244 PKOCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



"It was about the time he was tracing these investigations that he 

 made his attempt to determine the mean altitude of the continents 

 above the sea. Thus far geographers and geologists had considered 

 only the heights of mountain chains, and the elevation of the lower 

 lands, while it was Humboldt who first made the distinction between 

 mountain chains and table-lands. But the idea of estimating the 

 average elevation of continents above the sea had not yet been enter- 

 tained ; and it was again Humboldt who, from the data that he could 

 command, determined it to be at the utmost nine hundred feet, assum- 

 ing all irregularities to be brought to a uniform level. His Asiatic 

 travels gave him additional data to consider these depressions and 

 swellings of continents, when discussing the phenomena of the depres- 

 sion of the Caspian Sea, which he does in a most complete manner. 



" There is a fulness and richness of expression and a substantial 

 power in his writing, which are most remarkable, but which render his 

 style somewhat involved. He has aimed to present to others what 

 nature presented to him, — combinations interlocked in such a compli- 

 cated way as hardly to be distinguishable, and his writings present 

 something of the kind. You see his works, page after page, running 

 into volumes without division into chapters or heads of any sort ; and 

 so conspicuous is that peculiarity of style in his composition, that I 

 well remember hearing Arago turning to him, while speaking of com- 

 position, and saying : ' Humboldt, you don't know how to write a 

 book ; you write without end, but that is not a book, — it is a picture 

 without a frame.' Such an expression of one scientific man to another, 

 without giving offence, could only come from a man so intimately asso- 

 ciated as Arago was with Humboldt. And this leads me to a few 

 additional remarks upon his character and social relations. Humboldt 

 was born near the court. He was brought up in connection with 

 courtiers and men in high positions in life. He was no doubt imbued 

 with the prejudices of his caste. He was a nobleman of high descent. 

 And yet the friend of kings was a bosom friend of Arago, and he was 

 the man who could, after his return from America, refuse the highest 

 position at the Court of Berlin, that of Minister of Public Instruc- 

 tion, preferring to live in a modest way in Paris, in the society of 

 all those illustrious men who then made Paris the centre of intel- 

 lectual culture. It was there that he became one of that Societe 

 d'Arcueil, composed of all the great men of the day, to which the 

 paper on Isothermal Lines was presented, and by which it was printed, 



