FRIENDS AND COADJUTORS AT PARIS. 23 



While still in Paris, he was nominated in 1810 Professor of Theo- 

 retical Astronomy in the proposed University of Berlin, and 

 elected a member of the Academy of Sciences ; in 1824 he re- 

 ceived the appointment of Professor ordinarius. His death took 

 place on November 27, 1833. Many references to the relation- 

 ship maintained between him and Humboldt occur not only in 

 his own writings, but in numerous entries in Humboldt's note- 

 books. In his preface to the second volume of the ' Eecueil 

 d'Observations,' dated July 1810, he remarks : c In concluding 

 this volume I wish to express the most heartfelt gratitude to- 

 wards my noble patron for the opportunity that has been 

 afforded me of bringing into notice my geographical investiga- 

 tions through his observations of equatorial stars conducted 

 during laborious night-watches on the summits of the Andes, 

 and on the peaceful shores of the Orinoco and the Mag- 

 dalena. To these investigations I am indebted for some of 

 my happiest hours ; through them I became fascinated by a 

 science which bears within itself an ever-renewed charm. Al- 

 though I may never perhaps have the opportunity of prose- 

 cuting these investigations, I shall ever retain the pleasurable 

 feelings they have excited.' In the Preface to the ' Examen 

 critique,' written in November 1833, Humboldt pens the 

 following passage to his memory : ' The pleasure I have felt at 

 the restored freedom of my friend and fellow-traveller, Aime 

 Bonpland an event which, amid much anxiety, I have so 

 ardently anticipated has been sadly overclouded by a severe 

 loss. A few days ago, after a long and severe illness, died my 

 friend and coadjutor, Jabbo Oltmanns, member of the Academy 

 of Berlin, who furnished a valuable proof of his friendship in 

 the reduction of the astronomical observations I made when on 

 the continent of South America. ... A few days before his 

 death Oltmanns had completed the reduction of the observations 

 made by me in Siberia, only a small portion of which I had been 

 able to reduce during my rapid and arduous journey. This 

 memorial of my unalterable gratitude will not be out of place 

 in a work devoted to a series of investigations connected with 

 the history of geography.' 



Pierre-Andre Latreille, born in 1762, died at Paris in 1833, 

 was from earliest youth a zealous student of zoology, and 



