John Tyndall to Faraday   21 August 1861

Monte Rosa Hotel, | Zermatt | 21st. Aug. 1861

My dear Mr. Faraday.

A quiet hour has succeeded the storm of noises raised by departing tourists, and this hour I purpose to make pleasant to myself by writing to you. I reached Thun on the 2nd of Aug. and met there at the Railway station my faithful and favourite guide Bennen¹; proceeded thence to Meyringen, and instead of going on by the usual route to the Grimsel, quitted that route by entering the Urbachthal at Hof, crossing the Gauli glacier, scaling the ridge which separates this glacier from that of the Lauteraar, and proceeding by the latter and the Unteraar glacier to the Grimsel. From the Grimsel I passed to the Aeggischhorn, and thence by the glacier of the Aletsch to the Bel Alp; a fine promontory which commands most glorious views. We accomplished an act of mercy on the glacier by dragging with great effort a cow out of a crevasse, in which the poor brute had been firmly jammed. From the Bel Alp I proceeded to Randa, in the valley of St. Nicholas, and here my new and really earnest work commenced.

There are two grand mountains, which above all others have of late years excited the attention of our best climbers; which have been tried on various occasions by able and competent men, but which have hitherto successfully resisted all attempts to reach their crests; these are the Matterhorn or Mont Cervin, and the Weisshorn. I have always regarded the latter as the noblest mountain in the Alps and from its position and magnitude it forms a grand and striking object from every point of importance in Switzerland. Randa rests at the base of this mountain; the summit of which is however far withdrawn behind the pine-clad pedestal on which it stands. Having to pass so near it the thought of trying the mountain naturally occurred to me. A preliminary inspection enabled us to fix on a resting place where the night previous to the attempt might be passed. This was underneath the ledge of an overhanging rock, at an elevation of about nine thousand feet above the sea. I had two pairs of coverlets sewn together so as to form two sacks, and into these at the proper hour I managed to creep in succession. My guides dug up the clay a little so as to soften my bed, and here at 8. P.M. on the evening of the 18th. of August I lay down.

The weather was most glorious and the scene around me surpassingly grand. At the opposite side of the valley was the range of the Mischabel, with its two grand peaks the Grabenhorn and the Täschhorn. Next came the Alphubel, next the Alleleinhorn and Rympfischhorn, both encased in an enamel of glittering snow; then came the Cima di Jazzi, then the mass of Monte Rosa clasped by its glaciers and brightly illuminated from bottom to top. The craggy face of the Lyskamm turned towards us was half in gloom and half in glory: the two twins Castor and Pollux were most singularly illuminated:- across their waists was drawn the deep shadow of a portion of the Breithorn, while their summits and bases glowed like burnished gold. The mottled crags of the Breithorn itself were irregularly splashed with the sunlight. As the sun descended more and more this scene, all of which was in view from the cleft in which I lay, assumed the most sublime appearance. The highest summits occupied the circumference of a semicircle;- they burned with glory, and here and there long stretches of light over the lustrous snowfields linked the illuminated peaks together. These seemed hung in heaven like a chain of enormous opals, fit to form the necklace of an archangel.

But as the sun sinks the moon, within one day of being full, is travelling up the opposite face of heaven, and finally appears exactly behind the peak of the Alleleinhorn. She rises to the summit, clears it, and bears away splendidly thro’ the crimson tinted sky. The definition of the peak rendered the motion perfectly visible, and made the orb appear like a vast balloon ascending majestically in the air. I lay with my face towards the moon and gazed long upon the glorious satellite until finally my face and eyes became so chilled that I was fain to protect them by a light handkerchief. The inflammation which might be expected to succeed such a chilling process when carried too far, is doubtless sufficient to account for the “blindness” which the innocent moonbeams have usually laid to their charge. As the cold of the night increased I squeezed myself more and more underneath my ledge thus lessening the area of clear sky against which my body could radiate its unrequited heat. Nothing could be more solemn than the night. Up from the valley came the muffled thunder of the Vispbach, caused by the rush of its waters and the incessant grinding of its stones. Over the lofty Dom flashed in succession the stars of Orion, until finally the entire constellation hung aloft. Higher up was the effulgent moon whose light gleamed in succession from the snow fields and pyramids; those only whose position suited the direction of the rays sending back the silvery gleams. The twins were the last to occupy this position, and long they held it, shining with spectral beauty until the moon set behind the hills.

We rose betimes; breakfasted however too early and had to wait an hour for the advancing day. A faint illumination overspread the east, and with this promise of the coming sun we packed our wine and provisions together and at a quarter before 4 A.M. commenced our expedition. We rounded a shoulder of the mountain, a stretch of glacier lay before us, but previous to entering upon it I disburthened myself of my shooting jacket, leaving it on the mountain side and proceeding forward in my shirt sleeves. The mountain in all its grandeur is now fairly before us, and our aim is to gain the lowest end of one of its arêtes. We tramp over the first snow, cut our way through the mounds and chasms of the glacier, reach a Bergschrund which cuts a snow couloir up which we have to ascend in two; cross it, cut steps up the slope, gain the rocks and are soon on the terminal crags of the arête. Thence we cross the saddle which tops the couloir, reach the rocks at the opposite side which we find most fantastically riven and in many cases extremely loose and dangerous. Forward however we cheerily clamber, tortuously winding round the crags, or scaling them amain. The arete is notched and hewn into rude turrets by frost and weather, while the fragments of this colossal sculpture are strewn confusedly around. We work forward for a couple of hours, and then see two moving objects on the glacier far beneath us. We at first thought them chamois, but soon pronounced them men. The telescope removed all doubt; one of them carried a knapsack and the other an axe. Our expedition had caused great excitement among the athletes of Randa, and here were two of them following in our track, and prepared perhaps to dispute with us the ascent of their local Titan. This possibility, however, did not cause us much uneasiness.

Coming to a place at which a deep gap was hewn in the arête, flanked right and left by two vertical towers of rock, we produce our rope, and manage to let each other down into the gap. We round the opposite turret and soon after quit the arrête, working our way across the ridges and couloirs below it. The latter are filled with clear hard ice, the cutting of which is exceedingly labourious. We again gain the arête, over which the snow folds itself at intervals, and along the snow we work our way. On the right side of the arête the mountain is tremendously precipitous, and in many places the steepness on both sides is appalling. We reach the end of one of the subdivisions of the ridge, from which to the next highest rock, stretches a line of snow which is as narrow [as] a wall, and bevelled off to a sharp edge at the top. How to cross this catenary I knew not, for I had no notion that it could bear a man’s weight. The practical knowledge of my guide however enabled him to estimate its sustaining power. He walked along it turning out his toes, so as to place his feet across the arête, and I and my second guide followed. On each side the precipices were tremendous, and I smiled grimly as I stood on the middle of the wall and thought what a slip might accomplish. “Had the snow been less perfect I would not have attempted it for the world” was Bennen’s remark after we had crossed. The theory of the thing was quite clear. The snow was a little moist, of exceedingly fine grain, and hence its attachments when pressed down were innumerable. Thus it attained its marvellous rigidity. This accomplished we clamber steeply upwards, cautiously avoiding the looser rocks. With all our care however we sometimes dislodge vast masses which bound like demons on the slope to our left, loosen others by their fall and set the mountain in a roar as they whiz and thunder to the snow fields four thousand feet below us. Our climbing is a most extraordinary process:, there is scarcely a position possible to my body into which it was not folded up at one time or another during the day. Sometimes it was a fair pull upwards, sometimes an oblique twist round the corner of a rock tower; sometimes it was the grip of the finger ends in a fissure and the lateral shifting of the whole body in a line parallel to the crack. Many times I found myself with my feet highest and my head lowest. The action of the human arm is truly wonderful, and never before this day was I so deeply impressed with the marvellous combination of strength and flexibility in this member of our frame. The glimpses of the summit which we obtained after three hours climbing inspired us all, and our hopes condensed almost to certainty. But when, at the end of six hours, the summit still towered clear and distant in the heaven above us, our feelings became considerably qualified. The constant and copious expenditure of mechanical force began to tell upon us all. Wenger² complained of his lungs, an expression of deep weariness shaded Bennen’s face, while I was half bewildered and stupified by the incessant knocking about. I however kept close watch on myself lest the callous indifference which the exertion had produced should degenerate into carelessness; and I felt all along that in case of sudden emergency I had a fair residue of power to call upon. I wished also to assure my self of Bennen’s self control, and once on observing the sickly despair which filled his eyes as he looked towards the summit, I told him plainly that he must not persist on my account; that the moment he ceased to feel confidence in himself he ought to turn back. “I am quite sure of myself” was his reply “Of course I feel this work, let me try the effect of a little food.” He did so and was greatly refreshed. Looking more confidently towards the mountain he exclaimed “Herr! mir müssen ihn haben” - and on we went. It was amusing and instructive to observe how by a kind of instinct we paid out our muscular energy so as to make its sensible loss a minimum; pausing after each stretch of the limbs, and gathering up strength for the next strain. I thought of Englishmen in battle, of the quality which made them famous; it was this very habit of never yielding - of fighting on when every hope seemed cut away, and I was resolved that in the present instance this quality should suffer no debasement. An hour and three quarters additional are consumed in this slow sapping of difficulty. A pure white snow cone rose still above us but clearly within reach. Ten times I was assured by both men that it was the highest point; but I had scaled so many pets [sic] and eminences, which promised to be the last that I feared to deliver myself up to the belief in this one. We gain the top of a prism of granite; from this a sharp snow arête, runs to a little point. This Bennen soon gains, moves a little way down on the other side so as to afford me room. In an instant I press the very highest snowflake of the mountain and the prestige of the Weisshorn is for ever gone!

Every alpine traveller knows how prominently the Weisshorn lifts its noble peak, and how strikingly visible it is from every point of importance in Switzerland. Conversely every point of importance must be visible from the Weisshorn. We formed the centre of an Alpine circle of unparalleled grandeur. Switzerland, Savoy, Italy, and the Tyrol all spread their mountain treasures before us. I opened my note-book to write a few words concerning the view, but I was absolutely unable to do so. There was something incongruous, if not profane, in allowing the descriptive faculty to meddle with that which belonged to the soul alone, so I resigned myself up to the silent contemplation of the scene, completely overpowered and subdued by its unspeakable magnificence. As I write to you my friend this glorious picture reconstructs itself in my imagination, and long years must pass ere its splendid proportions and gorgeous colourings can fade from the canvas of my memory³.

Ever yours | John Tyndall

I am off to Breuil to-morrow, and afterwards may visit Chammouni. Kindest regards to Mrs Faraday and Miss Barnard.