GREAT ADVANTAGES. 4] 7 



by means of the mutual dependence and connection chapter 

 existing between tliem. XXVlll. 



" I have enjoyed an advantage which few scientific Advantages 

 travellers have shared to an equal extent, namely, that veUer. 

 of having seen not only littoral districts, such as are alone 

 visited by tlie majority of those wlio take part in voyages 

 of circumnavigation, but also tbose portions of tlie interior 

 of two vast continents wliich ])resent most striking con- 

 trasts, manifested in the Alpine tropical landscapes of 

 South America, and the dreary wastes of the steppes in 

 Northern Asia. Travels, undertaken in districts such as Enooiiras©- 

 these, could not fail to encourage the natural tendency ge'nera'uza 

 of my mind towards a generalization of views, and to tion. 

 encourage me to attempt, in a special work, to treat of 

 the knowledge wliich we at present possess, regarding 

 the sidereal and terrestrial phenomena of the Cosmos in 

 their empirical relations. The hitherto undefined idea of 

 a physical geography has thus, by an extended and 

 perhaps too boldly imagined plan, been comprehended, 

 under the idea of a physical description of the universe, 

 embracing all created things in the regions of space and 

 in the earth, 



" The very abundance of the materials which are Abundant 

 presented to the mind for arrangement and definition, 

 necessarily impart no inconsiderable difficulties in the 

 choice of the form under which such a woik must be 

 presented, if it would aspire to the honour of being re- 

 garded as a literary composition. Descriptions of nature pifficnlties 

 ought not to be deficient in a tone of life-like truthful- appUcation. 

 ness, whilst the mere enumeration of a series of general 

 results is productive of a no less wearying impression 

 than the elaljorate accumulation of the individual data 

 of observation. I scarcely venture to hope that I have 

 succeeded in satisfying these various requirements of 

 composition, or that I have myself avoided the shoals 

 and breakers which I have known liow to indicate to 

 others. My faint hope of success rests upon the special 

 indulgence which the German public have bestowed upon 



