244 ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT. 



excursion to Monserrat l where I was able to make some 

 observations of the sun, the moon, and Sirius, not only from 

 the convent but also from Mattorel and Colbaton. At 

 Mattorel I observed in the open streets, surrounded by about 

 thirty spectators, who kept shouting to each other that I was 

 worshipping the moon.' 



The astronomical observations made during the journey from 

 Barcelona to Valencia at isolated ventas and cabins in the wild 

 and uninhabited district, extending over a space of from 120 

 to 1 60 square miles, proved of great value in completing the 

 geography of Spain. These places became established points 

 in the vast plains over which the traveller journeyed as upon 

 the ocean ; as an example, we may mention that even the 

 position of such a town as Valencia, containing 80,000 inhabi- 

 tants, varied in the best maps of that day to the amount of two 

 minutes. This series of observations was commenced at Madrid, 

 from the palace of the Duke of Infantado, on the 14th Ventose 

 (March 4). 



The conclusion of this very long letter to Von Zach is in the 

 following words : ' This is all that I can send you at present. 

 Pray receive this little with indulgence, and bear in mind that 

 there is other work besides astronomy demanding my attention.' 



A part of this work consisted in obtaining, by barometric 

 .measurements, the sectional elevation in the direction from 

 south-east to north-west of the whole Spanish Peninsula, that 

 is to say, from the coast of the Mediterranean at Valencia to 

 the shores of the Atlantic in Galicia. Through these obser- 

 vations was first revealed the existence of an extended plateau 

 at a considerable elevation in central Spain. ' The height of 

 Madrid,' says Humboldt, i had indeed been estimated as early 

 as 1776 by Lalande, from calculations based upon the baro- 

 metric observations of the celebrated traveller and mathema- 

 tician Don Jorge Juan, to be 1,903 feet above the sea, but 

 geographers had at that time no knowledge of the connection 



1 An incident that occurred on Monserrat, of a hermit who, by dint of 

 his rosary, courageously rescued the mule of a poor muleteer, is described 

 by Humboldt in a letter to his brother, by whom it has been inserted in 

 his description of Monserrat. (Wilhelm von Humboldt's ' Gesammelte 

 Werke/ vol. iii. p. 209.) 



