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Document number: 6338
Date: 16 Jul 1850
Recipient: TALBOT William Henry Fox
Author: MURCHISON Roderick Impey
Collection: British Library, London, Manuscripts - Fox Talbot Collection
Last updated: 8th July 2015

Hotel de l Europe
Clermont
16 July 1850

Dear Talbot

The bearer is the person I recommend to you to take you to St Nectaire. There you will find an omnibus to take you the [sic] fine gorge of the Couzes to Issoire. But if you resolve to go first to Neschers or Coudes by which you can see the whole valley at the Croizet you can get some sort of a Machine.

At Courdes you get into the Diligence for Puy en Velay. Here you will meet I hope with my old friend M Bertrand de Doue a foreign member of the Geological Socy of London who has written well upon his Country. <1> You can not explain to him the peculiar Mystic in a Scotchman & Geologist which carries me off to Edinburgh & prevents my seeing him.

I recommend this hotel at Clermont strongly to you. It is much cleaner & airier than the Ecu & is kept by an excellent fellow one Mauder who has the Upper Baths at St Nectaire & is the brother of the Mauder I recommend you at the lower baths.

Do not let your Driver deposit you at Boettes, for M de Cussy is at Mauders.<2>

You will see what an [illegible X2] has done in modern times & how it has covered up the Roman baths with fragments of rock & works of art.

Ever Yours
Roderick Murchison

You must make your bargain with the voiturier I paid him at St. Nectaire for 24 Kilometres as if posting with 4 persons.

[address panel:]<3>
A
Monsieur
M. Talbot
Gentl [?] Anglais
[?] Cobourg Ave
[?] de les Bains


Notes:

1. Jean Mathieu Bertrand de Doue (1776-1863), geologist, meteorologist, Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur.

2. Possibly Charles François de Cussy (1773-1860), Marquis de Jucoville.

3. Interpreting the scrawled address is quite challenging. Unfortunately, no other correspondence from this time has been traced that might correlate with it.