HOME LIFE. 349 



I will yet find time to attend to your request. This very 

 evening I am going to Dupetit-Thouard, who may in truth be 

 said to be a very wooden l sort of man. It is a thousand pities 

 that your good genius did not lead you this year to Paris, instead 

 of Trieste. You might then have had at your disposal the ex- 

 tensive herbarium formed by Bonpland and myself, besides the 

 collections of Jussieu and La Marque, and from these you could 

 have selected whatever would have been of use to you. Vahl 

 adopted this plan, for nothing can be got out of the people 

 here, merely by correspondence. 



' With this letter I am sending you a small box of seeds 

 we collected in South America and Mexico. Many of them 

 have germinated at Malmaison, and I hope they will succeed 

 equally well at Berlin. 



4 1 am now bringing through the press the following works : 

 1 . " Tableau physique des Eegions equinoxiales ; " 2. The first 

 part of the " Plantse Eequinoctiales," with magnificent plates ; 

 3. " Observations de Zoologie et d' Anatomic comparee ; " 4. 

 " Observations astronomiques et Mesures executees dans tm 

 voyage aux Tropiques." They will all appear simultaneously 

 in German.' 



On February 1 6, Humboldt writes to Friedlander : 

 . . . . c Since my return to Europe I have been so inces- 

 santly occupied, that I have had no time for enjoyment ; I 

 have indeed begun more than I can well carry out. Three of 

 my works are now being published, of course both in French 

 and German. I say of course, because I have heard with 

 .astonishment that it has been reported in Germany that I am 

 having my works translated into German. Such a report can 

 have arisen in no favourable quarter. I must confess that I 

 believe I write the Spanish language with greater correctness 

 than any other, but I am yet sufficiently proud of my country 

 to write in German, however inelegantly I may do so.' 



To Karsten he wrote, on March 10, 1805, dated Paris, from 

 the ficole Polytechnique : 



. . . . ' I have destined to you all the minerals I have 



1 [Dupetit-Thouard had raised himself to fame by his painstaking inves- 

 tigations on the nature of wood, but his ingenious theories on the growth of 

 trees failed to secure the notice they deserved, from the obstinacy with which 

 he clung to notorious errors.] 



