240 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



land. And there he delivered a series of lectures preparatory to the 

 publication of Cosmos ; for in substance, even in form and arrangement, 

 these lectures, of which the papers of the day gave short accounts, are 

 a sort of prologue to the Cosmos, and a preparation for its publication. 

 " In 1829, already sixty years of age, he undertakes another great 

 journey. He accepts the invitation of the Emperor Nicholas to visit 

 the Ural Mountains, with a view of examining the gold-mines and 

 localities where platina and diamonds had been found, to determine 

 their geological relations. He accomplished the journey with Ehren- 

 berg and Gustavus Rose, who published the result of their mineralogi- 

 cal and geological survey in a work of which he is the sole author ; 

 while Humboldt published, under the title of Asiatic Fragments of 

 Geology and Climatology, his observations of the physical and geo- 

 graphical features made during that journey. But he had hardly 

 returned to Berlin when, in consequence of the Revolution of 1830, 

 he was sent by the King of Prussia as extraordinary ambassador to 

 France, to honor the elevation of Louis Philippe to the throne. Hum- 

 boldt had long been a personal friend of the Orleans family, and he 

 was selected as ambassador on that occasion on account of these per- 

 sonal relations. From 1830 to 1848, he lived alternately in Berlin 

 and in Paris, spending nearly half the time in Paris and half the time 

 in Berlin, with occasional visits to England and Denmark ; publishing 

 the results of his investigations in Asia, making original investigations 

 upon various things, and especially pressing the establishment of mag- 

 netic observatories, and connected observations all over the globe. 

 He obtained the co-operation of the Russian government and that 

 of the government of England ; and at that time those observatories 

 in Australia and in the Russian Empire to the borders of China 

 were established, which have led to such important results in our 

 knowledge of terrestrial magnetism. Since 1848, he has lived unin- 

 terruptedly in Berlin, where he published, on the anniversary of his 

 eightieth year, a new edition of those charming first flowers of his 

 genius, his Views of Nature, the first edition of which was published in 

 Germany in 1808. This third edition appeared with a series of new 

 and remodelled annotations and explanations ; and that book in which 

 he first presented his views of nature, in which he drew those vivid 

 pictures of the physiognomy of plants, and of their geographical dis- 

 tribution, is now revived and brought up to the present state of science. 

 The 'Views of Nature' is a work which Humboldt has always cherished, 



