2 Biography of Baron Leopold von Buck. 



respect it is not in my power to follow him through the inter- 

 esting details of his copiously varied life. I had, indeed, as 

 a cultivator of his favourite science, the good fortune of 

 enjoying his personal and friendly intercourse, and of making 

 some geological journeys along with him ; but still I am defi- 

 cient in much information that would be requisite to enable 

 me to present a complete sketch of his life. Penetrated, 

 however, by a feeling of profound and affectionate regard for 

 his memory, I will endeavour to present a very slight sketch 

 of his eminent scientific merits, adding a few words of a 

 more personal character. 



Buch, descended of a noble family, which can count not a 

 few eminent literati and statesmen amongst its members, was 

 born on the 25th of April 1774, at the family seat of Stolpe, 

 in the Uckermark, to which his remains have just been trans- 

 ported. Of his education in childhood and early youth I 

 know nothing, and am therefore unable to say whether his 

 inclination for the natural sciences was an inborn tendency, 

 or whether it was developed by the aid of some impulse from 

 without. At an early period of his life he was a student in 

 the Prussian department of mines. In this technical career 

 he never sought to attain any rank of importance, for pure 

 science was his goddess from the very first ; but not unfre- 

 quently, at a later period of his life, if he happened to be 

 asked for his title, he used jestingly to term himself, "Royal 

 Prussian Student of Mines" — (Koniglich preussischer Berg- 

 Eleve). 



In the years 1790 and 1791 we find him at the Mining 

 Academy of Freiberg. Here he had A. von Humboldt for a 

 fellow-student. Buch was the older pupil at Freiberg, and 

 though Humboldt was by several years his senior, they had 

 been youthful friends at an earlier date ; they had together 

 studied botany, which both of them cultivated with lively 

 interest, and it is possible that Buch's residence at Freiberg 

 may have been one of the motives which drew Humboldt 

 thither. The two young students found a third friend 

 of like tastes and pursuits with themselves in Johann Karl 

 Freiesleben, well known afterwards by his works on Mine- 

 ralogy and Geology, who died as Captain of Mines at Freiberg 



