COLLEGE LIFE. 79 



assistance afforded by the well-stored library, the ethnological 

 museum, and the museum of natural curiosities, rapidly attained 

 a state of useful activity. 



After a long silence, Humboldt writes to Wegener from 

 Grdttingen, on January 10, 1790 : 



' I was away from Grottingen for two months from September 

 24, spending the vacation in making a scientific tour with a 

 Herr van Greuns, a Dutchman with whom I became acquainted 

 through his writings on botanical subjects. Our route lay 

 through Cassel, Marburg, Giessen, Frankfort-on-the-Maine, 

 Darmstadt, along the Bergstrasse to Heidelberg, through 

 Speier, Bruchsal, and Philippsburg, to Mannheim, thence by 

 Alzei and Morsfeld among the quicksilver mines of the Vosges 

 to Mayence, where we spent a week with Forster. From 

 Mayence we sailed down the Rhine to Bonn, whence we took 

 the road to Cologne and Diisseldorf, or rather Pempelfort, and 

 stayed a week with Jacobi ; thence we returned to Grottingen 

 by Duisburg, Miinster, Warendorf, Rittberg, Paderborn, and 

 Cassel. Of this interesting tour I can tell you nothing, because 

 in the first place this route has been described some hundreds 

 of times, and in the second place, amid this multitude of subjects' 

 I should not know where to begin. 1 Your letter followed me 

 to Mannheim, where I spent three delightful days in the mag- 

 nificent botanic garden of Counsellor Medicus. 



f Amid the numberless distractions of the journey, which was 

 made sometimes on foot and sometimes by carriage, and with 

 the incessant occupation of packing up minerals and plants, I 

 was not very well able to write to you. I require to be in a 



1 Among the effects of Kunth, the botanist, was found Humboldt's copy 

 of Linnseus' manual on botany, f Systema Plantarum sec. class, ordd. genn. 

 et sp. Edit. nova. cur. J. Reichard ' (4 volumes in 1, 8vo., Frank. 1779-80). 

 The book is exceedingly interesting from the details of his early journeys 

 and studies, to be gathered from memoranda of conversations with Forster,, 

 Banks, Willdenow, Sieveking, &c., and the frequent annotations (between 400 

 and 500) having reference to the time and place where the plants were 

 found. For example: 'Banks horto suo mihi monstravit 1790; vidi in 

 monte Mam-Tor versus Ax-edge, Jun. 1790 ; legi prope Helgoland 1790 ; 

 vidi in Hamburg, 1791 ; prope Cuxhaven, Dover, 1790 ; am Harz 1789 ; 

 prope Colberg, 1793 ; apud Calais 1790; prope Wittenberg 1790; praest. 

 spec, vidi in Harbke 1789 et in horto Kewensi 1790 ; legi prope Ostende et 

 Calais ] 790 ; praest. spec, e Virginia v. in herb. Sieveking,' &c. 



