OFFICIAL EMPLOYMENT. 129 



mated in his letter to Hardenberg, so far extended as to 

 include expeditions through Upper Bavaria, Salzburg, the 

 Government salt works in Austria, Gralizia and Upper Silesia, 

 for the purpose of investigating the rock-salt mines and the 

 processes of evaporation. 



For details of these official journeys, which extended from 

 June 1792 to the end of January 1793, we are again indebted 

 to the letters to Freiesleben. Humboldt thus writes from 

 Traunstein, in the district of Salzburg, on October 4, 1792 : 

 ' . . . I am moreover very well, but more dull than I ought 

 to be in this exceedingly interesting region. The weather is 

 detestable, everything is covered with snow and hidden from 

 investigation. Hence I go to Eeichenhall, to visit the salt 

 springs, and on to Hallein, Berchtesgaden, -and Passau, whence 

 somewhere about the 16th of October I go to Vienna. The 

 country about here is sublime. I feel as if I had never seen a 

 mountain before, everything here wears a new aspect. Eeal 

 Alpine mountains rise one above another, pile upon pile. The 

 Appenzeller (?) Alps lie before me as if I could lay my hand 

 upon them. We must see them together some day, dear 

 Freiesleben. You might easily accomplish it during a vacation 

 tour. In three or four days you could join me at Bayreuth, 

 and we should be able to reach here in the course of five or six 

 days. The whole expedition from Leipzig and back would only 

 require four or five weeks at the furthest.' 



From Vienna, Humboldt writes on November 2: C I arrived 

 at Vienna on the 21st of October. Notwithstanding the heavy 

 snow and considerable fatigue, I have accomplished an exceed- 

 ingly interesting tour through the mountains of Salzburg and 

 Berchtesgaden and the Austrian Alps. I visited Kessenberg (?), 

 Hallein, Berchtesgaden, &c., districts where rock-salt abounds, 

 and I paid a most instructive visit to Reichenhall, where I 

 spent twelve days investigating the salt springs with Von Claiss, 

 the director of the works. I regard him as undoubtedly the 

 first authority on all subjects connected with the management 

 of salt works, whether practical or theoretic. He possesses an 

 extensive acquaintance with physics and mathematics, and has 

 spent seven years in England, where he worked much with 

 Franklin, he has also been for a long time in France ; he is the 



VOL. I. K 



