'MEMOIR 



OF 



BARON ALKUMEB VON HUMBOLDT 



/^^?^\ 



I rNIV.ERSITY j) 



^v ^4/ L".nciU\Ai ^ss 

 THE reputatioh^c^jS&lSlLttggfetis philosopher and 



traveller is at once brilliant and solid. It is now 

 upwards of half a century since he first appeared- 

 as an author ;* and during the many years that have 

 since passed away, his life has been almost inces- 

 santly devoted to perilous enterprise and laborious 

 and successful investigation, insomuch that there is 

 not in the civilized w^orld a man of science whose 

 character is held in higher veneration, 



FREDERICK HENRY ALEXANDER YON HUMBOLDT 

 was bora at Berlin on the 14th of September, 1769.t 



* " Observations on the Basalts of the Rhine," Brunswick, 

 1790, 8vo. 



*f- It is remarkable that some of the most distinguished 

 men of the present age were born in the year 1769 ; such 

 as Napoleon and Wellington, Cuvier, Chateaubriand, and 

 Humboldt. B 



