the absolute from the accidental, the certain from the hypothesis; the apparent lawless he brought under known laws; united the isolated bodies of the earth into absolute and natural groups. He thus became the founder of a new science, "the comparative description of the earth," whose importance for the life and progress of nations becomes every year more evident.

All the territories of physical geography opened themselves to his mind; he perceives the laws, according to which the organic creatures are distributed upon the surface of the earth, with regard to the various gradations of heat, the soil and the air; and in observing attentively the composition of the air, in different parts, and various heights above the level of the sea; in the bowels of the earth, and on the openings of volcanoes,—he convinced himself that the distribution of heat in the atmosphere; in its horizontal and perpendicular position in space; and also in relation to the seasons, and the locality upon the surface of the earth; the temperature of the oceans, and the solid earth, furnishes the most important ground for a distribution of creatures, in accordance with fixed laws. Principal Forbes, in his learned dissertation "

upon the

Progress of Physical Geography," has paid a just tribute to Baron Humboldt, in saying "that no one now living contributed more to the advancement of physical geography." But Humboldt became also the originator of another science," Hydrography,"-i. e., the description of the waters of the earth.

He had early perceived the importance of the ocean-rivers, and had offered to geography important information with regard to limitation, rapidity, temperature, and changes of the courses of the seas; their influence upon the development of commerce, on navigation, and the history of mankind; and the great project to save the mariners the circuitous road from the Atlantic into the great ocean round Cape Horn, the most southern peak of America, and to make a canal across Central America, was first represented by Baron Humboldt in its true light; and this great project, undertaken for the benefit of navigation in general, was based upon his observations respecting the inequality of the ground and the relation of the waters.

The formation of the crust of the earth was likewise a principal object of Humboldt's investigation, and science is indebted to him for wide extensions, in his examinations and study of the conditions of the crust in the old and

the new world; and his ever clear and quick perception soon recognized an absolute law in the seeming chaos. He became an important labourer in geognosy, the science of the composition and the formation of the solid crust of the earth; and here he opened a new avenue, presented a new aspect, dismissing the old theories regarding the causes in the changes. of the climatic condition of the earth, which must have been, according to existing testimonies, quite different many thousand years ago from the present condition,-because remnants of animals and plants, natives of the south, were exhumed in cold northern regions, which was accounted for by the liberated heat of down-crushed masses of mountains, and similar causes; he recognized the more important activity of volcanic powers in the bowels of the former earth, and concluded, in a most ingenious manner, the then higher temperature of our planet. His labours in this department of physical science are of a most important and positive nature, and exercised upon general science a powerful influence; but as Humboldt never advanced any new opinion without some practical proofs, he brought with him a valuable collection of various kinds of rocks from America, compared them with the

strata as presented in the crust of the earth in Europe, and thus arrived at the important conclusion, that, on the whole, one and the same law operated in the formation of the crust of the earth.

This study of Humboldt respecting the influence of volcanoes, the appearance and the effects of fire in our earth, urged him to examine the nature of earthquakes; and, on this important subject, he produced the first notable facts, and the first specific information. He taught that the hidden multitude of volcanos in the interior of the earth, though many hundred miles distant one from the other, maintain a mutual connection; and hence earthquakes are felt upon a space of several thousand square miles simultaneously. He proved the existence of certain volcanic veins in the interior of the earth, from the directions in which earthquakes propagate themselves, and the order they observe in their continuity; and here again Humboldt presents us with new aspects in the study of natural science. The laborious and careful calculations of Humboldt place the number of known volcanoes at 225; of which 198 are found surrounding the basin of the Pacific. "Thus, while the bed of the Pacific itself is, considering its vast magnitude,

wonderfully free from any break in its crust, "the Pacific Ocean," as Humboldt writes, "whose surface is nearly one-sixth greater than that of the whole dry land of our planet, whose breadth in the equatorial regions, from the Galipagos to the Pelew Islands, is nearly two-fifths. of the whole circumference of the globe, presents fewer smoking volcanoes, fewer openings through which the interior of the planet still maintains active communication with its atmospheric envelope than does the single island of Java. On the other hand, we find this vast basin surrounded by a well-marked line of volcanic fracture, at present containing, as already stated, seven-eighths of the known volcanoes of the globe."

Thus, "beginning from New Zealand," in the words of Humboldt, "and proceeding first for a considerable distance in a north-west direction, we can pass through New Guinea, the Sunda Islands, the Philippines, and the east of Asia, and, ascending to the Aleutian Islands, can redescend to the southward through the north-west portion of America, Mexico, Central and South America, to the extremity of Chili, thus making the entire circuit of the Pacific Ocean, and finding it surrounded, throughout a length of 26,400 geographical miles, by a