Obituary Notice of Humboldt. 165 
_. which he made his journey to Northern Asia) in Europe, mostly 
in France and Germany. The last twelve or fifteen years of this 
great man were principally employed in the production of his 
Cosmos,—the crowning labor of his long life, the harvest of his 
mature wisdom,—a work that could not have been produced by 
any other man, simply because no other man possessed the trea- 
sures, or a key to the treasures, of the various knowledge con- 
tained in it. 
From his return to Europe to his death, he possessed, indis- 
putably, the first place amongst philosophers, for the vast extent 
of his acquirements. Without doubt, at all times during the 
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