[1] Hence the name ‘Lauwinen-Thor,’ which, with the consent of Mr. Hawkins, if not at his suggestion, I have given to the pass. [The name has since been adopted in all the maps. March 1871.]
[3] This, I believe, was in allusion to the death of Sir Charles Barry.—J. T., 1871.
[4] Instead of attempting to write one myself, I requested the permission of my friend Mr. Hawkins to republish his admirable account of our first assault upon the Matterhorn. I have to thank both him and Mr. Macmillan for the obliging promptness with which my request was granted.
[5] As Bennen and Tyndall were going up the Finsteraarhorn once upon a time, the work being severe, Bennen turned round and said to Tyndall, ‘Ich fÜhle mich jetzt ganz wie der Tyroler einmal,’ and went on to relate a story of the conversation between a priest and an honest Tyrolese, who complained to his father confessor that religion and an extreme passion for the fair sex struggled within him, and neither could expel the other. ‘Mein Sohn,’ said the priest, ‘Frauen zu lieben und im Himmel zu kommen, das geht nicht.’ ‘Herr Pfarrer,’ sagte der Tyroler, ‘es muss gehen.’ ‘Und so sag’ ich jetzt,’ cried Bennen. ‘Es muss gehen’ is always his motto.
[14] Thackeray, in his ‘Peg of Limavady,’ is perhaps more to the point than Emerson:
‘Presently a maid Enters with the liquor— Half a pint of ale Frothing in a beaker; As she came she smiled, And the smile bewitching, On my word and honour, Lighted all the kitchen.’
[15] Seven years previously Mr. Huxley and myself had attempted to reach this col from the other side.
[16] Bennen’s death is described in Chapter XVIII. A liberal collection was made in England for his mother and sisters; and Mr. Hawkins, Mr. Tuckett, and myself had a small monument erected to his memory in Ernan churchyard. The supervision of the work was entrusted to a clerical friend of Bennen’s, who made but a poor use of his trust.
[17] Eight years ago I was evidently a sun-worshipper; nor have I yet lost the conviction of his ability to do all here ascribed to him.—J.T., 1871.
[23] I should estimate the level of the Lower Grindelwald glacier, at the point where it is usually entered upon to reach the Eismeer, to be nearly one hundred feet vertically lower in 1867 than it was in 1856. I am glad to find that the question of ‘Benchmarks’ to fix such changes of level is now before the Council of the British Association.
[27] It will not be supposed that I here mean the stuffing or pampering of the body. The shortening of the supplies, or a good monkish fast at intervals, is often the best discipline for the body.
[29] In 1869 I tried to get to the top of the Wetterhorn in a single day from Grindelwald, but the wildness of the storm and the bitterness of the cold drove Peter Baumann and me back, when we were within a quarter of an hour of the top. I was afterwards in the habit of taking to the Riffel See when heavy snow was falling. It was at the Bel Alp, however, that I found myself renewed.
[30] Standing here alone, on another occasion, I heard the roar of what appeared to be a descending avalanche, but the duration of the sound surprised me. I looked through my opera glass in the direction from which the sound proceeded, and saw issuing from the end of one of the secondary glaciers on the side of Mont Tacul a torrent of what appeared to me to be stones and mud. I could see the rocks and dÉbris jumping down the declivities, and forming singular cascades. The noise continued for a quarter of an hour, when the descending torrent diminished until the ordinary stream, due to the melting of the glacier, alone remained. A sub-glacial lake had evidently burst its bounds, and carried the dÉbris along with it in its rush downwards.
[31] It was here that my prudent guide, Édouard Simon, demanded, ‘Est-ce que vous avez une femme?’ and, when I replied in the negative, added, ‘Vous serez tuÉ tout de mÊme.’
[32] I have reason to believe that a translation of the two parts hitherto published will soon be forthcoming.—J. T., 1871.
[40] I have corrected this slight inadvertence. We owe the name to Hooker.
[41] Both Professor Helmholtz and I have since agreed to consider the physical cause of regelation an open question.
[42] I am continually indebted to this able mechanism for prompt and intelligent aid in the carrying out of my ideas.
[43] At this time I was brooding over experiments on the absorption of radiant heat by aqueous vapour.
[44] The cleat is a T-shaped mass of metal employed for the fastening of ropes.
[45] There is, it will be seen, a fair agreement between these impressions and those so vigorously described by a scientific correspondent of the ‘Times.’
[46] Esparto is a kind of grass now much used in the manufacture of paper.
[47] In this essay Mr. Busk refers to the previous labours of Mr. Smith, of Jordan Hill, to whom we owe most of our knowledge of the geology of the rock.
[48] No one can rise from the perusal of Mr. Busk’s paper without a feeling of admiration for the principal discoverer and indefatigable explorer of the Gibraltar caves, the late Captain Frederick Brome.
[49] A note, written to me on October 22, by my friend Canon Kingsley, contains the following reference to this point: ‘I have never seen the Lake of Geneva, but I thought of the brilliant dazzling dark blue of the mid-Atlantic under the sunlight, and its black-blue under cloud, both so solid that one might leap off the sponson on to it without fear; this was to me the most wonderful thing which I saw on my voyages to and from the West Indies.’
[50] I learn from a correspondent that certain Welsh tarns, which are reputed bottomless, have this inky hue.
[51] In no case, of course, is the green pure, but a mixture of green and blue.
