America both at the time of his death and on the occasion of the centen- 
nial anniversary of his birth. 
Humboldt devoted five years of his life to scientific investigations 
in South and Central America, in Mexico and in Cuba. He ascertained 
the course of the greatest rivers; he climbed the summits of mountains 
where man’s foot had never trod before; he studied vegetation, astro- 
nomical and meteorological phenomena, gathered specimens of all natu- 
ral products and a great deal of historical information about the early 
population of these parts of the New World. It was he that drew the 
first accurate maps of these regions. With almost prophetic forecast 
of the needs of generations to come, he examined the Isthmus of Panama 
and considered carefully the possibility of establishing there an inter- 
oceanic waterway. 
It is well known how great an interest Alexander von Humboldt 
took in the United States. Indeed, so strongly was he attracted by 
the problems of the new-born Republic that putting aside even his 
habitual scientific occupations, he devoted himself entirely for some 
months to the study of the American people and the institutions of this 
country. , 
Finally, the great scientist, he whom people call the scientific dis- 
coverer of America, returned to his country, carrying with him a vast 
store of intellectual and material treasures of science. So abundant 
were the results, reaped from his expeditions, that he needed the coépera- 
tion of the best scholars of his time to compile that great mass of material, 
and to place it in proper shape and form. 
Throughout his long and industrious life, Alexander von Humboldt 
ever retained his love for and devotion to the country where his great 
field of labor lay, and for its people with whom he always felt closely 
connected by his love for freedom in thought and for liberty. It is a 
well-known fact that in his later days of all the foreigners, who 
knocked at his door, no one was more heartily welcomed than the 
American citizen. 
The benefits of his investigations in America returned to that country 
in the course of time. No wonder that her people recognize him as 
their benefactor. Another great man, whose monument will be unveiled 
today, and most deservedly placed beside the one of Alexander von 
Humboldt, Louis Agassiz, says of him: 
“To what degree we Americans are indebted to von Humboldt, no 
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