John Tyndall to Faraday   26 December 1859

My dear Mr Faraday

I wrote to Mrs Faraday from Geneva¹, and will now report to you a portion of my subsequent proceedings. I started from Geneva at 8 A.M. on Christmas morning and reached Sallenches a little after 4 P.M. The time at my disposal being so extremely short my aim was to reach Chamouni on the night of Christmas day, in order to commence, weather permitting, my observations on Monday morning². I therefore hired a vehicle at Sallenches and started thence at 5 P.M. Not liking to run a risk, the exact nature of which I did not see, I soon forsook the carriage and placed myself beside the postillion. He was young, strong and resolute, had good eyes, and needed them extremely at times. We had no moon, no lamps, and a dense gray cloud canopy over head cut away from us the feeble light of the stars. As far as Servoz our journey was pleasant enough but afterwards the road was difficult and our progress slow. Deep snow flanked us right and left, which, in the middle of the road, was more or less beaten down, filling the space however with knobs and hummocks. Trotting was here quite out of the question. Having passed the pont Pelissier, a little above Servoz, we alighted to lessen the strain upon the horses, and I went on in advance. Bare, brown, and motionless the trees stood right and left, while the cliffs and precipices, mottled with the snow which clung to their ledges took any form which the imagination choosed to give them. To my left the Arne rushed along a deep ravine, and sent upwards through darkness a sad and broken murmur. Sometimes on coming behind an eminence the sound was suddenly and utterly cut away, and the consequent stillness was solemn in the extreme. It was the silence of a churchyard; and the huge black pines which threw their gloom upon the road seemed like the hearseplumes of a dead world. I walked on till I reached a wooden hut where batons crystals and eaudevie are offered to the passing travellers in summer; leaning against the door I enjoyed for a time the intense sternness of the scene. The sound of the river was here audible, but dim, distant, and melancholy, yet still the voice of life. I was far in advance of my conveyance, and the intermittent tinkle of the horses bells informed me of the progress and the pauses of the vehicle. At the summit of the incline we again mounted and proceeded slowly towards lesouches. We passed several houses, all dark and dismal, loaded with snow and without light or sound of merriment to denote that it was the pleasant Christmas time. The horses seemed affected by a kind of torpor, and leaned listlessly against each other as they crawled along. Vainly the postillion tried with tongue and whip to kindle their enthusiasm: once or twice he succeeded in urging them to a trot down the steeper slopes, but they quickly subsided into the previous monotonous pull. As we approached Chamouni the drowsiness of nature began to operate upon me, and I quitted the carriage within what I supposed to be a quarter of an hour’s walk to the village. Previous to this however the wind from the mountains had met us in strong and hostile gusts, as if Mont Blanc wished to warn us from his terretory. At the top of the last inclination of the road the surface became more exposed to the action of the wind, and on passing the summit the road disappeared. The wall to the left was quite covered, and a few isolated stones which rose above the snow at intervals to the right were the sole land marks of the right hand wall. The snow, drifted by the storm, had ranged itself in oblique ridges across the road; they could not be seen; there was no light to shew them, but I staggered over four or five of them in succession, sinking kneedeep, until finally on stepping promptly forward to regain a lost equilibrium, I found myself immersed to the waist. The idea occurred to me that I had missed the road, and I vainly looked round in search of some object by which I might check my position. I retraced my steps: the carriage, when I reached it, had got among the ridges, and one of the horses was down; his haunches were immersed in the snow, one of his legs sunk to the shoulder, and the other thrown forward upon the surface. My companion, as I have said, was strong and resolute, and he needed both qualities. In extreme cases I have known guides to give way to sullenness and ill humour, but this man shewed nothing of the kind. He succeeded in getting his horse upon his legs; but being, like myself, doubtful as to whether we had not quitted the road, I went back exploring, and thus satisfied myself that we were right. Afterwards I walked on in front, choosing the harder portions of the snow, while he slowly followed, holding his horses by their heads. After half an hour’s struggling we found ourselves in the streets of Chamouni. All seemed dead here also -- no sound, no light; the thawing snow splashed as it fell from the loaded eaves, the fountain made a melancholy gurgle; here and there a loosened window shutter, swung creaking in the wind, and banged against the object which limited its oscillations. All was desolation. The Hotel de l’Union so gay and full of life in summer, was nailed up and deserted. We rang the bell at the Royal Hotel, but the deep bark of a watch dog, the resonance of which proclaimed the hollowness of the house was long our only answer. Ringing seemed powerless, so I tried the energy of my bootheel against the door, and by perseverance roused the sleepers. In ten minutes I was seated beside a stove in a comfortable room, listening to the wild harmonies of the storm as it roared through the chimney funnel.

This morning, Monday, the snow falls heavily: tomorrow I shall make an attempt on the Mer de Glace. It is absolutely necessary that I should be able to see across the glacier. If this be not possible I return defeated, but still with the consolation that I have done

“The best my circumstances allows”

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