Saturday 16th August 1834

dearest called 20 minutes to 4 – off soon after 4 – she & George in little carriage, I saw them go – got up myself a few minutes past 8 – breakfasted & picked strawberries for dearest then walked out, came back, found room not done, & went out again; came in about 11.15 finished letter to my sister, then began & finished one to Mrs. Lister, wrote journal, till 4 oclock, then had soup – afterwards copied one of Mr. Browne’s drawings, a piece of rock – then read a description of geological society at Clermont – & watched after very often for dearest’s return, who went at 4 in morning with George to Puy de Dôme, where weight of the atmosphere first proved by Pascal. & silver mines – candles at 8.15learnt 2 columns of French conversation – at 9.15 ordered up dinner – dearest arrived just as it was on table – sat down to dinner 20 to 10 – dearest had a magnificent view from Puy de Dôme, said that any person might have gone up on mules, & that I should go there if we came here again – the descent into silver mines near Pont de Gibaut [Gibaud] very steep & dangerous, by step ladders in one place quite perpendicular, & very dirty also – an hour & a half there 20 minutes in getting permission – Monsieur de St. Etienne said the mines had cost him nearly a million of francs (£40,000 english) but they were now beginning to pay – road from Puy de Dome [Puy de Dôme] to silver mines very dangerous, only just room for carriage & a perpendicular fence precipice on one side without any fence so that little carriage was sometimes close on brink of precipice – went to bed immediately dearest very sleepy, but quite pleased with letters & drawing –

Courtesy of West Yorkshire Archive Service, Calderdale WYC:1525/7/1/5/1/29

[up at] 4
[to bed at] 12 3/4

no kiss fine Fahrenheit 73° at 4 50/.. a.m. carriage of yesterday – left Adney in bed, took George and off at 5 6/.. – no breakfast but took with us a pain and some figs – delayed on the bridge 1/4 hour before we could pass thro’ the crowd of carts or rather waggons with 1 or 2 pair cows, oxen, or bulls – in about 10 minutes or 1/4 hour at the foot of the mountain and then 1 hour of traversing and montée – fine views of Clermont – at 6 3/4 at La barraque /La Baraque/ a little auberge du Cheval blanc where took up my guide to the Puy de Dome, a tall strong looking long-legged man ætatis 42, who said he had been a great deal with Mr. Paulet /Poulett/ Scrope who gave his 7/50 a day and fed him like himself – delayed 10 minutes – in 1/4 hour at 7 10/.. leave the Pont de Gibaud /Pontgibaud/ road and turn right along sandy by-road for 20 minutes more and alight at 7 1/2, and sent the carriage to wait for me at La fontaine de Berger, a cabaret by Pont de Gibaud roadside, farther on – green-sward all the way except near the top a white domite-sandy path here and there – met a few cows going home to avoid the heat – would return again at 5 p.m. for the night – did not go out of our way to ascend the petit Puy – stopt every now and then for a moment or 2 to breath and look about, and at the top in 1 2/.. hour at 8 35/.. – the guide himself never in his life went up in less than 3/4 hour, and generally takes an hour when by himself – the ladies who went yesterday were 4 hours in getting up – what nonsense – might very well ride to the top even the way we came, and quite well by the Prariou /Pariou/ the way we returned – the heat excessive till we reached the Petit Puy, and then a little air – a little breeze and felt cold at the top, so only staid 1/4 hour – not a dry thread on me – very fine view towards Mont Dore, and Pont de Gibaud, of the sea (coulée) of lava from the Puy de bois de Com /Côme/ to beyond Pont de Gibaud, and of all the volcanic puys or mountains – among the rest the Puy de Chopine with its bare red two-fold scary front very striking – thickish towards Clermont but better today than yesterday – I seemed to look upon a vast plain on which the sea of lava, and the Puys thrown together in 3 or 4 groups – the chapel (now scarce a stone of it remaining) was not quite on the highest part of the summit – 10 minutes from the top (in descending) got specimens of Domite, with specks of black and brownish yellow mica – at the crater of the Prariou in a few minutes less than an hour, at 9 52/.. – the guide and George remained at the top while I (in 10 minutes) went to the bottom of it and wound up again along the side – the bottom an oval about 50 yards by 40 – a nice green plot of grass – the sides all covered with heather – a perfectly regular oval-based hollow cone, with a few loose lava-stones at the bottom piled into 2 heaps one at each end – a rim of grass 5 or 6 yards broad all round the rim of the crater – and then all heather again – this the most perfect hereabouts – off again at 10 14/.. – all grass (except near the top several tracks thro’ domite sand and domite stones) in ascending the Puy de Dome, and the summit all grass, but in descending (from the level of the little valley or hollow between the great and little Puy) all heather to the crater of the Prariou and below this for a considerable way – the Puy de Dome all domite – at the cabaret, La fontaine de Berger at 10 40/.. – 6 or 8 labouring men at breakfast there – no milk – George and I had warm wine and water and breakfasted on this and my bread and figs, and off again at 11 25/.. – and à La Poste at Pont de Gibaud at 12 3/4 – the poste a good-looking Inn, and ditto just opposite, l’hotel de commerce – tolerable little town with old chateau on hill just above – since the first revolution belonging to, and inhabited by several proprietors – the town at the verge of the great coulée of lava from the Puy de Bois de Com – called Pont de Gibaud from good 2 arch lava stone bridge over the Sioule, here a broadish shallow stream, a few yards beyond La Poste – the Bordeaux road turns left, at right angles, immediately after crossing the bridge – left our horse to bait, got one from the poste and a postillion (a cocher) and off at 1 8/.. – obliged to have permission to see the mines of the proprietor le Comte de Pont de St. Gibaud – he at Clermont – Madame ‘à table’ – detained 35 minutes till she wrote a note to the directeur Monsieur de St. Etienne – in the mean while saw the foundery near the house – the ore containing 6 ounces silver per quintal (said Monsieur de St. Etienne) put into the furnace with a flux of 5 pounds fluatée de chaux to a quintal of old iron, and cinders added to this – the chaux fluatée is verdatre, greenish – powdered – brought from Saint Jacques (not far off 1 1/2 league off) by a man at ./75 per quintal – off at 1 3/4 drove thro’ narrow on each side wooded (covered with beech and oak etc.) very pretty valley or defile with a stream winding all along the bottom – at the 1st silver mine building at 2 50/.. – delayed 5 minutes – Monsieur de St. Etienne just gone to the other and more distant building – there in 1/2 hour at 2 50/.. – nice drive there – curious grottos in the basalt or lava rocks on approaching the pits – Monsieur de St. Etienne very civil – 1 1/2 hour in the mine – very fine lofty galleries – cost 47/. per metre – 3 feet wide and 6 feet high – but vary in the dimensions according to circumstances, tho’ as often exceeding as not reaching the above dimensions – very fine rich filon (vein) sometimes lying in baryte – 6 ounces silver per quintal – went down 1 pump-pit 40 yards (metres) deep, perpendicularly set ladder – and down the other pit above 60 metres deep – the filon is got in galleries 1 above another 1 gallery every 20 feet and 1 soupirail or air-vent from the top of the surface, for about every 40 metres – leave 5 feet thick between each gallery – the filon the better the deeper they go – came out of the mine at 4 3/4 – Monsieur de St. Etienne took me to see the curious rocks at a little distance in which lava quite black and like recent cinder or blueish like burnt blue marl – the
works and roads and tout compris have cost Monsieur de Pont de St. Gibaud about (i.e. near) cent mille francs – 1 gallery of the mine 360+ metres long – off home at 5 20/.. – at Pont de Gibaud at 6 40/.. having been ten minutes a few minutes examining the exterior of the old chateau – then George and I had each a basin of cold milk at La poste – off again at 7 – Had my Puy de Dome guide at the silver mines, and with me the whole day – set him down at his own house à La barr[a]que, at 9 1/2, and home at 10 10/.. – Adney had waited dinner – found it on the table – very fine day – Fahrenheit 73º at 12 25/.. tonight –

Courtesy of West Yorkshire Archive Service, Calderdale SH:7/ML/E/17/0075 & SH:7/ML/E/17/0076