THE LAST TEN YEAES. 367 



side by side with fragmentary passages, systematically arranged 

 according to the subject ; along with these are various printed 

 treatises, besides notices of others. The names of friends are 

 carefully registered in connection with the points on which 

 their assistance will be required. Upon the portfolio marked 

 ' Nebulae ' is inscribed : ' The enclosed from letters from Lord 

 Rosse ; ' under the designation ' Atmospheric Optics ' he has 

 added : * Nearly all from Arago ; Arago, valuable.' Such epi- 

 thets are frequently repeated with increasing emphasis : c The 

 Atmosphere, of value, from Dove Dove, valuable list of all his 

 works to 1856 Dove, the most important is the passage trans- 

 lated from " Annuaire de France," de Martins, 1850, pp. 301-321; 

 cardinal point against me in p. 320.' ' Rocks. A treasure from 

 L. von Buch, but not the pearl. The pearl from Buch : Super- 

 position of Rocks Leopold von Buch, highly important, the 

 pearl \ Stratification, a pearl Geological formations ; last 

 conversation with L. von Buch, June 1851 : I possess nothing 

 more valuable, this is the pearl \ Finished, approved by Buch, 

 June 1851, approved ! ' &c. 



How much labour was necessary ere a chapter could be con- 

 sidered ' finished ' and ' approved ' ! From the slow progress of 

 the colossal work, during which the boundaries of science were 

 being continually enlarged, passages which had been already 

 verified more than once must often have been reconstructed 

 so as to receive new data. The scientific compilation of the 

 work must therefore have proved no less laborious than the 

 literary composition to which our attention has already been 

 directed. Literary niceties were not, however, entirely neg- 

 lected in the later volumes. Although the style of the con- 

 cluding portion is made subservient to the purely scientific 

 object of the work, and in comparison with the ' Survey of 

 Nature ' is wholly free from 6 pathos ' there are passages, as, 

 for example, the one Humboldt cited to Varnhagen upon the 

 influence of the Moon, which are beautiful in their simplicity 1 

 great care has nevertheless been bestowed upon the choice 

 of expressions, especially in the selection of contrasting syno- 

 nyms, in which he derived assistance from a work, c as excellent 



1 ' Kosmos,' vol. iv. p. 511. ' Briefe an Varnhagen/ No. 146. 



