DIVISION o:p labouk. 32S 



it within a reasonable time : many a traveller would have 

 done so, while Humboldt was thinking about it. A book 

 of travels, however, was not his object, at any rate not 

 his sole object, it was but a small portion of the task 

 which he contemplated. He would do himself justice as 

 a traveller by describing the scenes through which he 

 had passed ; the ocean over which he had sailed ; the 

 forests in which he had wandered : the rivers he had 

 explored ; the mountains he had ascended ; the ruins he 

 had seen ; but he would also do himself justice as a man 

 of science. He would give the geography, the geology, 

 the botany, in short, the natural history of the New 

 World ; not in a general way, from the vague reports of 

 others, but from his own conscientious observations and 

 researches. Clearly this was a Herculean task. 



He divided his material into six portions. First, the 

 narrative of his journey ; then its zoology and anatomy ; 

 then its political aspect. These were followed by its 

 astronomy and magnetism, its geology, and its botany. 

 Knowing that he could not, without assistance, write 

 the multitude of books that such a treatment of his 

 travels implied, he parcelled the different portions around 

 among his friends. Arago and Gay-Lussac w^ere to assist 

 him in chemistry and meteorology : Latreille and Cuvier 

 in anatomy : Laplace in mathematics : Vauquelin and 

 Klaproth in mineralogy ; and Bonpland and Kunth,— 

 (not our old friend, and his boyish tutor, Christian, but 

 Charles Sigismund Kunth, Professor of Botany in the 

 University of Berlin) in botany. For his own part he 

 would superintend their labours, and w^rite the narrative 

 of his journey. And now to work, Messieurs I 



To work they went. 



