Humboldt's Letters. 165 



hitherto limited myself chiefly to the climatological 

 researches in the third volume, and especially to the 

 memoir on the causes of the flexures of the isothermal 

 lines, which I have read with the greatest interest and 

 which appear to me to contain by far the most complete 

 and masterly coup-d'oeil of that important subject 

 which I have ever met with. In reading this and other 

 parts of your work on this subject, and of the " Physique 

 du globe" in all its departments that which strikes 

 me with astonishment is the perfect familiarity and 

 freshness of recollection of every detail, which seems to 

 confer on you in some degree the attribute of ubiquity 

 on the surface of this our planet so vividly present 

 does the picture of its various regions seem to be in 

 your imagination, and so completely do you succeed in 

 making it so to that of your readers. 



The account of the auriferous and platiniferous de- 

 posits in the Ural and the zone in 56 lat. has also very 

 much interested me, as well as the curious facts respect- 

 ing the distribution of the Grecian germs in those 

 regions. I could not forbear translating and sending to 

 the "Athenaeum " (the best of our literary and scientific 

 periodicals) the singular account of the "monstre" of 

 Taschkow Targanka (citing of course your work as 

 the source of the history) in vol. III. p. 597. 



The idea of availing ourselves of the information con- 

 tained in the works of Chinese geographers, for the 



