HUMBOLDT'S COLLECTIONS. 309 



voice" of Science, and the name of its most distinguished 

 votary, Alexander Von Humboldt. He returned to find 

 himself famous. 



He was warmly welcomed by the savans of Paris. 

 The collections which he had brought from the New 

 World were richer than any that had ever before been 

 brought into Europe from foreign countries. Other tra- 

 vellers, selecting some speciality with which they parti- 

 cularly sympathized, had enriched different departments 

 of science, but Humboldt and Bonpland, universal in 

 their tastes and pursuits, enriched all. Botany, geology, 

 mineralogy, geography, climate — they left nothing un- 

 touched. Their collections and journals contained the 

 natural history of a continent. They had achieved a 

 great triumph by their travels, but its fruit was yet to 

 come. As they had travelled for the interests of science 

 rather than their own private gratification, for the world 

 rather than themselves, it was necessary that the world 

 should know the results of their travels. For themselves 

 it was not necessary, for they could recall them day by 

 day, and step by step, without even turning to their jour- 

 nals. The rocks and ores in their cases, the plants in 

 their herbals, were dumb historians of their progress. 

 Even their mirrors were tell-tales, whispering, as they 

 reflected their sun-bronzed faces, the gorgeous secret of 

 the tropics. Of this, however, the world could know 

 nothing. They might, as they afterwards did, deposit 

 their collections in Museums of Natural History. This 

 would be something towards making known the results 

 of their five years' sojourn in the New World, but it 

 would not be much after all. B}^ this means they might 

 reach the scientific and the curious, but not the world. 



