KSIVERSn Y OV CALIFORNH 

 6AM A BAHBAilA 



PREFACE. 



The celebrity which Baron Humboldt enjoys, and 

 which he has earned by a life of laborious investigation 

 and perilous enterprise, renders his name familiar to 

 eveiy person whose attention has been drawn to political 

 statistics or natural philosophy. In the estimation of 

 the learned no author of the present day occupies a 

 higher place among those who have enlarged the 

 boundai'ies of human knowledge. To every one accord- 

 ingly whose aim is the general cultivation of the mental 

 faculties, his works are recommended by the splendid 

 pictures of scener}'- which they contain, the diversified 

 information which they afford respecting objects of uni- 

 versal interest, and the graceful attractions with which 

 he has succeeded in investing the majesty of science. 



These considerations have induced the Publishers to 

 offer a condensed account of his Travels and Researches, 

 such as, without excluding subjects even of laboured 

 investigation, might yet chiefly embrace those which 

 are best suited to the purposes of the general reader. 

 The public taste has of late years gradually inclined 

 towards objects of useful knowledge, — works of imagi- 

 nation have in a great measure given place to those 

 occupied with descriptions of nature, physical or moral, 

 — and the phenomena of the material world now afford 

 entertainment to many who in former times would have 

 sought for it at a different source. Romantic incidents, 

 perilous adventures, the struggles of conflicting armies, 



