PKOJECTED SCHEMES. 369 



frontiers of the Empire, and the possibility of penetrating be- 

 yond them. ... I have written to you with the same frankness 

 which I made use of when addressing the Court of Aranjuez, in 

 1799. . . . 



c I am too well acquainted with your delicate consideration 

 to deem it needful to request that the contents of this letter 

 should be communicated only to those persons directly in- 

 terested in the execution of a plan likely to be of service to 

 the advancement of science. I should think it no humiliation 

 to offer my services to a Prince, under whose government the 

 arts and sciences have flourished throughout the length and 

 breadth of his vast dominions, did not my position entirely 

 prohibit such a step. I would refuse nothing which claimed 

 for its object a glorious or useful end ; I would unhesitatingly 

 undertake a journey from Tobolsk to Cape Comorin, even were 

 I assured that out of nine persons one only would accomplish 

 it in safety ; but simple in my tastes, and preserving a moral 

 independence, in which I am sustained by a strong will, I 

 prefer to follow my scientific career, relying merely upon my 

 own resources. I should do violence to my character if, instead 

 of replying to the questions you proposed to me, I were to 

 make any propositions. . . . 



c ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT.' l 



It cannot now be ascertained how far these negotiations with 

 the plenipotentiary commissioner of the Russian Government 

 proceeded ; it is certain, however, that, through the war which 

 soon after broke out between France and Eussia, Humboldt 

 was obliged to relinquish all hope of comparing the geological 

 conditions of the Himalayas and Kuen-liin with -those of 

 the Andes. Neither did the years of peace which succeeded, 

 bring the project any nearer to a successful issue. New pro- 

 blems, on the contrary, were being presented to his consider- 



1 When the permission of Humboldt was sought for the publication of* 

 this letter, he replied : ' I do not disavow any of the motives by which I 

 was actuated in writing to Baron von Rennenkampff ; seventeen years later, 

 in 1829, I undertook, by command of the Emperor Nicholas, the expedition 

 described in my " Asie centrale." This letter may be printed either before 

 or after my death. It is the expression of a strong will ! 



' Berlin : October 18, 1853. A. vox HFMBOLDT.' 



VOL. I. B B 



