58 ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT. 



Church, was one of the greatest botanists of former times. 

 Jacquin, the distinguished botanist of Vienna, who is celebrated 

 for his travels in Jamaica and South America, published when 

 in his seventieth year a compendium of botany which is a com- 

 plete and magnificent work. I venture to ask your acceptance 

 of a copy of this book, as' a remembrance ; pray do not attempt 

 its perusal till the trees are in leaf, for the investigation of the 

 elements of botany indoors, without the opportunity of institu- 

 ting a direct comparison with nature, is a dry and most weari- 

 some undertaking.' 



To this strong love of botany, his favourite pursuit at this 

 time, is due the publication of his first almost unknown literary 

 work, an anonymous treatise in French entitled, ' Sur le Bohun 

 Upas, par un jeune Gentilhomme de Berlin.' l It afterwards 

 escaped the memory of Humboldt, and only when his atten- 

 tion was drawn to the quotations he had made from it in 

 various publications (Crell's ' Chem. Ann.' (1795), vol. ii. p. 

 106, note ; his ' Subterranean Gases,' p. 376, note ; his ' Experi- 

 ments in Galvanism,' vol. ii. p. 141, note), in which he expressly 

 refers to this treatise as his own, did he remember it and make 

 the remark that it was a translation of Thunberg's treatise, 

 * De Arbore Macassariensi,' 2 undertaken as a French exercise 

 for his tutor M. Le Bauld de Nans. The numerous notes added 

 to the work prove him to have been already possessed of 

 valuable stores of knowledge, and give evidence of that keen 

 observation by which his later works are so pre-eminently dis- 

 tinguished. 3 



It may well occasion some surprise to find the young finan- 

 cier attending lectures on technology from the lips of an 

 ecclesiastical dignitary, Zollner, Provost and Counsellor of 

 the Consistory. After describing to Wegener Zollner's versa- 

 tility of talent and extensive theological acquirements, he 

 continues : ' It is a gross falsehood (and this you may boldly 

 maintain before everyone) that Zollner possesses only a super- 



1 ' Gazette litter, de Berlin,' Nos. 1270 and 1271, for January 5 and 12, 

 1789. 



2 [The Upas-tree, or poison-tree of Macassar, in the island of Celebes.] 



3 This Upas-tree \y&s again called to remembrance by the description of 

 ihe Manzanilla-tree in Meyerbeer's i Afrikanerin.' 



