AIME BONPLAND. 27 



and the French government needing the funds for some- 

 thing more solid than science, it was postponed to an 

 v indefinite period. Truly this was the pursuit of travel 

 under difficulties. 



It is an ill wind however that blows nobody good. 

 The failure of the expedition was no interruption to the 

 friendship which Humboldt had formed with Bonpland. . 

 Aime Bonpland, the naturalist, then in his twenty-fifth 

 year, was a native of Rochelle, France. His father was 

 a physician, and he studied the same profession, but the 

 revolutionary authorities got hold of him before he could 

 finish his studies, and made him a surgeon on a man- 

 of-war. When peace was restored he went to Paris, and 

 became a pupil of the celebrated Corvisart, who had 

 established a clinical school at the hospital of La Charite. 

 It was at this time that Humboldt and he met. They 

 were friends at once. Understanding anatomy and 

 botany better than Humboldt did, he gave him further 

 instructions in those studies, receiving from him in 

 exchange a knowledge of natural history and mineralogy. 



Humboldt's friendship with Bonpland, the society that 

 he met at the house of his brother William, and his own 

 scientific attainments soon introduced him to the notice 

 of the naturalists and mathematicians of Paris. He 

 mingled with the most eminent French savans as their 

 equal. He pursued his experiments before and after the 

 failure of the expedition of Baudin, working in concert 

 with Gay Lussac, of whom more hereafter, with whom he 

 undertook eudiometric investigations of the chemical 

 analysis of the atmosphere. The result of their labors 

 was embodied in a joint production, "Researches on the 

 Composition of the Atmosphere." He also wrote a 



