FKOM EEVOLUTION OF JULY TO DEATH OF THE KING. 201 



From these various considerations it will be seen that the 

 step taken by Humboldt in writing to the Duke of Sussex, 

 whereby he placed himself in the attitude of a suppliant before 

 an august assembly with which he was wholly unconnected,, 

 was fraught with many difficulties. Should he, however, suc- 

 ceed in the application, and ' be fortunate enough to interest 

 Great Britain, who, with the vast resources of her commercial 

 position, had yet taken no part in this great scientific move- 

 ment, since its inauguration in 1828,' the grand results to be 

 looked for would reflect all the more honour upon him, and in 

 this light he ever looked back upon this step with satisfaction. 

 The letter is no less masterly than the ' cri de Petersbourg ' of 

 1829 ; it is couched in a tone of greater manliness, for instead 

 of the courtly phrases rendered imperative in an address to the 

 Russian autocrat, he had on this occasion but to express his 

 appreciation of the valuable labours of the English men of 

 science. In July Humboldt wrote to Gauss to express his 

 agreeable surprise that the Commission of the Royal Society 

 had already proposed to establish several stations : ' I rejoice 

 to perceive that the impetus given through my letter to the 

 Duke of Sussex on the subject of magnetism has at length 

 aroused the Royal Society from their winter sleep of inaction.' 

 The progress of the affair, conducted with the deliberation 

 characteristic of the English, failed to satisfy his impatient 

 expectations. In a letter to the Emperor Nicholas of August 

 11, 1839, he gives expression to his disappointment in the 

 following complimentary passage : ' The Royal Society of 

 London is still deliberating over matters which under your 

 direction were carried out eight years ago.' 1 The more wil- 

 lingly did he acknowledge in ' Cosmos ' the subsequent achieve- 

 ments of the English. 



A second difficulty consisted in the claim justly raised by 

 Gauss that a preference should be given to his improved ap- 

 paratus above that devised by Gambey, and formerly employed 

 by Humboldt, which was now almost obsolete. As early as the 

 beginning of March 1836, Humboldt had, through the medium 

 of Schumacher, printed the draft of a circular letter, because,, 



1 De la Roquette, vol. ii. p. 168. 



