Vlll TRANSLATOR S PIIEFACE. 



public affairs, will comprise the special and scientific develop- 

 ment of the great Picture of Nature." Each of the three 

 parts of the Cosmos is therefore, to a certain extent, distinct 

 in its object and may be considered complete in itself. 

 We cannot better terminate this brief notice, than in the 

 words of one of the most eminent philosophers of our own 

 country, that " should the conclusion correspond (as we doubt 

 not) with these beginnings, a work will have been accom- 

 plished, every way worthy of the author's fame, and a crown- 

 ing laurel added to that wreath, with which Europe will 

 always delight to surround the name of Alexander von Hum- 

 boldt." 



In venturing to appear before the English public as the 

 interpreter of "the great work of our age"* I have been 

 encouraged by the assistance of many kind literary and scien- 

 tific friends, and I gladly avail myself of this opportunity of 

 expressing my deep obligations to Mr. Brooke, Dr. Day, 

 Professor Edward Forbes, Mr. Hind, Mr. Glaisher, Dr. Percy, 

 and Mr. llonalds, for the valuable aid they have afforded me. 



It would be scarcely right to conclude these remarks 

 without a reference to the translations that have preceded 

 mine. The translation, executed by Mrs. Sabine, is singularly 

 accurate and elegant. The other translation is remarkable 

 for the opposite qualities, and may therefore be passed over i 

 silence. The present volumes differ from those of Mrs. Sabiu - 

 in having all the foreign measures converted into correspond- 

 ing English terms, in being published at considerably less 

 than one third of the price, and in being a translation of the 

 entire work, for I have not conceived myself justified in 

 omitting passages, sometimes amounting to pages, simply 

 because they might be deemed slightly obnoxious to our 

 national prejudices. 



* The expression applied to the Cosmos, by the learned Bunsen in 

 his late Report on Ethnology, in the Report of the British Association 

 for 1847, p. 265. 



