OFFICIAL EMPLOYMENT. 137 



he has done much more than I have. He has (....(?) ille- 

 gible) ; no one could do more. I know no one so efficient in 

 mineralogical research, and at the same time so thoroughly ac- 

 quainted with practical detail. He has a good knowledge of 

 geometry, is a good draughtsman, and has had considerable 

 experience in smelting and in the carpentry of the mines. 

 .... Your Excellency is aware how badly off we are here for 

 pensions. I had written to Herr Veltheim to beg him not to 

 abandon the idea altogether .... he promised he would 

 do what he could, but alas ! he has left, and I am obliged to 

 trouble your Excellency with my very humble petition.' .... 

 In a similar manner he frequently presented the warmest ap- 

 peals on behalf of others. 



Meanwhile the ' Flora Fribergensis ' had met with a bril- 

 liant and flattering reception ; princes and learned men vied 

 with each other in acknowledging its worth. The Elector 

 of Saxony honoured the author by sending him ' an enormous 

 gold medal,' accompanied by a letter, ' to serve as a public 

 testimony of the pleasure your work has afforded me.' The 

 Swedish botanist Vahl distinguished the youthful author by 

 naming in his honour a magnificent species of an East 

 Indian laurel, the laurifolia Humboldtia, ' in honorem bota- 

 nici eximii F. A. Humboldt, auctoris praestantissimae Floras 

 Fribergensis ' tokens of homage which, as is well known, were 

 subsequently endlessly repeated. 1 



Thus passed the year 1793, occupied in multifarious under- 

 takings, and on January 20, 1794, Humboldt writes to his 

 friend at Freiberg, after some complaints as to the state in 

 which he found the mines, in the following strain : 



6 Upon the whole the mining works are now progressing 

 rapidly. At Groldkronach I have been more successful than I 



1 Critical notices of Humboldt's works are out of place here, but it is a 

 mere matter of history to state that Herr Mayer on two occasions read a 

 paper upon the l Flora Fribergensis ' before the Berlin Academy of Sciences. 

 At the commencement of his discourse, he thus speaks of the author of the 

 work : f Well versed in the necessary studies, both preliminary and acces- 

 sary, and furnished with a large amount of erudition, he has far outstripped, 

 even by his first steps in a literary career, the achievements of all our men 

 of science.' (' Histoire de 1'Acad. roy. des Sciences, etc., 1794 et 1795/ pp. 

 11-26.) 



