APPEND, c.] AUGUSTS BALMAT. 503 



too great readiness to yield to the importunities of others. He 



of singular strength and activity, could carry the heaviest 

 burdens without apparent effort, and not only in distance but in 

 pace, could easily outstrip most persons with whom he was 

 brought into contact, whether of his own calling or not. 



Professor Forbes, to whom he had been recommended in 1842 

 by M. Lanvers, the Cure of Chamounix, thought highly of his 

 intelligence and capacity, and recommended him to various 

 scientific men, who in their turn had introduced him to others. 

 Hence it happened that, as he accompanied now a geologist, now 

 a botanist, now a student of glacial phenomena, Italmat picked 

 up from each something of his own particular knowledge ; and 

 being a man of retentive and accurate memory, he rarely forgot 



t which had been brought to his notice, or an observation 

 made in his presence. He acquired also the habit of constant 

 and patient attention to the phenomena of nature, and the power 

 of applying the large store of facts he accumulated to the 

 elucidation of any question under discussion. He evinced on 

 many occasions a capacity for close and accurate reasoning, very 

 remarkable in a man without any early education. The flatter- 

 ing attentions, however, which in his later years he was con- 

 stantly receiving, never led him to over-estimate the extent or 

 value of his acquirements, but left him, to the last hour of his 



:he most modest and unassuming of men. 

 He had listened with especial interest to all that he could 



'i about the movements, structure, and peculiarities of 

 Glaciers, and upon this department of nature he had exerted all 

 his powers of observation and reasoning. He became, in con- 

 sequence, everywhere at home upon the ire, and when on a 



ctly new glacier appeared to have the same unerring 



judgment as to the best way of attacking its sera -s, or winding 



its labyrinths of crevasses, that he exhibited on the Mer 



'lace, or the Glacier des Bossons. The Mer de Glace was 

 at that epoch a famous school of ice-craft, and I'almat had 

 learned in no mechanical manner. The contempt which lie 

 always evinced lor the little pyramids of stones which were, and 

 are still, used to mark the track through a piece of en vassed 

 glacier 'la rcssour.-.. <1< s mauvais guides, 1 as lie always .-aid 

 was perfectly unallected. I was a sort of pet pupil of his in 



1 he alwaxs l.egg.-d Hie em j -hat ically to pay no heed to 

 such things, hut to mist to the infallible indications afl'oided by 

 th- iiirlination and volume c.f the -jlaeirr, the form of its Led, 

 and t 



I' D ' D po>rd that In lirieiit in the sort of 



, -tiuct. \vliiri din-el ariijit, wh- 



O O i! 



