Gtjyot on Carl Ritter. 25 



IV.— Carl Bitter: An Address to the Society. Bv Professor 

 Arnold Henry G-uyot, ll.d., cor. mem. a.g.s.s. 



Delivered February 16, 1860. 



Gentlemen of the American Geographical Society: 



Less than a year has elapsed since we assembled in this 

 place to express our sorrow at the death of Humboldt, and to 

 pay a just tribute of honor to his glorious memory, as to one 

 who, for half a century, stood before the world as the embodi- 

 ment and fit representative of all modern progress in the 

 knowledge of the Physical Globe ; and here we come to-day, 

 once more to mourn the loss of another great Master in our 

 beloved science, — I might say the other great Master in the 

 Science of the Globe, — Carl Ritter, the world-renowned 

 author of the classical "UrdJcunde," or the Science of the 

 Globe in its relations to nature and to the history of mankind. 



Humboldt, who first entered the scene of life and of his 

 labors, first also left it on the 6th of May, 1859, at the 

 advanced age of 90 years ; and before another season was 

 over, on the 28th of September last, soon after the close of 

 his 80th year, Ritter followed him into a better world. 



The two high-priests of the temple of Nature and of 

 History have thus received the last summons from on high. 

 When called, both were found still actively engaged in their 

 high functions. They have obeyed the call ; they are gone ; 

 but the temple that they have reared and beautified, and the 

 Mighty One to whom it is consecrated, subsist, and both will 

 last forever. 



It is not in death alone that they are thus associated. 

 Sons of the same mother country, living to the last in the same 

 city, — in the city of Berlin, that great metropolis of German 

 science, — united by ties of affection and by feelings of a deep 

 mutual esteem and regard, they still live united in the mem- 

 ory of men. 



For the last forty years the names of Humboldt and 

 Ritter, constantly associated, have been household words with 

 every one interested in Geographical studies. With them is 

 connected, in the minds of all, the idea of a gigantic progress 

 in the science of the globe, — a progress due not only to the 

 addition of new facts, but, as is especially the case with 

 Ritter's name, to a new dignity conferred upon that science 

 by a more philosophical method, by the elevated stand-point 

 from which it is viewed and treated, and by the living, harmo- 



