WHAT HUMBOLDT WROTE IX THE XEW WOKLD. 337 



extent of continents, the greater on the surface of the soil 

 are the riches of animal and vegetable productions ; the 

 more distant the central chain of mountains from the sea- 

 shore, the greater is the variety in the bosom of the earth, 

 of those stony strata, the regular succession of which 

 "unfolds the history of our planet. As every being con- 

 sidered apart is impressed with a particular type, so, in 

 like manner, we find the same distinctive impression in 

 the arrangement of brute matter organized in rocks, and 

 also in the distribution and mutual relations of plants and 

 animals. The great problem of the physical description 

 of the globe, is the determination of the form of these 

 types, the laws of their relations with each other, and the 

 eternal ties w^hich link the phenomena of life, and those 

 of inanimate nature." 



He next states the objects that he had in view in his 

 expeditions, and gives a resume of his collections and 

 observations, and the various scientific publications to 

 which they gave use, and continues : 



" After having distributed into separate works all that 

 belongs to astronomy, botany, zoology, the political de- 

 scription of New Spain, and the history of the ancient civi- 

 lization of certain nations of the New Continent, there still 

 remained many general results and local descriptions which 

 I might have collected into separate treatises. I had, during 

 my journey, prepared papers on the races of men in South 

 America ; on the Missions of the Orinoco ; on the obstacles 

 to the progress of society in the torrid zone arising froni tLv. 

 climate and the strength of vegetation ; on the character 

 of the landscape in the Cordillera of the Andes, compared 

 with that of the Alps of Switzerland ; on the analogies 

 between the rocks of the two hemispheres ; on the phy- 



15 



