Guyot on Carl Bitter. 39 



to Mm from all parts of the globe. It is well known to all in 

 this audience that one of the two best geographical journals of 

 Germany, the " Zeitschrift fur Allgemeine Erdkunde," is 

 published under the auspices of the Geographical Society of 

 Berlin. 



While so usefully engaged Eitter did not lose sight of the 

 work which it was the object of his life to perform. Thanks 

 to the ever renewed freshness of his mind and to his excellent 

 health, he had thus far found time for continuing his studies ; 

 but he now longs for greater leisure, which may permit him to 

 resume the interrupted publication of his General Geography. 

 By the influence of the Crown-Prince, who fully understood the 

 high importance for science of a speedy termination of that 

 classical work, he was enabled in 1831, with the consent of 

 the Ministry of Public Instruction, to lay aside all business and 

 duties not immediately connected with his studies. The result 

 was not long in manifesting itself. In 1832, the second vol- 

 ume of his " Erdkunde," the first of Asia, a volume of nearly 

 twelve hundred pages, was published, and inscribed by the au- 

 thor to the Crown-Prince, as a token of gratitude for the pre- 

 cious leisure granted to him. From that time until 1838, six 

 other volumes of equal size, or one volume a year, were issued, 

 and give evidence of the amazing industry of that great schol- 

 ar ; and in the twenty-one years following, that is, to the end of 

 his life, eleven volumes more, or one volume every other year, 

 tell of his ceaseless' activity, notwithstanding his advancing 

 age. The last, and nineteenth volume, which nearly termi- 

 nates Asia, was issued but a few weeks before his death. 



During these long and assiduous labors the only interrup- 

 tions that he allowed himself, were the journeys that he used 

 to take nearly every year in the long autumn vacation. But 

 even then it was only changing the scene of his studies. Not- 

 withstanding the prodigious erudition evinced in his work, 

 which would seem to suppose a life entirely spent among books 

 in the stillness of the closet, Bitter never, at any period of his 

 long career, gave up that familiar intercourse with nature 

 from which he had derived, as from a pure source, his best and 

 deepest instructions. When came the hot summer days, shak- 

 ing off the dust of the libraries, he went to visit his old and 

 true friend again. Selecting one of the regions of his favorite 

 continent of Europe, as an object of new study, he would live 

 for months, now amidst the grandeurs of the Alps or of the 

 Pyrenees, now under the happy sky, among the monuments 

 and the people of Italy, or again amid the stern landscapes and 



