My dear Friend
When we parted company at Chamouni2 I hoped to have the pleasure of meeting you again at Carlsruhe,3 but on counting up my time I found this impossible—In fact I was compelled to be in London on the 20th of September.4 Prof. Delarive wrote to me5 saying that you had been at Geneva,6 and asking me to halt there: but his note arrived too late. When I go to Berlin I shall undoubtedly scold Miss Magnus7 for returning the little telescope—it would have been a great pleasure to me if she had kept it in memory of my achievement. Well you saw us at the Grand Mulets8—next morning at 1½ oC. we were on the glacier, and no moon being in heaven we were compelled to carry lanterns. From the Grand Mulets I first saw the Comet,9 having heard nothing about it previously. The wind had been high during the night, and though it afterward lulled, it rushed violently down upon us at intervals during our ascent; Auguste Balmat, who led us, once or twice expressed his fears that we should not reach the top. We advanced however, and finally found ourselves upon the calotte, or last slope of the mountain: here a thick cloud enveloped us and snow commenced to fall. We reached the summit10 where I attempted to make some observations, but I was compelled to relinquish them fearing the man who accompanied me might be frost bitten. We sank a thermometer at the top, and in digging the hole for it Balmat used his hand incautiously—He lost sensation, and for a long time he despaired of recovering it. We stood up on the mountain, beating his hands and rubbing them with snow & hands for a long time.11
RI MS JT/1/T/1061
[late September or early October 1858]: the date range is given based on the references to Tyndall’s recent travels in the Alps. This letter is at least after 22 September and probably after Tyndall returned from the BAAS meeting in Leeds. In letter 1558 (16 September), he mentioned needing to leave Paris toward London because he had to be at the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst on 21 September for a military examination. Presumably he left London on 20 September (to already be in Sandhurst the next morning), and after his examination duties were complete, then travelled to Leeds to attend part of the 28th meeting of the BAAS from 22–29 September 1858 (see letter 1566, n. 15 and n. 16).
Chamouni: see letter 1353, n. 9.
Carlsruhe: a city in southwestern Germany, now Karlsruhe.
be in London on the 20th of September: see n. 1.
wrote to me: letter missing.
Geneva: see letter 1293, n. 3.
Miss Magnus: either Anna, or Christine Magnus, one of Gustav Magnus’s two daughters.
Well you saw us at the Grand Mulets: on 11 September 1858, see letter 1419, n. 9.
Comet: Donati’s comet. See letter 1558, n. 5. In Glacier of the Alps, Tyndall described first seeing the comet on 11 September 1858: ‘Immediately before lying down on the previous evening I had opened the little window of the cabin [on the Grand Mulets] to admit some air. In the sky in front of me shone a curious nodule of misty light with a pale train attached to it’ (p. 164).
the summit: of Mont Blanc (see letter 1320, n. 5), reached on 13 September 1858 after resting a night at the cabin near the Grand Mulets.
for a long time: if this is the whole of the letter, then Tyndall did not close it with an ending salutation. It could possibly also be a letter which he started writing and never finished nor sent.
Please cite as “Tyndall1562,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on