DARWIN AND HUMBOLDT. 



[339] 35 



the characteristic features of these 

 lines, which myriads of observations 

 of a later date have only confirmed. 

 No other series of investigations 

 shows, more plainly than this, to what 

 accurate results an observer may 

 arrive, who understands how to weigh 

 critically the meaning of his facts 

 however few they may be. 



The barometrical and astronomical 

 observations upon which his numer- 

 ous maps are based were computed 

 and reduced to their final form by his 

 friend Oltmastns. They fill two large 

 quarto volumes, and amount to the 

 accurate determination of nearly one 

 thousand localities. They are not 

 taken at random, but embrace points 

 of the highest importance, with ref- 

 erence to the geographical distribu- 

 tion of plants and animals and the 

 range of agricultural products. Hum- 

 boldt has himself added an introduc- 

 tion to this work in which he gives 

 an account of the instruments used 

 in his observations and the methods 

 pursued by him in his experiments, 

 and discusses the astronomical refrac- 

 tions in the torrid zone. 



Thus the physical geography of 

 our days is based upon Humboldt's 

 investigations. He is, indeed, the 

 founder of Comparative Geography, 

 that all-embracing science of our 

 globe, unfolded with a master hand 

 by Karl Ritter, and which has 

 now its ablest representative in 

 our own Guyot. His correspond- 

 ence with Berghaus testifies his 

 intense interest in the progress of 

 geographical knowledge. To Hum- 

 boldt this world of ours is indeed 

 not only the abode of man, it is a 

 growth in the history of the Universe, 

 shaped according to laws, by a long 

 process of successive changes, which 

 have resulted in its present configura- 

 tion with its mutually dependent fea- 

 tures. The work upon the Position 

 of Rocks in the two hemisphere tells 

 the histoiy of that growth as it could 

 be told in 1 823, and is of course full 

 of gross anachronisms; but at the 

 same time it exhibits the wonderful 

 power of generalization and combina- 



tion which Humboldt possessed, — as, 

 for instance, where he says in few 

 beautiful words, fertile in consequences 

 not yet fully appreciated by the natu- 

 ralists of our day : " When we ex- 

 amine the solid mass of our planet, 

 we perceive that the simple minerals 

 are found in associations which are 

 everywhere the same, and that the 

 rocks do not vary, as organized beings 

 do, according to the differences of 

 latitude or the isothermal lines under 

 which they occur " ; thus contrasting 

 in one single phrase the whole organic 

 world with the inorganic in their essen- 

 tial character. In practical geology we 

 owe to hira the first recognition of the 

 Jurassic formation. It was he who 

 introduced into our science those 

 happy expressions, "geological ho- 

 rizon" and "independence of geological 

 formations." He also paved the way 

 for Elie de Beaumont's determina- 

 tion of the relative age of mountain 

 chains by his discussion upon the direc- 

 tion of stratified rocks and by tha 

 parallels he drew between the age of 

 plutonic and sedimentary formations; 

 nor had it escaped him that distant 

 floras and faunas, though of the same 

 age, may be entirely different. 



The collection of zoological and 

 anatomical papers, in two quarto 

 volumes, with numerous colored 

 plates, is full of valuable contributions 

 to the Natural History of Animals, 

 from his own pen, as well as that of 

 his collaborators. The most remarka- 

 ble are his description of the Condor, 

 which must have delighted the French 

 zoologists, who could not fail to 

 compare it with the glowing pages of 

 their own Buffon ; his Synopsis of the 

 South American Monkeys, rivalling 

 the works of Audebert and Geoffroy 

 St.-Hilaire; his account of the 

 Electric Eel and the Catfish thrown 

 out by the burning volcanoes of the 

 Andes, contrasted with the Great 

 Natural History of Fishes by Lace- 

 pede ; his paper on the respiration of 

 Crocodiles and the larynx of Birds 

 and Crocodiles, daring upon his 

 own ground the greatest anatomist of 

 the age, the immortal Cuvier. In- 



