VI TRANSLATOR S PREFACE. 



ture." Each of the three parts of the Cosmos is therefore, to 

 a certain extent, distinct in its object, and may be considered 

 complete in itself. We can not better terminate this brief 

 notice than in the words of one of the most eminent philos 

 ophers of our own country, that, " should the conclusion cor 

 respond (as we doubt not) with these beginnings, a work will 

 have been accomplished every way worthy of the author's 

 fame, and a crowning laurel added to that wreath with which 

 Europe will always delight to surround the name of Alexan 

 der von Humboldt." 



In venturing to appear before the English public as the in 

 terpreter of " the great work of our age,"* I have been en- 

 couraged by the assistance of many kind literary and scientific 

 friends, and I gladly avail myself of this opportunity of ex- 

 pressing my deep obligations to Mr. Brooke, Dr. Day, Pro 

 fessor Edward Forbes, Mr. Hind, Mr. Glaisher, Dr. Percy, and 

 Mr. Ronalds, for the valuable aid they have afforded me. 



It would be scarcely right to conclude these remarks with- 

 out a reference to the translations that have preceded mine. 

 The translation executed by Mrs. Sabine is singularly accu- 

 rate and elegant. The other translation is remarkable for 

 the opposite qualities, and may therefore be passed over in si 

 lence. The present volumes differ from those of Mrs. Sabine 

 in having all the foreign measures converted into correspond- 

 ing English terms, in being published at considerably less 

 than one third of the price, and in being a translation of the 

 entire work, for I have not conceived myself justified in omit- 

 ting passages, sometimes amounting to pages, simply because 

 they might be deemed slightly obnoxious to our national prej- 

 udices. 



* The expression applied to the Cosmos by the learned Bunsen, in 

 his late Report on Ethnology, in tKe Report of the British Association 

 for 1847, p. 265. 



