John Tyndall FRS was an important 19th-century Irish physicist. His scientific prominence developed in the 1850s as a result of his research into diamagnetism. Later, he produced discoveries in the fields of infrared radiation and air physical characteristics, establishing the link between atmospheric CO2 and what is now known as the greenhouse effect in 1859. Tyndall also authored over a dozen science books that introduced a large number of people to cutting-edge 19th-century experimental physics. From 1853 to 1887, he taught physics at the Royal Institution of Great Britain in London. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1868. Tyndall was born at Leighlinbridge, Co. Carlow, Ireland. His father was a local police constable, descended from Gloucestershire emigrants who arrived in southeast Ireland around 1670. Tyndall attended the local schools (Ballinabranna Primary School) in County Carlow until his late teens and was most likely an assistant teacher near the conclusion of his tenure there. Technical drawing and mathematics were particularly important subjects in school, with some applications to land surveying. In his late teens, he was engaged as a draftsman by the Ordnance Survey of Ireland in 1839, and he later went to the Ordnance Survey of Great Britain in 1842.
Preface to the second edition
Preface to the first edition
1. The Lauwinen-Thor
2. Disaster on the Col du Géant
3. The Matterhorn - first assault, with J. J. Bennen as guide
4. Thermometric stations on Mont Blanc
5. A letter from Bâle
6. The Urbachthal and Gauli glacier
7. The Grimsel and the Aeggischhorn
8. The Bel Alp
9. The Weisshorn
10. Inspection of the Matterhorn with Bennen
11. Over the Moro
12. The Old Weissthor
13. Rescue from a crevasse
14. The Matterhorn - second assault, in company with Bennen
15. From Stein to the Grimsel
16. The Oberaarjock. Adventure at the Aeggischhorn
17. Ascent of the Jungfrau
18. Death of Bennen on the Haut de Cry
19. Accident on the Piz Morteratsch
20. Alpine sculpture
21. Search on the Matterhorn: a project
22. The Titlis, Finsteraarschlucht, Petersgrat, and Italian lakes
23. Ascent of the Eiger and Passage of the Trift
24. The Matterhorn - third and last assault
25. Ascent of the Aletschhorn
26. A day among the Séracs of the Glacier du Géant fourteen years ago
Notes on ice and glaciers, etc.
