May 23, 1859.] OBITUARY.— HUMBOLDT. 225 



tlie eminent Willdenow, observing the love of the study of nature 

 in Alexander, initiated him in botany. Thus prepared, the two 

 brothers entered the University of Frankfort on the Oder, and 

 subsequently that of Gottingen, where they were taught by Heyne 

 and Eichhom, and where Alexander specially profited by the 

 lectures of that great zoologist, the striking and original Blumen- 

 bach. He next repaired to the Mining School of Freiberg, in 1791, 

 to complete that education which should qualify him for examin- 

 ing the earth, its constituent parts and superficial products. There 

 he met with Leopold von Buch, also a disciple of Werner, the 

 great geologist of the day, who, by his eloquent lectures, had given 

 an European character to that small but justly celebrated mining 

 school. 



The friendship then formed between Humboldt and Von Buch was 

 kept up through life ; and it is highly to the credit of Werner and 

 his little mining school of Saxony, that he should have launched 

 two such men, — the one to become the greatest geologist which 

 Germany has produced, the other the most universal geographer, 

 traveller, and natural philosopher of this century. In their obser- 

 vations of nature, they both, however, soon emancipated themselves 

 from some of the untenable dogmas of their master. Honoured 

 as I have been in my humble career by the encouragement of both 

 these great men, I may be permitted to state that, as Von Buch 

 was the senior scholar at the Mining Academy of Freiberg, so he 

 seemed to preserve through life a commanding influence over his 

 illustrious friend on all those subjects connected with the structure 

 of the earth in which I have been most occupied. No two men 

 could be more dissimilar in character. Possessing a warm tem- 

 perament and a somewhat abrupt address, Leopold von Buch con- 

 trasted strongly with the bland and captivating Humboldt ; yet each 

 of these Freiberg scholars secured the sincere afiection as well as 

 admiration of their contemporaries in their respective careers 

 through life. 



Whilst he held official appointments in the department of mines of 

 Prussia, and at Bayreuth and Anspach, Humboldt prepared his works 

 on the Fossil Flora, viz., the ' Flora Subterranea Freibergensis et 

 Aphorismi ex Physiologia Chemica Plantarum,' and the 'Floras 

 Freibergensis Prodromus.' Even as early as 1797 he showed the 

 great versatility of his powers by another work, on a very different 

 subject, ' The Nervous and Muscular Irritation of Animal Fibre,' due 

 to his intercourse with Galvani. 



