viu.] TRAPES, 1837. 235 



accordingly persuaded me to go before him into Saxon 

 Switzerland. He soon after joined me at Dresden, but 

 his extra sojourn in the Prussian capital was not without 

 its effect on his health, and he did not recover his usual 

 vigour until we reached Carlsbad. 



* At Dresden I had the advantage of his long experi- 

 ence and consummate taste in Italian pictures as a guide 

 through its galleries, after which we gladly exchanged 

 the heat and dust of cities for further geological ex- 

 plorations, in the course of which we visited the pitch- 

 stone rocks of the Tribisch Thai, and the remarkable 

 contact of granite with chalk in the neighbourhood of 

 Meissen. After examining the springs of Toplitz, where 

 Forbes was still feeble and unwell, we reached Carlsbad, 

 and lingered there until his health was completely 

 restored. He was equally attracted by the scenery and 

 the society of Carlsbad, and greatly impressed by its 

 remarkable geological position. " The great tortoise-like 

 shell," he writes, "of recent formation, incrusted over 

 the source of both its groups of springs, now bearing 

 much of the weight of the town, and having within an 

 enormous pressure of gas, is one of the most singular of 

 natural artifices conceivable." 



' On the 10th of August we started in a private diligence 

 for Prague, and thence posted across to Budweis, taking 

 the tramway to Linz. . . . Travelling southward, we 

 were now daily getting nearer to the mountains, which 

 1 then saw for the first time, though both the Alps and 

 Pyrenees were already familiar to him; and 1 well 

 recollect his quiet consciousness of the mighty secrets 

 which lay before us, when he introduced to me a bluish, 

 indi.-tinet line rising above the horizon, as " The Alps!" 



' Tin- few days we spent in the Saltzkammergut, pas>in^ 



by Ischl ami llallstadt to the magnificent scenery of the 



upper Gosau lakes, and thence by steamer to Salt /burg, 



:v days of e.\|uisitr enjoyment. 1 IH-VT a^aiii trod 



tin- mountain side in company \\ith my friend until after 



trying illness in 1843. Now, on those towering 



.commanding the most enchanting Alpine 



