OF BARON HUMJJOLDT. 53 



intercourse of this people with the world ; and 

 lastly, the natural propensity of the Arab to 

 enjoy an uninterrupted intercourse and intimate 

 acquaintance with nature and her powers, all 

 these facts exercised an important and bene- 

 ficial influence upon the progress of science. 

 The Arabs cultivated, above all, physics and 

 chemistry; and in the latter branch of science 

 they created a new epoch. 



The age of the Oceanian discoveries the 

 fifteenth century directed all intellectual ac- 

 tivity to one common end. The Middle Ages and 

 their scientific acquisitions came to a close ; a 

 new period was inaugurated. The western hemi- 

 sphere of the globe was opened ; the first ineffec- 

 tual attempt to discover America in the eleventh 

 century became through Columbus a new field 

 of civilization. Humboldt dwells with peculiar 

 interest on this event and its consequences, 

 because he became, in contrast to Columbus, 

 the geographical discoverer, the scientific ex- 

 plorer of America. (Compare Humboldt's 

 critical investigation relative to the historical 

 development of geographical science of the new 

 continent, and of nautical astronomy in the 

 fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.) 



Humboldt was engaged even down to our own 

 days with astronomic-mathematical geography, 



