ASIATIC FRAGMENTS. 417 



It was through Humboldt's liberality in 1833, that 

 Agassiz was enabled to commence the publication of his 

 great work on Fossil Fishes ; and in the fulfilment of a 

 mission suggested to the King of Prussia by the same 

 kind friend, that he emigrated to the United States in 

 1846. 



Besides filling the diplomatic mission which called him 

 to Paris, Humboldt was busily engaged in seeing through 

 the press, the first instalment of his journey to Central 

 Asia. It was published in 1831, under the title of 

 "Asiatic Fragments." It was not a narrative of the 

 journey, for the writing of the narrative was assigned 

 to Rose, but a dissertation in two octavo volumes, on 

 geology and climatology. The first volume treats of the 

 mountain-ridges and volcanoes of Central Asia, and of 

 the various kinds of eruptions in different parts of that 

 region, comparing them with similar eruptions in Ame- 

 rica. " He has everywhere interspersed." says Professor 

 Klencke, " numerous geognostic observations and notes 

 on the general formation of the soil between the Altai 

 and the Himalaya mountains, and his communications 

 on the remarkable occurrence of volcanoes in the middle 

 of the continent, and far from the ocean, are of great in- 

 terest. Here Humboldt placed science on a new footing, 

 for he liad had the special opportunity of observing the 

 volcanoes in three different quarters of the world. He per- 

 ceived that the volcanic phenomena could no longer be 

 considered as belonging to geological developments, but 

 that they must be explained by physical history in gene- 

 ral, as the volcanic activity seemed to him to be the 

 result of a continual communication between the interior 

 of the earth, which is in a molten fluid condition, and 



18* 



