290 Baron Humboldt's View of the scientific Researches 



of the influence of temperature on the intensity of the electro- 

 magnetic forces. M. Kupffer has lately returned from the Alps 

 of Caucasus, where, after the long migrations of the human spe- 

 cies in the great shipwreck of nations and of languages, so many 

 different races have taken refuge. With the name of this travel- 

 ler is associated the labours of a philosopher who has struggled 

 with a noble perseverance on the flanks of Ararat, (considered 

 as the classical soil of the earliest and most venerable recollec- 

 tions of history,) — against obstacles which were opposed to him, 

 both by the depth and the softness of eternal snow. I am al- 

 most ashamed to wound the modesty of a father in adding, that 

 M. Parrot, the traveller of Ararat, sustains in the sciences the 

 lustre of hereditary celebrity. 



In the more eastern regions of an empire, for ever illustri- 

 ous by the labours of my countryman Pallas (pardon me, Gen- 

 tlemen, for claiming for Prussia a part of that glory which is 

 sufficient to distinguish two nations at once,) in the mountains 

 of the Oural and of Koly van, we have followed the more recent 

 routes of MM. Ledebour, Meyer and Bunge, and MM. Hoff- 

 mann and Helmersson. The fine and numerous Flora of Altai 

 has already enriched the botanical establishment of this capi- 

 tal, which has risen almost as by enchantment, through the 

 zeal of its directors, to the rank of the first botanical gardens of 

 Europe. The learned world expects with impatience the pub- 

 lication of the Flora of Altai, of which Dr Bunge himself was 

 able, in the vicinity of Zmeinogorsk, to show to my friend, M. 

 Ehrenberg, some interesting productions. This was, without 

 doubt, the first time that a traveller in Abyssinia, in Dongola, 

 Sinai, and Palestine, had climbed the mountains of Riddersky, 

 covered with perpetual snows. 



The geognostic description of the southern part of the Oural 

 was entrusted to two young philosophers, MM. Hoffmann and 

 Helmersson, one of whom had first made known the volcanoes 

 of the South Sea. This selection was due to an enlightened 

 minister, — a friend of science and of its cultivation, — M. Le 

 Comte de Cancrin, whose affectionate care and provident acti- 

 vity will never be forgotten by my colleagues and myself. MM. 

 Helmersson and Hoffmann, pupils of the celebrated school of 

 Dorpat, have successfully studied, during two years, the diffe- 



