Alexander von Humboldt. 11 
Humboldt now began to think seriously of leaving Europe 
for a long journey, but regretted to do so without first hav ving 
seen Vesuvius, Stromboli and Etna, to enable him by compari- 
son to form a ‘proper judgment of a great number of geologi- 
ter sleep by his presence’ wrote Goethe to Schiller; and wrote 
Schiller to Goethe ‘Although the whole family of Humboldt 
lie ill of the ague “ibey speak only of great journies.’ He there- 
fore determined to return to 8 and with his friend Leopold 
von Buch set out in N eee 1797. They spent some time 
in Vienna, four months in the several cantons of Salzbur 2 and 
Styria, pursuing to great advantage their geological investign 
tions; but as they were about to pass the Tyrolian Alps the 
wars of Italy compelled them to turn back, and, to en oldt’s 
great regret, to abandon _ volcanoes. They then proceeded 
ugh France home to in. 
The time had now aot for immediate preparation for his 
great voyage. But whither go? He was undecided, the im- 
pediments of wars and politics being so great it was impossible 
to determine. However, having buried his mother, and settled 
his 2 fame h affairs for a longs absence, he set out for Paris in 1798. 
e instruments and all things necessary for a long scientific 
n. 
pages in his Personal Narrative is enough to overpower the mind 
of an unscientific traveller. There were chronometers, tele- 
, (achromatic and simple), lunettes, sextants, rallonting 
an “repeating circles, theodolites, artificial horizons, qu ts, 
compasses, craphometers, dipping and other needles, magnetome- 
ters, pendulums, barometers, thermometers, hygrometers, electro- 
meters, cyanometers, eudiometers, phosphoric eudiometers, boil- 
ing tut meters, thermometrical leads, areometers, compound 
microscopes, meters, gauges, chains, tubes, vases, evaporators, 
pace vials, galvanic apparatus, etc., not one of each only, but 
erkungen 2 vols., viii Plates. 8° Posen, 1797-1799. 
Bo Tek reget men ote be Sat 
sur tion 
harvolines: phi de Pallem. [par Gravel] avec des additions par J. F. N. Jadelot, 
oe 8° Paris, 1799. 
__* About this time he must have prepared his fourth and fifth books, which were 
prin ted at Braunschweig in octavo in 1799, the one ie eens © rep de 
die peering Ames pe Stitel then Nachthei yah hover rg 
