ASTKOXOMICAL OESEKVATIO>'S. 363 



merce of the Antilles and Columbia. Three works ap- 

 peared in 1828 and '29 ; " Remarks on the Goitre in the 

 Tropics," "On the Systems of ISTumbers," and "A Re- 

 vision of the Gramines published in the New Gerera 

 and Species of Plants." 



A paragraph has sufficed to give the name and date 

 of these works ; to criticise them would require at least a 

 chapter. We shall not write that formidable chapter, 

 but, lest the reader should find our resume as meagre as 

 an auctioneer's catalogue, we shall devote a few pages to 

 the subject. As we have already spoken of " The 

 Aspects of Nature," and the " Yoyage to the Equinoctial 

 Regions," we shall confine ourselves to some of Hum- 

 boldt's less popular, but more abstruse books. Discard- 

 ing an emharras du richesse^ in the shape of literary and 

 scientific reviews, we shall let Humboldt himself describe 

 them, believing that he understood the character of his 

 writings as well, if not better, than any of his critics. 

 We follow his own classification in the introduction to 

 the " Yoyage to the Equinoctial Regions." 



" I. Astronomical observations^ trigonometrical operations^ 

 and barometrical measurements made during the course of a 

 journey to the equinoctial regions of the New Continent^ 

 from 1799 to 180-1. This work, to which are added his- 

 torical researches on the position of several points im- 

 portant to navigators, contains, first, the original obser- 

 vations which I made from the twelfth desfree of south- 

 ern to the fort3^-first degree of northern latitude ; the 

 transit of the sun and stars over the meridian ; distances 

 of the moon from the sun and the stars ; occultations of 

 the satellites ; eclipses of the sun and moon ; transits of 



