a steep glacier whose surface was coated with sloppy snow; had this been frozen it would have been impossible to ascend. Once indeed I found my footing insecure and knowing by experience that if I fell so as to sit upon the ice I should be shot like an avalanche to the bottom, I took hold of the hand of my guide, to check this motion in case I slipped. He was a fearless man, far more reckless than the Swiss guides and not at all accustomed to act the cautious part of such. Whenever I made a proposal regarding the attainment of a perilous point, the word “impossible”, which I often heard in Switzerland, appeared not to be in his vocabulary. “I dont know” was his usual reply “it will certainly be dangerous but we can try it.” Near the summit of the slope up which we now toiled was an islet of stones and debris upon the glacier. Here we sat down to rest; right in front of us, and far above all vegetable life, surrounded only by bare sharp crags and dazzling snow, stood a beautiful chamois watching all our motions. The association of animal life and beauty with dead savagery around was exceedingly striking. Onward again for a time over a gentle ascent, till we reached the base of an ice slope steeper than any we had yet encountered. The chamois hunter faced it with confidence, though I should have regarded the ascent as impossible. I plodded after him through the snow slush fitting my feet into the tracks which he left behind him, almost afraid to look upwards or downwards. After a desperate struggle, which was felt as much by my guide as by myself, we reached the narrow row of crags which formed the summit and looked into the world of mountains beyond. The keen breeze here smote us but it put new vigour in our muscles and by jumping springing and sliding we descended through the mass of debris which here forms the mountain side. We reached the glacial ice once more. The mass had melted away from the mountain side which rose perpendicular to our right; and to our left an ice wall rose to a height of 50 or 60 feet[.] Through the gorge these formed we walked. From what I had seen of other glaciers I inferred that the mass on which we trod merely formed the roof of a cavern underneath; and I soon found that this conjection was right; for on turning an angle of rock my guide muttered with an expression of surprise and concern upon his countenace -- “I did not expect this.” The ice had wholly melted in one place thus revealing a green tarn of unknown depth between the ice and mountain side. My guide inspected the place and desiring me to stand still, crept like one of his own marmots along the ice slope above the tarn. I endeavoured to round it by clambering over the rocks, but my guide warned me back. Returning to me he said “we must try it together” “good” I replied “only do you take hold of this” handing him my plaid. Thus prepared for the cold plunge bath I expected I took his hand, and his glacier stick. Striking the latter into the ice I disposed of a portion of my weight and following cautiously reached the land safely[.] The sketch² will give you some idea of the gorge in section we first walked along the roof a until we reached a place where the ice from a to b had melted away, and the cavern c was exposed. We had to edge our way along the slope above a and this, contrary to my expectations, we accomplished in safety. I met Frankland next day. He is now beside me and desires his kind remembrances. I think I must tell you the rest of my adventures by word of mouth. Kind remembrances to Mrs Faraday and Miss Barnard. good bye -

As ever Yours | John Tyndall