INTRODUCTION. 6/ 



progress Humboldt led an active life in other directions. In 

 1827-28 he gave lectures on geography in the University and 

 the Singing Academy. In 1829, accompanied by Gustav Rose 

 and Ehrenberg, he travelled through Asiatic Russia, the Ural 

 mountains, and Siberia to the Altai mountains. The mineral- 

 ogical and geological results of this journey were published in an 

 independent work by Humboldt, and in several papers by Rose. 



Alexander von Humboldt died at Berlin on the 6th May 

 1859, in his ninetieth year. 



Although many of the geological ideas of the great German 

 scientist were not destined to endure, it is impossible to over- 

 rate the value to geographical and geological science of the 

 precedents which he created, and the wide horizons which he 

 disclosed. 



What Buffon and Cuvier accomplished for France in attract- 

 ing the ardent desires of young adherents to the studies of 

 natural science, was accomplished for Germany, after the death 

 of Werner, by the powerful personalities of Leopold von Buch . 

 and Alexander von Humboldt. 



It is interesting to note that Germany's greatest poet, Wolf- 

 gang von Goethe, was one of those who came under the 

 inspiring influence of Werner. Throughout his long life 

 Goethe never lost his interest in mineralogy and geognosy. 

 He wrote several papers on the more popular topics of 

 geognosy, and carried out some detailed researches in the 

 neighbourhood of Karlsbad, Franzensbad, and the Fichtel 

 mountains. While he never could, as a loyal pupil of Werner, 

 look kindly upon the principles of the Plutonists, his critical 

 mind clearly realised that the theories of extreme Neptunists 

 were untenable. In his Geological Problems he expressed his 

 disappointment over the absurd contradictions betrayed in the 

 opposing theories, but arrived at no personal decision in favour 

 of either party. Goethe's geological writings were without 

 significance in the progress of the science. 



^ Playfair, and HalL At a time when Werner was 

 in the zenith of his fame, during those seventies and eighties 

 of the eighteenth century when young geologists were flocking 

 to hear the wisdom from the lips of the prophet of geognosy in 

 Freiberg, a private gentleman, living quietly in Edinburgh, was 

 deliberating and writing a work on the earth's surface that will 

 live for ever in the annals of geology as one of its noblest classics. 



