38 SKETCH OF THE LIFE ANT) ACHIEVEMENTS 



laus Julien, member of the Institute of France, 

 who offered physical and orographical (descrip- 

 tions of mountains) notes, and by whose friend- 

 ship, as Humboldt publicly declared, he felt 

 himself honoured ; Eugene Burnouf, who made, 

 in furtherance of Humboldt' s plans, important 

 ethnographical and geographical researches in 

 the Zend books, studies which Humboldt 

 highly valued. Physical geography was thereby 

 enriched with new sources of valuable informa- 

 tion, the acquaintance with the direction, the 

 formation, and the geological peculiarities of 

 the great mountain-chains of Asia. The method 

 of Humboldt to compare continually all ele- 

 ments of science one with the other, produced a 

 wonderful solidity and exactness. The constant 

 direction to similar and to opposite observations 

 in Asia, America, and Europe, laid the founda- 

 tion of the present position of climatology ; in 

 furtherance of which all physical sciences fur- 

 nished most important explanations. 



Only those well initiated in all branches 

 of physical science can here perceive and com- 

 prehend Humboldt's greatness. The masses 

 of the people can only admire the mystery 

 of his achievements. Thus Mahlmann, the 

 German editor of " Central Asia," who had 

 already some years previously furnished an in- 



