Alpine Mountaineering and Glaciology
Tyndall visited the Alps mountains in 1856 for scientific reasons and ended up becoming a pioneering mountain climber. He visited the Alps almost every summer from 1856 onward, was a member of the very first mountain-climbing team to reach the top of the Weisshorn (1861), and lead of one of the early teams to reach the top of the Matterhorn (1868). He is one the names associated with the "golden age of Alpinism", i.e. the mid-Victorian years when the more difficult of the Alpine peaks were summited for the first time.
In the Alps, Tyndall studied glaciers, and especially glacier motion. His explanation of glacial flow brought him into dispute with others, particularly James David Forbes. Much of the early scientific work had been done by Forbes, but Forbes at that time didn't know of the phenomenon of Regelation which was discovered a little later by Michael Faraday. Regelation played a key role in Tyndall's explanation. Forbes didn't see regelation in the same way at all. Complicating their debate, a disagreement arose publicly over who deserved to get investigator credit for what. Articulate friends of Forbes, as well as Forbes himself, thought that Forbes should get the credit for most of the good science, whereas Tyndall thought the credit should be distributed more widely. Tyndall commented: "The idea of semi-fluid motion belongs entirely to Louis Rendu; the proof of the quicker central flow belongs in part to Rendu, but almost wholly to Louis Agassiz and Forbes; the proof of the retardation of the bed belongs to Forbes alone; while the discovery of the locus of the point of maximum motion belongs, I suppose, to me." When Forbes and Tyndall were in the grave, their disagreement was continued by their respective official biographers. Everyone tried to be reasonable, but agreement wasn't attained. More disappointingly, aspects of glacier motion remained not understood or not proved.
Tyndall Glacier located in Chile and Tyndall Glacier in Colorado were named after John Tyndall, as is Mount Tyndall in California and Mount Tyndall in Tasmania.
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Famous quotes containing the word alpine:
“Reason now gazes above the realm of the dark but warm feelings as the Alpine peaks do above the clouds. They behold the sun more clearly and distinctly, but they are cold and unfruitful.”
—G.C. (Georg Christoph)