Aeggischorn2 July 29th 1863.
My dear Tom
I reached Switzerland without accident.3 My first day’s journey was an awfully long grind over three successive glaciers with a bright sun white snow and no veil. My lips have not yet recovered the broiling which they then endured. At the close of the day I found myself alone and in difficulty. I had to get down some steep glaciated rocks to the Grimsel Hotel.4 The rocks flanking the pass not those of the pass itself, and twice I very nearly came to grief.
From the Grimsel5 I crossed the Oberaarjoch6 to this place which I reached in a thunder storm. With one day’s exception the weather has been bad. To day the valley is filled with cloud, and a smoky drapery obscures all the summits. I have however moved about a little each day and find my health getting firmer. Indeed I seem quite fit for work again but to render this fitness permanent I must of course remain longer. In this barbarous weather it is hard to decide on a plan of operation. If it clears I will start for the Engadin7 in a few days and spend a week or so there. But I do not yet see my way clear about Germany. I must make a flying visit to Ireland to see the Tyndalls there.8 I have had a letter from the man who lives near Enniscorthy,9 who merely knows the old tradition, but promises to exert himself to procure me more definite information. This trip to Ireland will occupy me more than a week, and I almost think that I cannot accomplish both it and Germany. In fact if this weather should continue I will return direct to England from this place as there is no satisfaction in living amid clouds.
On the whole Tom the time we could spend together seems to me to be necessarily so short that I hardly think it would be worth while making use of it. Nevertheless if you desire it I am ready to meet you about the 16th at Basle10 and to run on with you to Marburg.11 When you receive this pray write to me at the same time to Grindelwald12 and to this place.
3rd Aug.
We have had a fearful night’s rain, and a day or two will be required to sweep the snow of the glacier. The weather defeats all plans. Let us put off our journey to Germany until we can do it pleasantly. I shall give up the Engadin, remain at the Oberland13 for some days and then return to England and Ireland
Yours affectionately | John.
RI MS JT/1/HTYP/523
LT Typescript Only
3 August 1863: Tyndall began this letter on 29 July 1863, and finished it on 3 August 1863.
Aeggischorn: see letter 1907, n. 6.
I reached Switzerland without accident: in a letter to Henry Bence Jones (2023), Tyndall noted that he left London for Switzerland on 17 July.
Grimsel Hotel: the Grimsel Hotel is located at 2,165 metres above sea level on the Grimsel Pass.
Grimsel: the Grimsel Pass, a mountain pass crossing the Bernese Alps.
the Oberaarjoch: a high mountain pass across the eastern Bernese Alps, connecting the Fiescher Glacier with the Oberaar Glacier in central southern Switzerland.
Engadin: a long Alpine valley in southeastern Switzerland.
flying visit to Ireland to see the Tyndalls there: in a letter to Hector Tyndale (2019), Tyndall had mentioned that if he had the time he ‘should like much to take a sweep into Ireland & see those people at home’. He indeed ventured toward Ireland following the BAAS meeting at Newcastle Upon Tyne (see letter 2023, n. 3), but, as he wrote to Juliet Pollock in letter 2031, ‘when I reached Stockport the thought of the storm so sickened me that I swerved from my route to Chester & came on to London’.
I have had a letter from the man who lives near Enniscorthy: letter missing; ‘man’ not identified. Enniscorthy is a town in County Wexford, Ireland.
Basle: see letter 1909, n. 4.
Marburg: a city in Germany, home of the University of Marburg, where Tyndall and Hirst both studied in the late 1840s and early 1850s.
Grindelwald: an alpine town in the Swiss canton of Bern.
Oberland: the geographically higher region of the Swiss canton of Bern.
Please cite as “Tyndall2025,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on