weexer's lectures. 21 



his admiration for "Werner, and bis growing taste for 

 mining, one of his acquaintances, Leopold Yon Buch of 

 Berlin, had gone to Freyberg to study mining under Wer- 

 ner, who had just published a new theory of the forma- 

 tion of metallic veins. This determined Alexander to 

 vacate his high stool at the mercantile desk, and to set 

 off for Freyberg. Before going, however, he hastened 

 to Berlin, to enjoy for a time the society of his mother, 

 who doubtless found the old castle of Tegel too melan- 

 choly a place to live in, since the death of her husband, 

 and the absence of her sons. William was there, with 

 his beloved Caroline, and his old tutor and friend, Kunth. 

 For Kunth was one of the family, if untiring devotion 

 .to their interests could make him so. 



After his trip to Berlin Alexander proceeded to Frey- 

 berg, where he remained a year, employing himself 

 during that time in attending the lectures of Werner, in 

 looking over his magnificent collection, and in visiting 

 the mines in the neighbourhood. Freyberg had a fine 

 cathedral, and several remarkable monuments and works 

 of art, but nothing that would have led Humboldt thither 

 except its mines. There were over a hundred of these 

 in the country about; silver mines, copper mines, lead 

 mines, and mines of cobalt. How the enthusiastic young 

 mineralogist must have revelled in them ! 



In the spring of 1792 he was appointed assessor to the 

 mining and smelting departments at Berlin ; in the latter 

 part of the same year he was removed to Bayreuth, as 

 superintendent of mines, in the newly-acquired Fran- 

 o^nian districts, and officially commissioned to remodel 

 the mining operations there. He was general director ol 

 the mines in the principalities of Bayreuth and Anspach. 



