TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 



I CANNOT more appropriately introduce the Cosmos to the 

 notice of the readers of the Scientific Library, than by pre- 

 senting them with a brief sketch of the life of its illustrious 

 author.* While the name of Alexander von Humboldt is 

 familiar to every one, few, perhaps, are aware of the peculiar 

 circumstances of his scientific career, and of the extent of his 

 labours in almost every department of physical knowledge. 

 He was born on the 14th of September, 1769, and is, there- 

 fore, now in his 80th year. After going through the ordinary 

 course of education at Gottingen, and having made a rapid 

 tour through Holland, England, and France, he became a 

 pupil of Werner at the mining school of Freyburg, and in his 

 21st year, published an " Essay on the Basalts of the Rhine." 

 Though he soon became officially connected with the mining 

 corps, he was enabled to continue his excursions in foreign 

 countries, for during the six or seven years succeeding the 

 publication of his first essay, he seems to have visited Austria, 

 Switzerland, Italy, and France. His attention to mining did 

 not, however, prevent him from devoting his attention to 

 other scientific pursuits, amongst which botany and the then 

 recent discovery of galvanism may be especially noticed. 

 Botany, indeed, we know from his own authority, occupied 

 him almost exclusively for some years, but even at this time 

 he was practising the use of those astronomical and physical 

 instruments, which he afterwards turned to so singularly 

 excellent an account. 



The political disturbances of the civilized world at the close 

 of the last century prevented our author from carrying out 



" For the following remarks I am mainly indebted to the articles on 

 the Cosmos in the two leading quarterly Reviews. 

 VOL. I. 6 



