spend some weeks in that little world of art and let- 

 ters created by Goethe and Schiller. To William this 

 was very tempting ; but Alexander saw at Weimar 

 scant opportunity to study botany and geology. Be- 

 sides that, he felt that sooner or later he would drift 

 into the employ of the Goverment, following in his 

 father's tootsteps. His ambition was practical mining, 

 with a taste for finance. 



The brothers kissed each other good-bye, and one 

 went to Weimar to assist Schiller in editing a maga- 

 zine that did not pay expenses, bask in the sunshine 

 of the great Goethe, and incidentally to secure a wife. 

 The other started on a geological excursion, and this 

 excursion was to continue through life, and make the 

 man the greatest naturalist that the world had seen 

 since Aristotle lived, two thousand years before. 



LITTLE 

 JOURNEYS 



UMBOLDT'S first book was on the geo- 

 logical formation of the Rhine, published 

 when he was twenty-six years old. The 

 work was so complete and painstaking 

 that it led to his being appointed "As- 

 sessor of Mines" at Berlin. This was the 

 same office that Swedenborg once held in Scandinavia. 

 Q For the benefit of our social science friends, it is 

 rather interesting to note that at this time in Europe 

 nearly all mines belonged to the Government. An in- 

 dividual might own the surface, and up to the sky, but 

 his claim did not go to the center of the earth. Iron, 



107 



