





UNIVERSITY 



CHAPTER I. 

 RESIDENCE AT BERLIN TO THE REVOLUTION OF JULY. 



Observations upon the Advance of Age Impossibility of preserving a strict 

 Chronological Order Reasons for a Change of Residence The Berlin 

 of 1827 contrasted with Paris The State of Scientific Culture at Berlin 

 Preliminary Visit in the Autumn of 1826 Final Settlement in his 

 native City New Position at Court and in Society ; Activity in various 

 Departments of Science Lectures upon Physical Geography; their 

 Significance and Connection with i Cosmos ' Meeting of the Scientific 

 Association in 1828 Humboldt and Gauss Magnetic Observations 

 and other Scientific Labours The Asiatic Expedition Intercourse 

 with his Brother's Family. 



THE closing period of the life of Alexander von Humboldt was 

 passed, with but few interruptions, amid the surroundings of 

 his German home. On May 12, 1827, he took up his per- 

 manent residence in Berlin, and on May 6, 1859, he breathed 

 his last in the city which had given him birth. 



Although at the time of his return to his native country 

 Humboldt was in the vigorous exercise of all his powers the 

 sixtieth anniversary of his birth, September 14, 1829, was 

 passed while encountering the fatigues of the Asiatic expedition 

 and although he was still in possession of that remarkable 

 energy which remained unimpaired to the end, we might 

 perhaps have been justified in designating the whole of this 

 period as that of old age. From the time that he had passed 

 his sixtieth year he was accustomed to consider himself an 

 old man, and in his letters frequently referred to himself 

 facetiously as 'antediluvian.' The almost infinite variety of 

 impressions received during his extended travels, the vast 

 range of knowledge which, from earliest youth, he had been 

 unceasingly acquiring, the prodigious revolutions in the social 

 and political world, in which, though taking no active part, 



