Alexander von Humboldt

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An 1859 portrait of Alexander von Humboldt by the artist Julius Schrader, showing Mount Chimborazo in the background.
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An 1859 portrait of Alexander von Humboldt by the artist Julius Schrader, showing Mount Chimborazo in the background.

Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander Freiherr von Humboldt, (September 14, 1769, Berlin – May 6, 1859, Berlin), was a Prussian naturalist and explorer, and the younger brother of the Prussian minister, philosopher, and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt. Humboldt's quantitative work on botanical geography was foundational to the field of biogeography. Between 1799 and 1804, von Humboldt travelled to South and Central America, exploring and describing it from a scientific point of view for the first time. His description of much of this journey was written up in an enormous set of volumes over a 21-year span. He was one of the first to propose that the lands bordering the Atlantic were once joined (South America and Africa in particular). Late in life, in his five-volume work Kosmos, he attempted to unify the various branches involved in knowledge of the world. Humboldt supported and worked with other scientists, among them Joseph-Louis Gay-Lussac, Justus von Liebig, Louis Agassiz, and Matthew Fontaine Maury.

Contents

[edit] Humboldt's life and travels

[edit] Early life and education

Von Humboldt's father, who was a major in the Prussian army, belonged to a prominent Pomeranian family and was rewarded for his services during the Seven Years' War with the post of Royal Chamberlain. He married Maria Elizabeth von Colomb in 1766, the widow of Baron von Hollwede, and had by her two sons, of whom the younger was Alexander.

The childhood of Alexander von Humboldt was not a promising one as regards either health or intellect. His characteristic tastes, however, soon displayed themselves; and from his penchant for collecting and labelling plants, shells, and insects he received the playful title of "the little apothecary." The care of his education, on the unexpected death of his father in 1779, devolved upon his mother, who discharged the trust with constancy and judgment. Destined for a political career, he studied finance during six months at the University of Frankfurt (Oder); and a year later, April 25, 1789, he matriculated at Göttingen, then eminent for the lectures of CG Heyne and J. F. Blumenbach. His vast and varied powers were by this time fully developed, and during a vacation in 1789, he made a scientific excursion up the Rhine, and produced the treatise, Mineralogische Beobachtungen über einige Basalte am Rhein (Brunswick, 1790).

His passion for travel was confirmed by friendships formed at Göttingen with Georg Forster, Heyne's son-in-law, the distinguished companion of Captain James Cook's second voyage. Henceforth his studies and rare combination of personal talents became directed with extraordinary insight and perseverance to the purpose of preparing himself for a distinctive calling as a scientific explorer. With this view he studied commerce and foreign languages at Hamburg, geology at Technische Universität Bergakademie Freiberg under A. G. Werner, anatomy at Jena under J. C. Loder, astronomy and the use of scientific instruments under F. X. von Zach and J. G. Köhler. His researches into the vegetation of the mines of Freiberg led to the publication in 1793 of his Florae Fribergensis Specimen; and the results of a prolonged course of experiments on the phenomena of muscular irritability, then recently discovered by L. Galvani, were contained in his Versuche über die gereizte Muskel- und Nervenfaser (Berlin, 1797), enriched in the French translation with notes by Blumenbach.

A portrait of Humboldt by Friedrich Georg Weitsch, 1806
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A portrait of Humboldt by Friedrich Georg Weitsch, 1806

[edit] Travels and work in Europe

In 1794 he was admitted to the intimacy of the famous Weimar coterie, and contributed (June 1795) to Schiller's new periodical, Die Horen, a philosophical allegory entitled Die Lebenskraft, oder der rhodische Genius. In the summer of 1790 he paid a short visit to England in company with Forster. In 1792 and 1797 he was in Vienna; in 1795 he made a geological and botanical tour through Switzerland and Italy. He had obtained in the meantime official employment: appointed assessor of mines at Berlin, February 29, 1792. Although this service to the state was regarded by him as only an apprenticeship to the service of science, he fulfilled its duties with such conspicuous ability that he not only rose rapidly to the highest post in his department, but was as well entrusted with several important diplomatic missions. The death of his mother, on 19 November 1796, set him free to follow the bent of his genius, and severing his official connections, he waited for an opportunity to fulfill his long-cherished dream of travel to distant lands.

[edit] The Latin American expedition

On the postponement of Captain Baudin's proposed voyage of circumnavigation, which he had been officially invited to accompany, he left Paris for Marseille with Aimé Bonpland, the designated botanist of the frustrated expedition, hoping to join Bonaparte in Egypt. Means of transport, however, were not forthcoming, and the two travellers eventually found their way to Madrid, where the unexpected patronage of the minister Don Mariano Luis de Urquijo determined them to make Spanish America the scene of their explorations.

Armed with powerful recommendations, they sailed in the Pizarro from A Coruña, on June 5, 1799, stopped six days at Tenerife for the ascent of the Peak, and landed, on July 16, at Cumaná, Venezuela. He visited the mission at Caripe where he found the oil-bird, which he was to make known to science as steatornis caripensis. Returning Cumaná, Humboldt observed, on the night of the 11-12th of November, a remarkable meteor shower (the Leonids) which forms the starting-point of our acquaintance with the periodicity of the phenomenon. He proceeded with Bonpland to Caracas; and in February 1800 he left the coast for the purpose of exploring the course of the Orinoco River. This trip, which lasted four months, and covered 1725 miles of wild and uninhabited country, had the important result of establishing the existence of a communication between the water-systems of the Orinoco and Amazon River, and of determining the exact position of the bifurcation. Electric eels were captured by von Humboldt (with Bonpland) around March 19, 1800. The researchers received massive electric shocks during their investigations.

On November 24, the two friends set sail for Cuba, and after a stay of some months regained the mainland at Cartagena. Ascending the swollen stream of the Magdalena, and crossing the frozen ridges of the Cordillera Real, they reached Quito after a tedious and difficult journey on January 6, 1802. Their stay there was marked by the ascent of Pichincha and Chimborazo. Humboldt and his party reached an altitude of 19,286 feet, a world record at the time. The journey concluded with an expedition to the sources of the Amazon en route for Lima. At Callao, Humboldt observed the transit of Mercury on November 9, and studied the fertilizing properties of guano, the introduction of which into Europe was mainly due to his writings. A tempestuous sea-voyage brought them to Mexico, where they resided for a year, followed by a short visit to the United States of America, they set sail for Europe from the mouth of the Delaware, and landed at Bordeaux on August 3, 1804.

[edit] Achievements of the Latin American expedition

An 1815 self-portrait of Humboldt
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An 1815 self-portrait of Humboldt

Humboldt may justly be regarded as having in this memorable expedition laid the foundation in their larger bearings of the sciences of physical geography and meteorology. By his delineation (in 1817) of "isothermal lines," he at once suggested the idea and devised the means of comparing the climatic conditions of various countries. He first investigated the rate of decrease in mean temperature with increase of elevation above the sealevel, and afforded, by his inquiries into the origin of tropical storms, the earliest clue to the detection of the more complicated law governing atmospheric disturbances in higher latitudes; while his essay on the geography of plants was based on the then novel idea of studying the distribution of organic life as affected by varying physical conditions. His discovery of the decrease in intensity of Earth's magnetic field from the poles to the equator was communicated to the Paris Institute in a memoir read by him on the 7 December 1804, and its importance was attested by the speedy emergence of rival claims. His services to geology were mainly based on his attentive study of the volcanoes of the New World. He showed that they fell naturally into linear groups, presumably corresponding with vast subterranean fissures; and by his demonstration of the igneous origin of rocks previously held to be of aqueous formation, he contributed largely to the elimination of erroneous views.

The reduction into form and publication of the encyclopaedic mass of materials - scientific, political and archaeological - collected by him during his absence from Europe was now Humboldt's most urgent desire. After a short trip to Italy with Gay-Lussac for the purpose of investigating the law of magnetic declination, and a sojourn of two years and a half in his native city, he finally, in the spring of 1808, settled in Paris with the purpose of securing the scientific cooperation required for bringing his great work through the press. This colossal task, which he at first hoped would have occupied but two years, eventually cost him twenty-one, and even then remained incomplete. In these early years in Paris, he shared accommodation and laboratory with his first rival now friend, Joseph-Louis Gay-Lussac, both together working on gas analyses and the composition of the atmosphere.

[edit] Humboldt acclaimed

With the exception of Napoleon Bonaparte, Humboldt was now the most famous man in Europe. Acclaimed American painter Rembrandt Peale even painted him during his stay between 1808 and 1810 as one of the most prominent figures in Europe at the time. A chorus of applause greeted him from every side. Academies, both native and foreign, were eager to enroll him among their members. Frederick William III of Prussia conferred upon him the honour, without exacting the duties, attached to the post of royal chamberlain, together with a pension of 2,500 thalers, afterwards doubled. He refused the appointment of Prussian minister of public instruction in 1810. In 1814 he accompanied the allied sovereigns to London. Three years later he was summoned by the king of Prussia to attend him at the congress of Aachen. Again in the autumn of 1822 he accompanied the same monarch to the congress of Verona, proceeded thence with the royal party to Rome and Naples, and returned to Paris in the spring of 1823.

Five-mark banknote from East Germany of 1964 showing Humboldt
Five-mark banknote from East Germany of 1964 showing Humboldt

The French capital he had long regarded as his true home. There he found, not only scientific sympathy, but the social stimulus which his vigorous and healthy mind eagerly craved. He was equally in his element as the lion of the salons and as the savant of the institute and the observatory. Thus, when at last he received from his sovereign a summons to join his court at Berlin, he obeyed indeed, but with deep and lasting regret. The provincialism of his native city was odious to him. He never ceased to rail against the bigotry without religion, aestheticism without culture, and philosophy without common sense, which he found dominant on the banks of the Spree. The unremitting benefits and sincere attachment of two well-meaning princes secured his gratitude, but could not appease his discontent. At first he sought relief from the "nebulous atmosphere" of his new abode by frequent visits to Paris; but as years advanced his excursions were reduced to accompanying the monotonous "oscillations" of the court between Potsdam and Berlin. On 12 May 1827 he settled permanently in the Prussian capital, where his first efforts were directed towards the furtherance of the science of terrestrial magnetism. For many years it had been one of his favourite schemes to secure, by means of simultaneous observations at distant points, a thorough investigation of the nature and law of "magnetic storms" a term invented by him to designate abnormal disturbances of Earth's magnetism. The meeting at Berlin, on 18 September 1828, of a newly-formed scientific association, of which he was elected president, gave him the opportunity of setting on foot an extensive system of research in combination with his diligent personal observations. His appeal to the Russian government in 1829 led to the establishment of a line of magnetic and meteorological stations across northern Asia; while his letter to the Duke of Sussex, then (April 1836) president of the Royal Society, secured for the undertaking the wide basis of the British dominions. Thus that scientific conspiracy of nations which is one of the noblest fruits of modern civilization was by his exertions first successfully organized.

[edit] Explorations in Russia

In 1811, and again in 1818, projects of Asiatic exploration were proposed to Humboldt, first by the Russian, and afterwards by the Prussian government; but on each occasion untoward circumstances interposed, and it was not until he had entered upon his sixtieth year that he resumed his early role of a traveller in the interests of science. Between May and November 1829 he, together with his chosen associates Gustav Rose and C. G. Ehrenberg, traversed the wide expanse of the Russian empire from the Neva to the Yenesei, accomplishing in twenty-five weeks a distance of 9,614 miles. The journey, however, though carried out with all the advantages afforded by the immediate patronage of the Russian government, was too rapid to be profitable. Its most important fruits were the correction of the prevalent exaggerated estimate of the height of the Central Asian plateau, and the discovery of diamonds in the gold-washings of the Ural, a result which Humboldt's Brazilian experiences enabled him to predict, and by predicting to secure.

[edit] Humboldt as diplomat

Between 1830 and 1848 von Humboldt was frequently employed in diplomatic missions to the court of Louis Philippe, with whom he always maintained the most cordial personal relations.

His brother Wilhelm von Humboldt died in Alexander's arms on 8 April 1836. The death saddened the later years of his life; Alexander lamented that he had "lost half of my self" in the death of his brother.

Upon the accession of the crown prince Frederick William IV in June 1840 von Humboldt's favour at court increased. Indeed, the new king's craving for von Humboldt's company became at times so importunate as to leave him only a few hours aside from sleep to work on his writing.

[edit] The "Cosmos"

Statue of Alexander von Humboldt outside Humboldt University, Unter den Linden, Berlin. Note the Spanish inscription describing him as "the second discoverer of Cuba."
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Statue of Alexander von Humboldt outside Humboldt University, Unter den Linden, Berlin. Note the Spanish inscription describing him as "the second discoverer of Cuba."

It is not often that a man postpones to his seventy-sixth year, and then successfully executes, the crowning task of his life. Yet this was Humboldt's case. The first two volumes of the Cosmos were published, and in the main composed, between the years 1845 and 1847. The idea of a work which should convey not only a graphic description, but an imaginative conception of the physical world which should support generalization by details, and dignify details by generalization, had floated before his mind for more than half a century. It first took definite shape in a set of lectures delivered by him before the University of Berlin in the winter of 1827–1828. These lectures formed, as his latest biographer expresses it, "the cartoon for the great fresco of the Kosmos." The scope of this remarkable work may be briefly described as the representation of the unity amid the complexity of nature. In it the large and vague ideals of the 18th are sought to be combined with the exact scientific requirements of the 19th century. And, in spite of inevitable shortcomings, the attempt was in an eminent degree successful. A certain heaviness of style, too, and laborious picturesqueness of treatment make it more imposing than attractive to the general reader. But its supreme and abiding value consists in its faithful reflection of the mind of a great man. No higher eulogium can be passed on Alexander von Humboldt than that, in attempting, and not unworthily attempting, to portray the universe, he succeeded still more perfectly in portraying his own comprehensive intelligence.

The last decade of his long life — his "improbable" years, as he was accustomed to call them — was devoted to the continuation of this work, of which the third and fourth volumes were published in 1850–1858, while a fragment of a fifth appeared posthumously in 1862. In these he sought to fill up what was wanting of detail as to individual branches of science in the sweeping survey contained in the first volume. Notwithstanding their high separate value, it must be admitted that, from an artistic point of view, these additions were deformities. The characteristic idea of the work, so far as such a gigantic idea admitted of literary incorporation, was completely developed in its opening portions, and the attempt to convert it into a scientific encyclopaedia was in truth to nullify its generating motive. Humboldt's remarkable industry and accuracy were never more conspicuous than in this latest trophy to his genius. Nor did he rely entirely on his own labours. He owed much of what he accomplished to his rare power of assimilating the thoughts and availing himself of the co-operation of others. He was not more ready to incur than to acknowledge obligations. The notes to Kosmos overflow with laudatory citations, the current coin in which he discharged his intellectual debts.

[edit] Illness and death

On February 24, 1857 Humboldt suffered a minor apoplectic stroke, which passed without perceptible symptoms. It was not until the winter of 1858–1859 that his strength began to decline, and that spring on 6 May he died quietly at the age of 89. The honours which had been showered on him during life continued after his death. His remains, prior to being interred in the family resting-place at Tegel, were conveyed in state through the streets of Berlin, and received by the prince-regent at the door of the cathedral. The first centenary of his birth was celebrated on 14 September 1869 with great enthusiasm in both the New and Old Worlds. Numerous monuments erected in his honour, and newly explored regions named after Alexander von Humboldt, bear witness to his wide fame and popularity.

[edit] Personal life

Much of Humboldt's private life remains a mystery because he destroyed his private letters. However, in 1908 the sexual researcher Paul Näcke, who worked with Magnus Hirschfeld, gathered reminiscences of him from people who recalled his participation in the homosexual subculture of Berlin.[1] Throughout his life he formed strong emotional attachments to men. He never married, yet there were two notable exceptions where he seemed to have been drawn to the opposite sex. The first was an adolescent infatuation with the beautiful wife of Marcus Herz, his mentor, and the second was a short lived but intimate relationship with a woman named Pauline Wiesel in 1808 Paris.[2] He was strongly attached to his brother's family; and in his later years the somewhat arbitrary sway of an old and faithful servant held him in more than matrimonial bondage. By a singular example of generosity (or some people would say weakness), he executed, four years before his death, a deed of gift transferring to this man Seifert the absolute possession of his entire property. No undue advantage appears to have been taken of this extraordinary concession. Of the qualities of his heart it is less easy to speak than of those of his head.

The clue to his inner life might well be found in a certain egotism of self-culture scarcely separable from the promptings of genius. Yet his attachments, once formed, were sincere and lasting. He made innumerable friends; and it does not stand on record that he ever lost one. His benevolence was throughout his life active and disinterested. His early zeal for the improvement of the condition of the miners in Galicia and Franconia, his consistent detestation of slavery, his earnest patronage of rising men of science, bear witness to the large humanity which formed the ground-work of his character.

The faults of his old age have been brought into undue prominence by the injudicious publication of his letters to Varnhagen von Ense. The chief of these was his habit of smooth speaking, almost amounting to flattery, which formed a painful contrast with the caustic sarcasm of his confidential utterances. His vanity, at all times conspicuous, was tempered by his sense of humour, and was so frankly avowed as to invite sympathy rather than provoke ridicule. After every deduction has been made, he yet stands before us as a colossal figure, not unworthy to take his place beside Goethe as the representative of the scientific side of the culture of his country.

[edit] Honors and namesakes

[edit] Species named after Humboldt

See also the list of things named for Alexander von Humboldt.

As a consequence of his explorations, von Humboldt described many geographical features and species of life that were hitherto unknown to Europeans. Species named after him include:

  • Spheniscus humboldti — Humboldt penguin
  • Dosidicus gigas — Humboldt Squid
  • Lilium humboldtii — Humboldt's lily
  • Phragmipedium humboldtii — an orchid
  • Quercus humboldtii — South American Oak
  • Conepatus humboldtii — Humboldt's Hog-nosed Skunk
  • Annona humboldtii — Neotropical tree or shrub
  • Annona humboldtiana — Neotropical tree or shrub
  • Utricularia humboldtii — a bladderwort
  • Geranium humboldtii — a cranebill
  • Salix humboldtiana — a South-American willow. http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=SAHU

Features named after him include the following:

[edit] Places named after Humboldt

The following places are named for Humboldt:

The Mare Humboldtianum lunar mare is named after him, as is the asteroid 54 Alexandra.

The Humboldt Tropical Medicine Institute at Cayetano Heredia University, Lima, Peru, was named after Alexander von Humboldt, as well as Humboldt State University in Arcata, California. Several German schools (including Humboldt University of Berlin) are named after Alexander's brother Wilhelm.

[edit] The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation

After his death, his friends and colleagues created the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (Stiftung in German) to continue von Humboldt's generous support of young scientists. Although the original endowment was lost in the German hyperinflation of the 1920s, and again as a result of World War II, the Foundation has been re-endowed by the German government and plays an important role in attracting foreign researchers to work in Germany and enabling German researchers to work abroad for a period.

[edit] Dedications and recognitions

Edgar Allan Poe dedicated his last great work, Eureka: A Prose Poem, to von Humboldt. Humboldt's attempt to unify the sciences in his Kosmos was a big inspiration for Poe's project.

Charles Darwin makes frequent reference to Humboldt's work in his Voyage of the Beagle, where Darwin describes his own scientific exploration of the Americas.

[edit] Publications

[edit] Biographies and other works

A good biography of Humboldt is that of Professor Karl Bruhns (3 vols., 8vo, Leipzig, 1872), translated into English by the Misses Lasseil in 1873. A good 1852 biography, 'Lives of the Brothers Humboldt' is freely available (see external links below).

Brief accounts of his career are given by A. Dove in Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, and by S. Gunther in Alexander von Humboldt (Berlin, 1900). Le voyage aux régions equinoxiales du Nouveau Continent, fait en 1799-1804, par Alexandre de Humboldt el Aimé Bonpland (Paris, 1807, etc.), consisted of thirty folio and quarto volumes, and comprised a considerable number of subordinate but important works. Among these may be enumerated Vue des Cordillères et monuments des peuples indigènes de l'Amérique (2 vols. folio, 1810); Examen critique de l'histoire de la géographie du Nouveau Continent (1814-1834); Atlas géographique et physique du royaume de la Nouvelle Espagne (1811); Essai politique sur le royaume de la Nouvelle Espagne (1811); Essai sur la géographie des plantes (1805, now very rare); and Relation historique (1814-1825), an unfinished narrative of his travels, including the Essai politique sur l'île de Cuba.

The Nova genera et species plantarum (7 vols. folio, 1815-1825), containing descriptions of above 4500 species of plants collected by Humboldt and Bonpland, was mainly compiled by Carl Sigismund Kunth; J. Oltmanns assisted in preparing the Recueil d'observations astronomiques (1808); Cuvier, Latreille, Valenciennes and Gay-Lussac cooperated in the Recueil d'observations de zoologie et d'anatomie comparée (1805-1833). Humboldt's Ansichten der Natur (Stuttgart and Tübingen, 1808) went through three editions in his lifetime, and was translated into nearly every European language. The results of his Asiatic journey were published in Fragments de géologie et de climatologie asiatiques (2 vols. 8vo, 1831), and in Asie centrale (3 vols. 8vo, 1843) an enlargement of the earlier work. The memoirs and papers read by him before scientific societies, or contributed by him to scientific periodicals, are too numerous for specification.

Humboldt's effect on American scientists and environmentalists (Clarence King, Jeremiah N. Reynolds, George Wallace Melville, and John Muir) is examined in The Humboldt Current: Nineteenth Century Exploration and the Roots of American Environmentalism, by Aaron Sachs (Viking, 2006).

Daniel Kehlmann's 2005 novel Die Vermessung der Welt, translated into English by Carol Brown Janeway as Measuring the World: a Novel in 2006, explores von Humboldt's life through a lens of historical fiction, contrasting his character and contributions to science to those of Carl Friedrich Gauss.

[edit] Humboldt's correspondence

Since his death considerable portions of his correspondence have been made public. The first of these, in order both of time and of importance, is his Briefe an Varnhagen von Enze (Leipzig, 1860) This was followed in rapid succession by Briefwechsel mit einem jungen Freunde (Friedrich Althaus, Berlin, 1861); Briefwechsel mit Heinrich Berghaus (~ vols., Jena, 1863); Correspondence scientifique e littéraire (2 vols., Paris, 1865?1869); Lettres à Marc-Aug. Pictet, published in Le Globe, tome vii. (Geneva, 1868); Briefe an Bunsen (Leipzig, 1869); Briefe zwischen Humboldt und Gauss (1877); Briefe an seinen Bruder Wilhelm (Stuttgart, 1880); Jugendbriefe an W. G. Wegener (Leipzig, 1896); besides some other collections of less note. An octavo edition of Humboldt's principal works was published in Paris by Tb. Morgand (1864?1866). See also, Karl von Baer, Bulletin de l'acad. des sciences de St-Pétersbourg, xvii. 529 (1859); R. Murchison, Proceedings, Geog. Society of London, vi. (1859); L. Agassiz, American Jour. of Science, xxviii. 96 (1859); Proc. Roy. Society, X. xxxix.; A. Quetelet, Annuaire de l'acad. des sciences (Brussels, 1860), p. 97; J. Mädler, Geschichte der Himmelskunde, ii. 113; J.C.Houzeau, Bibl. astronomique, ii. 168. (A. M. C.)

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  • Sachs, Aaron. The Humboldt Current: Nineteenth-Century Exploration and the Roots of American Environmentalism, (Viking; 496 pages; 2006). A study of the Prussian naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) that examines his influence on four American explorers, Clarence King, George Wallace Melville, John Muir, and J.N. Reynolds, as well as on such writers as Emerson, Poe, Thoreau, and Whitman.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Havelock Henry Ellis (1927). "Sexual Inversion". Studies in the Psychology of Sex 2: 39.
  2. ^ Helferich, Gerard (2004). Humbold't Cosmos, 312.

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