374 ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT. 



Buch,' as a 'memento of a friendship which had been enjoyed 

 uninterruptedly for sixty years.' The last expression is without 

 doubt an hyperbole ; there had been occasions in which Buch 

 and Humboldt, great as was their mutual esteem, had been 

 seriously at variance an event which was not to be wondered 

 at in view of their contrariety of character and temperament. 



Of other labours at this epoch we need scarcely make further 

 mention, as the most important of them, the appendix to the 

 ' Examen critique ' and the third edition of the ' Aspects of 

 Nature,' have been previously alluded to. His letter to Elie de 

 Beaumont, printed in the ' Comptes rendus,' 1855, 'Sur les 

 Societes de Meteorologie et les Observations meteorologiques,' 

 although inferior in importance to the circular he drew up in 

 1836, nevertheless possesses some interest as a record of Hum- 

 bold t's endeavours albeit unsuccessful to secure the adoption 

 in France of some of the arrangements that had been carried 

 out with good .results in Germany : he insisted strongly upon 

 the separation of meteorological from astronomical observa- 

 tories, and expressed grave doubts as to the utility of tele- 

 graphing meteorological phenomena, a plan which, from its 

 central position, France intended to adopt. c Telegraphic me- 

 teorology will create even more confusion,' he facetiously re- 

 marked, 'than telegraphic diplomacy.' In this he certainly 

 went too far. Among Humboldt's literary labours of this date, 

 we have yet to mention the introductions he wrote for the 

 works of others, an undertaking for which he had hitherto 

 shown so much disinclination, as never to have acceded to any 

 such request, except in the case of the French edition of 

 Buch's ' Journey to the North Cape,' and Sir Eobert Schom- 

 burgh's narrative of his enterprise in Guiana. In the period 

 now before us, however, there followed in quick succession the 

 masterly ' Introduction ' to the works of Arago, written in No- 

 vember 1853, to which we have referred in the previous chapter ; 

 the appropriate and feeling preface affixed to the ' Remini- 

 scences of a Tour in India,' December 1854, by the late Prince 

 Waldemar ; the valuable { Introduction ' to Mollhausen's ' Tra- 

 vels,' in June 1856, in which the principal outlines are gra- 

 phically laid down for a history of civilisation in America, and 

 finally the preface he wrote on March 26, 1859, scarcely seven 



