Unidad documental simple 22 - James David Forbes to William Whewell

4 pp

Clermont-Ferrand - JDF has 'an inborn love of mountains and detestation of plains' and consequently 'lingered in the Pyrenees' and explored them all summer: 'On the hot springs and their connexion with geology I have collected a quantity of good facts, while I must try to methodize a little sooner those I have been able to do with the results of my last tour'. He has also been pursuing magnetic researches on the Spanish border. However, the Pyrenees 'are not to be named beside the Alps'. The people of Gavarnie have peculiar manners and dress, while their 'language is singularly corrupt, generally approaching the Catalan, and totally distinct from the Basque which is only spoken at that extremity of the Pyrenees which I did not visit'. Thanks WW for the news he sent concerning the BAAS meeting in Dublin. Does WW like Poisson's book ? [S.D. Poisson, Theorie Mathematique de la Chaleur, 1835]. JDF has not seen it: Poisson 'refuses still assent to the undulatory theory (an old grudge) says he thinks we shall return to the true theory by the way of Heat; of course I thought exactly the reverse'.