224 ALEXANDEK VON HUMBOLDT. 



most important part;' the treatment of special subjects was 

 to form the second portion of the work. He was still in 

 hopes of comprising the whole in two volumes, as at that 

 time the ' Prolegomena ' were by no means in the form they 

 afterwards assumed. It had originally been his wish to com- 

 press them into one volume, that, ' through brevity, the im- 

 pression produced might be all the more powerful.' It was 

 at this time that he decided upon the title. Eejecting the 

 one he had adopted in 1819, when in Paris, 'Essai sur la 

 Physique du Monde,' and equally repudiating that by which 

 it was to have been known in Germany, ' Book of Nature,' he 

 fixed upon the ' distinctive ' title of ' Cosmos,' in order that 

 it might ever be quoted as such, and not as ' Humboldt's 

 Description of the Physical Universe.' He admitted that the 

 use of the Greek word ' savoured of affectation,' but it had 

 the advantage of including in one term the Heavens and the 

 Earth. Justified by William von Humboldt in this choice, 

 about which he had long hesitated, it is not unlikely that the 

 Greek studies, upon which he had entered in preparation for 

 the 'Examen critique,' had influenced him in selecting the 

 word ' Cosmos.' He intended at that time to append the 

 explanatory remark, ' Amplifications of lectures delivered in 

 the years 1827 and 1828 ;' but as, during the progress of the 

 work, it far exceeded the limits first prescribed, this addition 

 was subsequently withdrawn. 



At the meeting of the Scientific Association at Jena, in 

 the autumn of 1836, the 'introductory remarks' of ' Cosmos' 

 were read from the proof-sheets, as well as the treatise, ' Upon 

 two Attempts to ascend the Summit of Chimborazo,' describing 

 the ascents made by Humboldt and Boussingault, ' the only 

 living traveller,' as Humboldt once somewhat boastingly re- 

 marked, ' before whom I lower my flag.' This paper originally 

 appeared in Schumacher's 'Astronomisch.es Jahrbuch' for 1837, 

 and was published afterwards in an abridged form in Berghaus' 

 'Journal.' During these years Humboldt published a great 

 number of treatises on various scientific subjects. On February 

 9, 1837, and on May 10, 1838, two papers were read before 

 the Berlin Academy, which, under the title of ' Observations, 

 Geological and Physical, upon the Volcanoes on the Plain of 



