24 SKETCH OF THE LIFE AND ACHIEVEMENTS 



Progress of Physical Geography," has paid a 

 just tribute to Baron Humboldt, in saying 

 " that no one now living contributed more to 

 the advancement of physical geography." But 

 Humboldt became also the originator of another 

 science, " Hydrography/' i. e., the descrip- 

 tion of the waters of the earth. He had early 

 perceived the importance of the ocean-rivers, and 

 had offered to geography important information 

 with regard to limitation, rapidity, temperature, 

 and changes of the courses of the seas ; their 

 influence upon the development of commerce, on 

 navigation, and the history of mankind; and 

 the great project to save the mariners the cir- 

 cuitous road from the Atlantic into the great 

 ocean round Cape Horn, the most southern 

 peak of America, and to make a canal across 

 Central America, was first represented by Baron 

 Humboldt in its true light; and this great 

 project, undertaken for the benefit of naviga- 

 tion in general, was based upon his observa- 

 tions respecting the inequality of the ground 

 and the relation of the waters. 



The formation of the crust of the earth was 

 likewise a principal object of Humboldt' s in- 

 vestigation, and science is indebted to him for 

 wide extensions, in his examinations and study 

 of the conditions of the crust in the old and 



