EECEEATIVE SCIENCE. 



19 



will never be effaced. He was right; many- 

 years afterwards he would sit in the even- 

 ing of the day, meditating upon the grand 

 plains of South America, upon the golden 

 prairies and mountain-heights of lands he 

 had visited half a century before — of scenes 

 as far removed in space as they were in time. 



THE PUnSUIT OF SCIENCE. 



Humboldt's courage in the pursuit of 

 science was immense. With Aime Bonpland 

 and a guide he passed whole nights in those 

 frozen mountain peaks, where a false step 

 might have been destruction, and where the 

 very elements were at war with him. He 

 ascended to so great a height that the rare- 

 fied atmosphere so affected him, that the 

 blood gushed out from his nose and eyes ; 

 but even then the ardent traveller did not 

 turn back, he went on until his senses reeled 

 and he had reached the highest summit. 



But it was now time for him to rest from 

 his labours. The soldier of science had re- 

 turned laden with spoils. It was necessary 

 to arrange and classify those spoils, and 

 Humboldt and Bonpland determined to re- 

 turn to Europe. This they did, previously 

 visiting tlie United States, and being received 

 with much acclamation by the people, and 

 great friendship by Jefferson, who was then 

 President. In 1804, they set foot in Bor- 

 deaux, after an absence of five years from 

 Europe. 



THE EEStJLT OF TBAVEL — HUMBOLDT's 

 WOEKS. 



The result of this voyage forms the mo- 

 nument — the greatest, most complete, and 

 lasting monument to Humboldt and his com- 

 panion. It was published throughout a 

 series of years, but it is too vast and too ex- 

 pensive a work for any but the -wealthj savant, 

 or the public library. The mere titles of 

 the books will show the reader what the 

 labour must have been to obtain such a 

 result :— 



1st. — " Travels in the Equinoctial Eegions 

 of the New World." Paris, 1807—25, 3 vols, 

 in 8vo. 



2nd. — " View of the Cordilleras and the 

 Indigenous Tribes of America, with their 

 Habits, Manners, etc." 1810. In folio, with 

 sixty -nine plates. 



3rd. — " Zoological and Anatomical Obser- 

 vations on South America." 2 vols, 1805 

 —32. 



4th.—" A Political Essay on the King- 

 dom of New Spain." Under this title he 

 gives his views of the policy, agriculture, 

 mineral wealth, social and monetary economy, 

 civil and mihtary transactions of this king- 

 dom. With an Atlas. Paris, 1811, 5 vols. 



5th. — " Astronomical Observations, and , 

 Trigonometrical and Barometrical Measure- 

 ments." 2 vols, in 4to. 1812. 



6th. — " General and Physical Geography 

 of South America." 1807. 



7th. — "Essay on the Geography of 

 Plants." 1805. 



8th. — " A Political Essay on the Island 

 of Cuba." 



The very titles of these works will show 

 the reader what an admirable, thorough, and 

 continual worker was their author. The ex- 

 tremely short hst we give of them could be 

 driven out to a dozen times the length were 

 we to particularize a thousandth part of the 

 contents. Each of these works, though de- 

 pendent on others, is complete in itself 

 Maps, plans, charts, drawings of plants, 

 rocks, ruins, insects, men, skeletons, trees, 

 animals, minerals ; in short, of almost every 

 thing relating even distantly to science, are 

 there to be found bearing the impress of the 

 hand and mind of the great worker. Hum- 

 boldt knew well that his work was that of a 

 life-time. He devoted to it the finest years 

 of his for nearly a quarter of a century, the 

 work being issued in Paris during his sojourn 

 there from the years 1804 to 1827. 



It is in this sketch quite impossible to 

 analyse these works. They are full of new 



