Alexander von Humboldt. 7 
nature, at the end of the dedication, and was presented to Pro- 
fessor Gmelin in 1790, with an affectionate inscription ‘by his 
scholar, A. von Humboldt.’ More than sixty years after, on his 
ee birth-day, this precious little ia a was re-presen- 
ted by Theodor Wagener to the great philosopher, who on the 
14th of Sept., 1854, inscribed in it a graceful memento of his 
youth and of his old age. 
From the Rhine the travelers passed through Holland and 
Belgium, and thence to England, where Forster introduced 
Humboldt to the President of the Royal Society, Sir Joseph 
Banks, his fellow voyager fifteen years before with Capt. Cooke 
round the world. He was warmly received by many of the 
scientific men of London. At the Moors of Warren Hastings 
_ After a struggle of a few months between business and sci- 
ence, Humboldt’s inordinate love of the latter finally triump ed, 
i ron ing his friend, and com- 
merce his foe, and soon after found himself in Werner's house 
in Freiberg, with that dear boy for his chum whom he had met 
at lectures eight years before in Berlin, Leopold von Buch, then 
life. : 
I should be destined—I, an old man of eighty-three—to an- 
