Chamonix le 8 8bre 1862
Monsieur le professeur Tyndall
Je vous prie de me pardonner la liberté que je prends de vous adresser ces quelques lignes—pour vous informer que les meubles de l’ami Balmat Auguste, mort à Sixt, doivent se vendre par voie de justice dans une quinzaine de jours. Ses affaires financières n’étant pas dans le meilleur état, je vous écris ceci parce que ce matin je fus appelé par les huissiers procédant à l’inventaire de ses biens, pour [dénocer] ses objets photographiques, et étant là j’ai vu plusieurs objets vous appartenant. Tels que votre tente votre trouelle et accessoires. Je les ai désignés à l’huissier en le priant de ne pas les porter sur l’inventaire comme vous appartenant.
Je croirais que vous pourriez réclamer vos objets avant la vente en vous adressant soit à M. le maire, soit à Monsieur le notaire Dupuis.
Je vous prierai seulement, Monsieur le professeur, de ne pas faire connaitre que je vous en ai informé.
Votre très humble serviteur | Tairraz Joseph photographe
Chamonix, October 8th 1862
Professor Tyndall,
Please forgive me for taking the liberty of sending you the following few lines to inform you that the possessions of our friend Auguste Balmat,2 who died at Sixt, will be sold by the court in a fortnight. As his financial affairs are not in good order, I am writing to you because this morning I was summoned by the bailiffs conducting the inventory of his property, in order to [report on] his photographic items. While I was there, I saw some items belonging to you, such as your tent, your trowel, and accessories. I pointed them out to the bailiff to ask him not to count them into the inventory since they belong to you.
I think that you could claim your items before the sale by writing either to the mayor or to the notary, Mr Dupuis.3
I only ask you, Professor, not to tell them that I have informed you of it.
Your very humble servant | Tairraz Joseph, photographer
RI MS JT/1/T/3
Joseph Tairraz: Joseph Tairraz (1827–1902), a French pioneer of alpine photography (M. Dessemond, Tairraz père et fils: photographes de montagne (Paris: Contrejour, 1992)).
Auguste Balmat: Auguste Balmat (1808–62), a Swiss mountaineer and guide born in Chamonix, Savoy, who at the age of twenty-two made his first ascent of Mont Blanc. He met J. D. Forbes in 1842 and assisted him during his studies of the movement of glaciers and survey work leading to the important map of the Mer de Glace published in Forbes’s Travels through the Alps of Savoy (Edinburgh: A. and C. Black, 1843). In 1854 he guided the much-celebrated ascent of the Wetterhorn by Alfred Wills (1828–1912). Wills later dedicated his Wandering among the High Alps (London: Bentley, 1856) to Balmat. In 1858, while guiding Tyndall and Willis’s ascent of Mont Blanc, he nearly lost his hands in the process of placing thermometers at the summit (C. D. Cunningham and W. Abney, The Pioneers of the Alps, 2nd ed. (London: Low, Marston, Searle and Rivington, 1888)).
Mr Dupuis: not identified.
Please cite as “Tyndall1934,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on