1799, to make a visit to Africa, and would have embarked on board a Swedish frigate, which was to have conveyed the Swedish Consul, Skialdebrand, from Marseilles on a special mission to Algiers, but the disabling of the frigate at sea, and subsequent belligerent disturbances with the European and Barbary powers, frustrated this enterprise also. Baffled, but undaunted, he passed from Paris over to Spain, and here an opportunity offered for making a visit to the new world. The savans of Madrid favored the projected trip, and in company with his distinguished friend, Bonpland, he embarked at Corunna, under the protection of the Spanish government, on the frigate Pizarro, bound for Cuba.

Travelers are actuated by various motives, the larger portion, restless and uneducated, merely by the desire of seeing strange sights and gratifying a vague taste for pleasure. It was a pleasure to these young philosophers, but their motive lay far deeper; with books and instruments they sought the advancement of science, the promotion of the welfare of mankind, and before them lay a dangerous and laborious duty. Not to visit proud cities and dissipate time and money in gay saloons, but to wander in strange and uncultivated lands, to encounter thirst and hunger, and wild beasts, exposure to the elements and disease, all for the sake of knowledge, from which the world would profit; in overco ming the perils of the ocean for the sake of commerce; by studying the laws of the winds and the very topography of the seas; by observations on the heavens and the lands, and everything that grows thereon, fit for food and sustenance, for clothing the body, or healing the sick.

As soon as they were wafted from shore by the gentle south wind, their experiments and observations began, and they discovered what has since been of great use to the seafaring and commercial world, which was by using a valved thermometrical lead, that the neighborhood of a sand bank is thus revealed, before the lead can be of any use, by the quick decrease in the temperature of the water. It is proper to be mentioned, that before embarking for America, Humboldt was not entirely untraveled, for after leaving Gottingen he had visited Holland, England, France, Switzerland, Austria and Italy, during which period he had been mostly connected with the mining corps of Prussia, devoting at the same time much attention to other scientific pursuits; among which may be noticed galvanism and botany, then beginning to be a favorite study among men of science, and also becoming skillfully accustomed to the use of those astronomical and physical instruments which he employed in South America, and afterwards turned to so excellent a purpose. He reached America in 1799, and spent five years of laborious investigation and toilsome travel. Thus prepared by study, by an acquaintance with the use of instruments, and with a knowledge of the wants of science, no man ever started on a long travel so mentally and intellectually equipped.

It is not our purpose in this paper to recount the various scenes of travel, and the many observations belonging to the wide range of science made by our author during his journey to the new world, but rather to

notice the manner in which he has written out those travels, and left his extensive and accurate observations as hand-maidens to science, as an example to scholars, and a light to the world. No just notice could be made of the items of philosophic observation in these books of travel, without the most copious extracts, which would even then fail to present a full view of their scope and range.

Yet the reader may form a just conception of their purpose, by being informed of the magnificent design of the author. He had, in undertaking the journey, a desire to collect such facts as are fitted to elucidate the entire range of those sciences embraced in the natural history of the world; the theory of the earth, or physical geography, and to furnish that continuous and unbroken link which connects the natural sciences. After returning home, his observations were written out in the form of a scientific narrative.

He had resorted to the utmost labor and caution in procuring every species of plant and mineral, having employed more than twenty mules in transporting his specimens across the country. They were carefully divided in three collective parcels, each containing forty-two boxes; this precaution was taken to provide against any loss that might occur on account of the uncertain communication between Europe and America, which existed during the maritime wars which then raged between the European powers. One box was shipped for France and Spain, the second for the United States and England; the third remained constantly under the care of himself or Bonpland.

The plan he adopted in writing out these travels, if not so agreeable to the general reader, is certainly better calculated to meet the approbation of the man of science. He had composed a brief itinerary of his travels, but he clearly foresaw that the historical narrative plan usually pursued by travelers, was calculated to render his work not only too diffusive, but disconnected and confused; a historical narrative embraces the two distinct objects of the scientific traveler; the events that occur and the observations that are made. His object was to embrace both, a plan which he had observed was followed by that eminent traveler and writer, M. de Saussure, and while he acknowledges the success of the plan in the above mentioned writer, no one has approached it with such eminent success as Humboldt. It is the presentation of phenomena in the order in which they appear, and the interspersion of the narrative, so as to maintain a mutual continuity of what passed under his own eye, and yet preserve the connection of scientific observation, occurring at different times. The manner in which this great and perplexing difficulty was overcome-and he acknowledges that he was much perplexed in executing the plan, with due regard to literary skill, and the constant adhesion to his chief purpose is readily comprehended in his own language. He says: "To give greater variety to the work, I have often interrupted the historical narrative by descriptions. I first represent phenomena in the order in which they appeared; and I afterwards consider them in the whole of their individual relations." This gives us an idea of the method, and

no other could have been adopted with justice to himself, and the demands of science. The mighty mind of Humboldt must discard the feeble system of diary and itinerary, which weak-minded travelers have used to make up long, tedious, and, to the sensible reader, disgusting, "Books of Travel." He was actuated by higher incentives; descriptive natural history, phenomena, geography, political economy, laws, constitutions, man, and all that relates to him, moral, social and political, were to be grouped, in philosophic harmony, in a descriptive and narrative history of travels; all of which is presented to us in the three volumes, "Of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America during the years 1799-1804, by Alexander Von Humboldt and Aime Bonpland." The part performed by the latter will be noticed hereafter.

It had been the desire of Humboldt, from his early youth, to travel into distant countries seldom visited by Europeans. To the scientific traveler, at the beginning of the present century, no country on earth presented such inducements as the new continent. In the old world national history, distinctions and mutations in forms of government, battles, manners, customs and taste, form the ingredients of books of travels. In America other elements were to be gathered; the imperfections of physical science were crying aloud for discoveries and means of completing her theories by adding to the thesaurarium of her facts. Its immense and unexplored continent, washed on either side by a great ocean; its large forests untouched and unscanned by the eye of civilization, its mighty rivers flowing from the interior to the ocean, its lofty mountains and granite piles, its rich treasures buried far beneath the surface, its comparatively unknown aboriginal people, its vast savannahs studded with every tropical plant, afforded a new and tempting field for the naturalist, for geology, for mineralogy, for astronomical observation, for botany, and the boundless research of the archaeologist, not only in the primitive formation of a continent, but the paleontological relations of a primitive race, with its buried architectural ruins; its national affinity and peculiar craniology, its linguistic comparison with other tongues, with its signs and symbols and hieroglyphic, were all in restless waiting to illuminate the vast temple of science, when struck by the wand of investigating genius.

These are the subjects which render the volumes of travels which I have been noticing alike attractive and instructing. But their voluminousness prevents a notice of the various topics discussed and illustrated in their pages. Yet their value may be estimated in part by a reference:

1. To the astronomical observations, trigonometrical operations and barometrical measurements he was enabled to make during the course of the journey.

2. The equinoctial plants collected in Mexico, in Cuba, the provinces of Caracas, Cumana and Barcelona, on the Andes of New Grenada, Quito and Peru, on the banks of the Rio Negro, Orinoco and Amazon. In which work Bonpland contributed figures of more than forty new

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genera of plants of the torrid zone, classed according to their natural families, with methodical descriptions of the species in French and Latin.

3. Monography of the Melastoma, Rhesia and other genera; this order of plants comprising upwards of a hundred and fifty species Melastomaceae.

4. Essay on the geography of plants, accompanied by a physical table of the equinoctial regions, founded on measures taken from the tenth degree of northern to the tenth degree of southern latitude. Observations on zoology and comparative anatomy.

Political essays on the Kingdom of New Spain, with physical and geographical atlas, founded on astronomical observations, and trigonometrical and barometrical measurements.

7. Views of the Cordilleras and monuments of the indigenous nations of the new continent; accompanied by an Atlas Pittoresque ou vues des Cordilleris: 1 vol. folio, with 69 plates.

This work, we are told, was intended to represent a few of the grand scenes which nature presents in the lofty chain of the Andes, and also to

f throw some light on the ancient civilization of America, through the study of monuments of architecture, hieroglyphics, religious rites, and astrological reveries, in which the teocalli or pyramids are compared in their structure with that of the temple of Belus, with a description of a number of symbolical paintings representing the serpent woman-the Mexican Eve-the deluge of Coxcox, and the first migrations of the natives of the Aztec race. It is worthy of the highest consideration, and I make the following quotation as indicative of the opinion of Humboldt upon a question which has excited the attention and distracted the view of learned men, the diversity of the races, and more especially do I make it because the authors of "The Types of Mankind," and of "Indigenous Races," claim the authority of his name, and the weight of his great learning as corroborative of their views. Speaking of the traditions of the deluge, he says: "These ancient traditions of the human race, which we find dispersed over the whole surface of the globe, like the relics of a vast shipwreck, are highly interesting in the philosophical studies of our own species. Like certain families of the vegetable kingdom, which notwithstanding the diversity of climates and the influence of heights, retain the impression of a common type, the traditions of nations respecting the origin of the world display everywhere the same physiognomy, and preserve features of resemblance that fill us with astonishment. How many different tongues, belonging to branches that appear totally distinct, transmit to us the same facts!" (Vol. ii., p. 183, Bohn's Scientific Library, London, 1852.) While the author does not express his opinion as decidedly as could be wished, when writing in another place, upon the same subject, yet his arguments are sufficient to convince the unprejudiced mind that he believed in the unity of the human (Idem, p. 473.)

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races.

In addition to which, the christian world is under lasting obligations
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to the corroborative truth of science, which glows along the pages of these travels, and other works of Humboldt, in sustaining the common origin of our race, by the unity of primitive religious worship with the Aborigines of America, as well as establishing a bulwark, against which the infidel arguments of such men as Morton, Nott and Gliddon, fall harmless and impotent, though brought to bear under the deceptive guise of the perverted truths of science. And also placing upon impregnable grounds the primitive affinity which exist in monumental and architectural evidence, in language, in worship, between the Indians of America North and South, and the early inhabitants of Asia; a question which archaeologists must now consider settled beyond the successful dispute of infidel scholars and writers. I feel an anxiety to place Humboldt in the position he truly occupied, especially since he has been claimed as authority in favor of the diversity of the human races, by G. R. Gliddon, one of the erudite editors of those two remarkable books, "Types of Mankind," and "Indigenous Races of the Earth." To show that Mr. Gliddon was under some misapprenshion, for no one doubts his sincerity, or his learning, I will simply make the following quotation:

"In my opinion, however, more powerful reasons can be advanced in support of the theory of the unity of the human race, as for instance, in the many intermediate gradations in the color of the skin, and in the form of the skull, which have been made known to us in recent times, by the rapid progress of geographical knowledge." (Here follows his reasons, to which the reader is referred - Cosmos, vol. i., pp. 362-8, Bohn's edition, London, 1849; translated from the German by E. C. Otte.) I am also satisfied that Mr. Gliddon has unintentionally misrepresented William Von Humboldt, the brother of Alexander, and the most distinguished linguist and philologist in Europe, who, in a learned work "On the Varieties of Languages and Nations," says: "Language, more than any other attribute of mankind, binds together the whole human race. By its idiomatic properties, it certainly seems to separate nations, but the reciprocal understanding of foreign languages connect men together on the other hand without injuring individual national characteristics." (Cosmos, same edition; note translated from William Von Humboldt's writings, by Otte; p. 369.) From this and other extracts which might be made, it is clear that William did not belong to that school of philosophy which believes in the diversity of the human

races.

While on this subject, though we have no intention of entering into a discussion on comparative philology, yet the views of Alexander Humboldt on that subject, to be consistent with the opinion he entertained of the unity of the races, must coincide with those who maintain a common origin of languages. To this extent it seems that E. G. Squier, the most distinguished archaeologist in North America, and among her most learned men, has fallen into a mistake, when he says, speaking of the unity of the American race: "Humboldt, Vater, Prichard, Morton, Gallatin, Duponceau and Pickering, have thrown a