PREFACE. 



THE celebrity which Baron Humboldt enjoys, and 

 which he has earned by a life of laborious investiga- 

 tion and perilous enterprise, renders his name fami- 

 liar to every person whose attention has been drawn 

 to political statistics or natural philosophy. In the 

 estimation of the learned no author of the present 

 day occupies a higher place among those who have 

 enlarged the boundaries of human knowledge. To 

 every one, accordingly, whose aim is the general cul- 

 tivation of the mental faculties, his works are recom- 

 mended by the splendid pictures of scenery which 

 they contain, the diversified information which they 

 afford respecting objects of universal interest, and 

 the graceful attractions with which he has succeeded 

 in investing the majesty of science. 



These considerations have induced the publishers 

 to offer a condensed account of his Travels and Re- 

 seaVches, such as, without excluding subjects even 

 of laboured investigation, might yet chiefly embrace 

 those which are best suited to the purposes of the 

 general reader. The public taste has of late years 

 gradually inclined towards objects of useful know- 

 ledge, works of imagination have in a great mea- 

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