THE 



EDINBURGH NEW 



PHILOSOPHICAL JOURNAL 



Biography of the celebrated Geologist, Baron Leopold von 

 Buck. By M. Noggerath. 



Humboldt, in his Cosmos, after giving a general descrip- 

 tion of volcanoes, proceeds as follows : — »" This description is 

 based partly on my own observations, but as a general outline 

 it is founded upon the labours of my very old friend, Leopold 

 von Buch, the greatest geologist of our age, who was the first 

 to recognise the intimate connection of volcanic phenomena, 

 and their mutual interdependence in regard to their effects 

 and relations in space/' It was scarcely possible for a man 

 of science to have received a higher tribute, from the most 

 competent of sources; and it is a tribute which has been 

 ratified by the general consent of naturalists of every nation. 



Leopold von Buch is no more. In science, no doubt, he 

 will continue to live until the labours of the last of its present 

 Coryphaei have been utterly forgotten ; but the progress of 

 science, by means of his labours, has ceased. The world- 

 republic of science has to bewail his loss, no less than Prussia, 

 of whom it was not one of the lesser glories to have given 

 birth to such a son. On the 4th of March 1853, after a very 

 few days' illness, he died at Berlin, in the 79th year of his 

 age. 



A man of such value, both for contemporaries and for pos- 

 terity, will doubtless soon find a competent biographer. In this 



VOL. LV. NO. C1X. — JULY 1853. A 



