Ferdinand Baron von Richthofen. xxxix 



display, by help of charts, maps, models, paintings, diagrams, and apparatus, 

 every feature of the sea which is capable of such illustration. Nor did he 

 confine his efforts to a strictly scientific field : all that could help to convey 

 a sense of the practical work of navigation and exploration, or quicken the 

 popular interest in the navy, came within the scope of his aims. He journeyed 

 through the maritime countries of Europe in search of the best examples of 

 illustration for his purpose — models of ships of all ages, methods of ship- 

 building, and types of intruments employed in navigation. For spaciousness 

 and even luxuriousness of accommodation, for breadth of conception and for 

 the completeness with which the designs have been carried out, there is 

 probably no geographical establishment in the world that can equal the 

 Geographical Institute of Berlin, planned and carried out by the genius and 

 unwearied enthusiasm of its Director. 



For many years he had taken keen interest in the welfare of the 

 Geographical Society of Berlin, and when he returned to the capital as his 

 permanent home, he had an opportunity of devoting his practical energies 

 to its improvement. He introduced several reforms in its organisation, and 

 communicated to it so much of his own personal activity and enthusiasm as 

 eventually to place it in the distinguished position which it now holds 

 among the geographical institutions of our time. 



Beginning his career with geological studies in the field, Baron von 

 Richthofen passed into geographical investigation with the inestimable 

 advantage of a training in detailed observation and induction. He thus 

 became a geographer of the highest type. To him the mere addition of so 

 many hundred square miles of territory to what was already known of the 

 earth's surface, and the opportunity of affixing the names of friends and 

 benefactors to peaks, promontories, rivers, and inlets were matters of no 

 moment ; it was the grand features of land and sea that interested him, their 

 origin, their history, their relations to each other, their influence on the 

 progress and destiny of mankind. His geological apprenticeship with the 

 Austrian surveyors among the Eastern Alps, and his early researches in 

 mountain-structure and the behaviour of igneous rocks, could hardly fail to 

 give him that grasp of physical features, combined with that knowledge of 

 detail which are so often lacking in travellers and explorers. But besides his 

 scientific accomplishments he possessed in rare measure the personal qualities 

 which go so far to ensure the success of an explorer — health and strength 

 alike of body . and mind, a wide range of natural knowledge, courage, patience, 

 endurance, tact, and kindliness. It may have been the consciousness of the 

 possession of these qualities, combined with a recollection of the pleasure 

 which their exercise had given him in his varied wanderings in Europe, 

 America, and Asia, that led him, in response to many requests, to give a course 

 of popular lectures on scientific travel. These lectures he subsequently 

 extended, and in 1886, the year of his transference to Berlin, amidst all his 

 University and other work, they appeared as his admirable 'Fuhrer fur 

 Forschungsreisende.' No one but a born and trained explorer, who had enjoyed 



