Lives of the electricians

by William T. Jeans

Binding all things with beauty;—’twould disarm

The spectre Death, had he substantial power to harm.”

Professor Tyndall translated such sentiments into actions. At the time when he began to ascend the highest of those Alpine peaks, accidents of the most painful description were frequently reported as occurring to travellers, owing to the absence of that more intimate knowledge of the routes and methods of travelling which has since been acquired by experience or revealed by science—knowledge which he himself rendered generous and valuable aid in acquiring and diffusing. For instance, while he was at Breuil on August 18th, 1860, intelligence reached him that three Englishmen and a guide had perished on the Col-du-Géant. The more he heard of the sad occurrence, he said, the stronger became his desire to visit the scene of it. He accordingly went to Cormayeur on the 22nd, and called on the resident French pastor, M. Curie, who had visited the place and made a sketch of it. Accepting this gentleman’s offer to accompany him, Professor Tyndall reached the Pavilion early on the morning of Thursday, the 24th. “Wishing,” says the Professor, “to make myself acquainted with every inch of the ground over which, from the commencement of their glissade, the unfortunate men had passed, I walked straight up from the Pavilion to the base of the rocky couloir along which they had been precipitated. This couloir was described as being so dangerous that a chamois hunter had declined ascending it some days before; but I secured at Cormayeur the service of an intrepid man who had once made the ascent, and whom it was now my intention to follow. We commenced our climb at the very bottom of the rocks, while the pastor made a détour and joined us on the spot where the body of the guide had been found. From this point upward, M. Curie shared the dangers of the ascent—strongly, I confess, against my will—until we reached the place where the rocks ended and the fatal snow slope commenced. Here we parted company, he deeming it more prudent to resort to a stony arête to the right than to trust himself upon the snow. I was urged by M. Curie to content myself with an inspection of the place, but no inspection, however close, could have given the information I desired. I asked my guide whether he feared the slope, and his reply being negative, we entered upon the snow, and ascended it along the course of the fatal glissade, the traces of which had not been entirely obliterated. Among the rocks below we had frequent and often melancholy occasion to assure ourselves that we were on the proper track.... From the beginning to the end of this fatal track, I made myself acquainted with its true character, and as I stood upon the summit of the incline and scanned the ground over which I had passed a feeling of augmented sadness took possession of me. There was no sufficient reason for this terrible catastrophe. With ordinary precaution the glissade might in the first instance have been avoided, and with average capacity to cope with such an accident the motion might, I am persuaded, have been arrested after it commenced.”

He concluded a long letter to the Times, from which the foregoing extract is taken, by saying that the guides of Chamouni ought to regard this terrible disaster as a stain upon their order which it would require years of services faithfully and wisely rendered to wipe away. It is much easier to censure than to set a good example, and from that point of view Professor Tyndall was blamed at the time for being so severe in his strictures. Ere long, however, an opportunity occurred which put his own resources to the severest test. While staying at Pontresina in 1864, he, along with Mr. Hutchinson and Mr. Lee-Warner, of Rugby, ascended the Piz Morteratch, a very noble mountain, which was thought safe and easy to ascend. The top was reached without any exceptional difficulty; but in descending they came to a broad couloir filled with snow, which, having been melted and refrozen, appeared like a sloping wall of ice. The party were tied together, with one guide named Jenni in front, and another named Walter in the rear. Jenni cut steps in the ice, and then reached snow, which he expected would give them a footing. As he led the party he said, “Keep carefully in the steps, gentlemen; a false step here might detach an avalanche.” The word was scarcely uttered, says the Professor, whose account has been corroborated by his companions, “when I heard the sound of a fall behind me, then a rush, and in a moment my two friends and their guide, all apparently entangled together, whirled past me. I suddenly planted myself to resist their shock, but in an instant I was in their wake, for their impetus was irresistible. A moment afterwards Jenni was whirled away, and thus, in the twinkling of an eye, all five of us found ourselves riding downwards with uncontrollable speed on the back of an avalanche which a single slip had originated.

“Previous to stepping on the slope, I had, according to habit, made clear to my mind what was to be done in case of mishap; and accordingly, when overthrown, I turned promptly on my face, and drove my bâton through the moving snow, and into the ice underneath. No time, however, was allowed for the break’s action; for I had held it firmly thus for a few seconds only when I came into collision with some obstacle and was rudely tossed through the air, Jenni at the same time being shot down upon me. Both of us here lost our bâtons. We had been carried over a crevasse, had hit its lower edge, and, instead of dropping into it, were pitched by our great velocity far beyond it. I was quite bewildered for a moment, but immediately righted myself, and could see the men in front of me half buried in the snow, and jolted from side to side by the ruts among which we were passing. Suddenly I saw them tumbled over by a lurch of the avalanche, and immediately afterwards found myself imitating their motion. This was caused by a second crevasse. Jenni knew of its existence and plunged, he told me, right into it—a brave act, but for the time unavailing. By jumping into the chasm he thought a strain might be put upon the rope sufficient to check the motion. But though over thirteen stone in weight, he was violently jerked out of the fissure, and almost squeezed to death by the pressure of the rope.

“A long slope was before us which led directly downwards to a brow where the glacier fell precipitously. At the base of the declivity ice was cut by a series of profound chasms, towards which we were rapidly borne. The three foremost men rode upon the forehead of the avalanche, and were at times almost wholly immersed in the snow; but the moving layer was thinner behind, and Jenni rose incessantly and with desperate energy drove his feet into the firmer substance beneath. His voice, shouting ‘Halt! Herr Jesus, halt!’ was the only one heard during the descent. A kind of condensed memory, such as that described by people who have narrowly escaped drowning, took possession of me, and my power of reasoning remained intact. I thought of Bennen on the Haut de Cry, and muttered, ‘It is now my turn.’ Then I coolly scanned the men in front of me, and reflected that, if their vis viva was the only thing to be neutralised, Jenni and myself could stop them; but to arrest both them and the mass of snow in which they were caught was hopeless. I experienced no intolerable dread. In fact the start was too sudden and the excitement of the rush too great to permit of the development of terror.

“Looking in advance, I noticed that the slope for a short distance became less steep and then fell as before. ‘Now or never we must be brought to rest.’ The speed visibly slackened, and I thought we were saved. But the momentum had been too great; the avalanche crossed the brow and in part regained its motion. Here Hutchinson threw his arm round his friend, all hope being extinguished, while I grasped my belt and struggled to free myself. Finding this difficult, from the tossing, I sullenly resumed the strain upon the rope. Destiny had so related the downward impetus to Jenni’s pull as to give the latter a slight advantage, and the whole question was whether the opposing force would have sufficient time to act. This was also arranged in our favour, for we came to rest so near the brow that two or three seconds of our average motion of descent must have carried us over. Had this occurred, we should have fallen into the chasm, and been covered up by the tail of the avalanche. Hutchinson emerged from the snow with his forehead bleeding, but the wound was superficial; Jenni had a bit of flesh removed from his hand by collision against a stone; the pressure of the rope had left black welts on my arms; and we all experienced a tingling sensation over the hands, like that produced by incipient frost-bite, which continued for several days. This was all.”

Another incident which illustrates the nature and variety of his experience as a traveller he has himself described as prompted more by the instincts of the mountaineer than by the curiosity of the man of science. In 1868 he visited Vesuvius; and if he did not collect information of much scientific value, he saw a good deal that was very interesting. He said he was most struck with the condition of the country all round Naples; it was so seething, and smoking, and hot, showing the presence of vast subterranean fires. It was the same at Vesuvius, where in one place at the entrance to a gallery in the side of the mountain, he found a little boy quite naked, who volunteered to enter the gallery and cook an egg which he held in his hand. Both the Professor and his companion (Sir John Lubbock) determined to explore the gallery. On doing so they found at the end of it a hot salt spring, where they cooked the egg. The guide told them of a hotter gallery adjoining, which they also explored; and a hotter one still being pointed out, they likewise tried it and found it very hot indeed. They also visited the grotto Del Cano, where the floor was covered with carbonic acid gas, a broad stream of which flowed out of the mouth of the cavern. There he performed what he called some of the commoner Royal Institution experiments for the benefit of the natives. He collected some of the heavy gas in his hat, carried it to a distance, and then put out lighted matches by pouring the heavy gas over them. A little dog being kept near the cave for the purpose of showing visitors how easily the gas could half choke it, he protested against the cruelty of that experiment. At Pompeii, he came to the conclusion that the ashes which burned it could not have been of very high temperature when they fell, having been much chilled by their previous passage through the air. Among the evidences of this was the fact that a fountain of pure lead, which was uncovered during the excavations, was uninjured. The analysis of a piece which he took away with him showed that the temperature of the ashes in which it was engulfed, was lower than the melting point of lead. In ascending Vesuvius they crossed a ridge which formed the ancient crater of the mountain; others had been thrown up since, the latest being 300 feet higher than the ancient one. Vesuvius, he said, was nineteen feet higher in 1868 than it had ever been before in human history. In the midst of the smoking centres of eruption, they listened to the noises in the mountain beneath, and saw three discharges of red-hot stones from the crater. The wind was so strong that one gust blew down Sir John Lubbock on his face. On another occasion when they ascended the mountain, they were favoured with a strong wind, and going further than the guide would lead them, they went to the edge of the principal crater, and looked down into the great central hole of the volcano itself, where they saw little but smoke and a lurid glare. Sometimes they were enveloped in smoke and sulphurous acid gas, but they avoided any risk from it by keeping well to windward. As to the dispute among geologists on the question whether the cones on the top of Vesuvius were made by eruption or upheaval, he came to the same conclusion as Lyell, that they were craters of eruption. It was afterwards estimated that during the eruption which was in progress at the time of Professor Tyndall’s visit, Mount Vesuvius emitted about 20,000,000 cubic feet of lava.

His travels and explorations in another part of the world where Nature displays her operations on a grand scale, and where personal achievement is the only recognised title to fame, were still more memorable. When in June, 1851, Professor Tyndall came back from Germany to England, he met on his way to the meeting of the British Association at Ipswich “a man who has since made his mark upon the intellect of his time,” and to whom he was ever afterwards attached by the strong law of mental affinity. This was Professor Huxley, and both the young scientists being then on the look out for work, they determined to apply for the vacant chairs of natural history and physics in the University of Toronto, but their applications were declined. Faraday, who was Tyndall’s philosopher and friend in the matter, wrote a letter urging him to apply for the Toronto appointment; but happily for both of them and for the glory of British science, Toronto would not have them, and England could not spare them. Twenty years after that Professor Tyndall visited the United States, whence his reputation as a scientific lecturer had preceded him. No people are so quick in their observations of men and manners as the Americans, and it may therefore be opportune here to give an American’s impressions of the man to whom that people gave an enthusiastic reception in 1872. Mr. George Ripley gave the following description of him:—

“Professor Tyndall has all the ardour of a reformer, without any tendency to vague and rash speculations. Recognising whatever is valuable in the researches of a former age, he extends a gracious hospitality to new suggestions. With a noble pride in his favourite branches of inquiry, he is not restricted to an exclusive range of research, but extends his intellectual vision over a wide field of observation. The English, as a rule, are inclined to be suspicious of a man who ventures beyond a special walk in the pursuit of knowledge. They have but little sympathy with the catholic taste which embraces a variety of objects, and is equally at home in the researches of science, the speculations of philosophy, the delights of poetry, and the graces of elegant literature. But a single exception to this trait is presented by Professor Tyndall. His mind is singularly comprehensive in its tendencies, and betrays a versatility of aptitude and a reach of cultivation, which are rarely found in unison with conspicuous eminence in purely scientific pursuits. In his own special domain his reputation is fixed. His expositions of the theory of heat and light and sound, and of some of the more interesting Alpine phenomena, are acknowledged to be masterpieces of popular statement, to which few parallels can be found in the records of modern science. But, in addition to this, he possesses a rare power of eloquence and manifold attainments in different departments of learning. I do not know that he has ever written poetry, but he is certainly a poet in the fire of his imagination and in his love for all the forms of natural beauty. Nor has he disdained to make himself familiar with the leading metaphysical theories of the past age, in spite of the disrepute and comparative obscurity into which science has been thrown by the brilliant achievements of physical research. I noticed with pleasure in his conversation his allusions to Fichte, Goethe, R. W. Emerson, Henry Heine, and other superior lights of the literary world, showing an appreciation of their writings which could only have been the fruit of familiar personal studies. Besides the impression produced on a stranger by his genius and learning, I may be permitted to say that I have met with few men of more attractive manners. His mental activity gives an air of intensity to his expression, though without a trace of vehemence, or an eager passion for utterance. In his movements he is singularly alert, gliding through the streets with the rapidity and noiselessness of an arrow, paying little attention to external objects; and, if you are his companion, requiring on your part a nimble step and a watchful eye not to lose sight of him. Though overflowing with thought, which streams from his brain as from a capacious reservoir while his words ‘trip around as airy servitors,’ he is one of the best of listeners, never assuming an undue share of the talk, and lending an attentive and patient ear to the common currency of conversation, without demanding of men the language of the gods. The singular kindness of his bearing, I am sure, must proceed from a kind and generous heart. With no pretence of sympathy, and no uncalled for demonstrations of interest, his name will certainly be set down by the recording angel as one who loves his fellow men.”