42 [346] 



DARWIN AND HUMBOLDT. 



furnish any information concerning 

 the expanse of the heavenly vault aud 

 the age of the celestial bodies. He 

 thus makes the rapidity with which 

 light is propagated a measure of the 

 distance which separates the visible 

 parts of the whole system from one 

 another, as well as a means of ap- 

 proximately estimating the duration 

 of their existence. He next con- 

 siders the various appearances of the 

 celestial bodies, the different kinds of 

 nebulae, their form and relations to 

 one another and to the so-called fixed 

 stars; describes in graphic and fas- 

 cinating language the landscape-like 

 loveliness of their combinations in the 

 Milky-Way and the various con- 

 stellations; discusses the nature of 

 the doublestars, and, gradually ap- 

 proaching our own system by a com- 

 parison of our sun to other suns, rises, 

 by a sublime effort of the imagina- 

 tion, to a conception of the form of 

 their united systems in space. In the 

 description of our solar system one 

 might have expected an exposition 

 similar to the methods adopted by 

 astronomers ; but the object of our 

 great physicist is not to write a syn- 

 opsis of Astronomy. He plunges 

 without hesitation into the earliest 

 history of the formation of our earth, 

 the better to illustrate the relations to 

 one another of the sun and the planets 

 with their satellites, the comets, and 

 the hosts of meteors of all kinds which 

 come flashing, like luminous showers, 

 through the atmosphere. Our globe 

 is reviewed in its turn. First, its 

 structure, the density of its mass, in 

 the estimation of which the oscilla- 

 tions of the pendulum become a plum- 

 met-line with which to fathom the 

 inapproachable deep ; then the vol- 

 canoes are made to reveal the ever- 

 lasting conflict between the interior 

 caldrons of melted materials and the 

 consolidation of the ruffled surface ; 

 the distribution of heat and light, the 

 climates, as depending upon the in- 

 equalities of form and relief, the cur- 

 rents of the ocean, as modifying the 

 temperature, the magnetic phenom- 

 ena, the aurora borealis, the shooting 



stars, etc., are discussed in turn. The 

 changes which our globe has under- 

 gone in the course of ages are next 

 described: how the lands gradually 

 rose above the level of the sea : how 

 they first formed disconnected archi- 

 pelagos ; how mountains grew up in 

 succession, and their relative age ; the 

 form and extent of successively larger 

 continental islands, their plants and 

 animals; — nothing escaped his atten- 

 tion ; everything is represented in its 

 true place and relation to the whole. 

 Especially attractive are his delinea- 

 tions of the distribution of plants and 

 animals upon the present surface of 

 the earth, of which an account has 

 already been given. 



This mode of treating his subjects, 

 emphatically his own, has led many 

 specialists to underrate Humboldt's 

 familiarity with different branches of 

 science ; as if knowledge could only 

 be recorded in pedantic forms and a 

 set phraseology. 



But Humboldt is not only an ob- 

 server, not only a physicist, a geog- 

 rapher, a geologist of matchless 

 power and erudition, he knows that 

 nature has its attraction for the soul 

 of man ; that, however uncultivated, 

 man is impressed by the great phe- 

 nomena amid which he lives ; that he 

 is dependent for his comforts and the 

 progress of civilization upon the world 

 that surrounds him This leads to an 

 appreciative analysis of the enjoyment 

 derived from the contemplation of na- 

 ture, and to considerations of the 

 highest order respecting the influence 

 which natural highways have had 

 upon the races of men, in their distri- 

 bution upon the whole surface of the 

 globe. 



In speaking, of his later days I can 

 not omit some allusion to a painful 

 fact connected with his residence at 

 Berlin. The publication of a private 

 correspondence between Vaenhagen 

 vox Exse and Humboldt has led to 

 many unfriendly criticisms upon the 

 latter. He has been blamed for 

 holding his place at court, while, in 

 private, he criticised and even satirized 

 severely everything connected with 



