5G 



EECEEATIVE SCIENCE. 



THE JOXTENEY TO ASIA. 



Hard work in tlie fields of knowledge 

 never kills any one. Only the weakly and 

 the desultory fall victims to mental exertion. 

 With. Humboldt it was far otherwise. At 

 sixty he was as vigorous as ever, and in the 

 year 1829, when he had reached that age, he 

 undertook a most hazardous expedition in 

 Central Asia, in company with two of his 

 friends, Ehrenberg and Gustave E.ose. 



This expedition, suggested by and carried 

 out under the auspices of the Emperor Nicho- 

 las, was directed eastward by Moscow, Kasan, 

 Catherineburg, the Oural Mountains, To- 

 bolsk, and Altai. Thereat the travellers 

 branched out towards the military posts on 

 the borders of China. Returning to Altai 

 westward, Humboldt and his companions 

 passed the steppes of Ischim, Orenburg, 

 Astrakan, and the Caspian Sea. Thence they 

 returned to Moscow, after having travelled 

 over, in the space of nine months, more than 

 2300 geographical miles. The result of this 

 was not so brilliant as that of his early la- 

 bours, but it was very useful. He made Cen- 

 tral Asia better known to us. By and through 

 him, the curious extravagances of Marco Polo 

 and the earlier adventurers were corrected, 

 our maps made more perfect, and our know- 

 ledge of the mineralogy and climatology of 

 Asia extended. The relation of it was pub- 

 lished in Paris in 1843, and in German at 

 Berlin in 1844, under the title of " Central 

 Asia," etc. In 1849 he published a further 

 addition to his Researches, under the heading 

 of Steppes and Deserts, wherein he com- 

 pletely overthrows the theory which had 

 grown up upon Marco Polo's foundation, of a 

 vast central plateau in Asia, to the north of 

 China. This may be seen at a glance by 

 consulting his admirable " Map of the Chain 

 of Mountains and Volcanoes in Central Asia," 

 drawn out in 1839, and published in 1843. 



Of the purely scientific results of this 

 travel much may be said. Humboldt deter- 



mined many of the most important facts in 

 connection with terrestrial magnetism, find- 

 ing that in those vast regions the sun had 

 more perceptible magnetic power than fur- 

 ther north upon its satellite. To his energy 

 and discoveries are due governmental mag- 

 netic establishments in Russia, America, 

 France, Prussia, and England, wherein ob- 

 servations are taken and registers kepi, and 

 through which much, if not all, of our know- 

 ledge is gained. Professor Dove, of Berlin, 

 has reduced many of these registers, and 

 through them has discovered the laws regu- 

 lating the distribution of heat over the 

 world's surface. 



THE NEW EEVOLITTION. 



In the midst of these labours, time had 

 gradually whitened the head of the lover of 

 science. Time had wrought wonders also 

 everywhere. People were growing wiser, 

 less estranged, more kindly to each other. 

 Humboldt had lived, when a young man, in 

 the midst of the excitement of one French 

 revolution. He saw in it the result of care- 

 lessness, cruelty, and luxury on the part of 

 the nobles ; and of ignorance, neglect, and 

 starvation in the body of the people. Ho 

 welcomed it as the forerunner of a better 

 age, but found it spend its angry course in 

 blood, sound, and fury. He had watched 

 each actor tread his part upon the stage and 

 then disappear, and the great actor of all fall, 

 at "Waterloo, from that bad eminence to which 

 by cunning and blood he had raised himself. 

 This was during his American expedition and 

 his earlier life. Not to be behindhand, France 

 in 1830, when he was sixty-one years of age, 

 and had just completed his Asian journeys, 

 prepared another revolution, which quietly 

 settled down in the election of Louis Philippe, 

 the citizen king. 



It was a delicate flattery towards the 

 savant's political learning, that to this mon- 

 arch Humboldt was accredited by Frederick 

 William III. to acknowledge his government. 



