PREFACE 



TO THE SIXTH EDITION. 



THE Editor's attention has been called to a passage in the 

 Preface of another translation of " Cosmos," published by 

 Mr. Bohn, wherein it is stated, that, in Mrs. SABINE'S 

 translation, passages are omitted, "sometimes amounting 

 to pages, simply because they might be deemed slightly 

 obnoxious to our national prejudices." In justice to the 

 respected Author of "Cosmos," the Editor is induced to 

 state, that no passage whatever of M. DE HUHBOLDT'S 

 writing has been omitted for the reason assigned. The 

 only intentional omission of even a single sentence of 

 M. DE HUMBOLDT'S writing is of a remark in Note 143 

 of Yolume I. (English translation), on the intermission of 

 observations of extraordinary magnetic disturbance at the 

 British Colonial Observatories, when such phsenomena occur 

 on a Sunday. Shortly after the publication of the original 



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