K O 2 M O 2 : A General £>urbep OF THE PHYSICAL PHENOMENA OF THE UNIVERSE. BY ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT. Vol. I. Natune vero rerum vis atque majestaa in omnibus moment is fide caret, si quia modo partes ejus ac non totam compiectatur animo. Pi- in., Hist. Nat. lib. yH. cap. 1. LONDON: HIPPOLYTE BAILLIERE, PUBLISHER, AND FOREIGN BOOKSELLER, 219, REGENT STREET. 1845. TCI HIS MAJESTY THE KING OF PRUSSIA, FREDERICK-WILLIAM IV, THIS SURVEY OF THE PHYSICAL HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE, 3Jg Betifcatrti, WITH FEELINGS OF DEEP RESPECT AND HEARTFELT GRATITUDE, BY ALEXANDER von HUMBOLDT. PREFACE. In the evening of a long and active life, I present the public with a work the indefinite outlines of which have floated in my mind for almost half a century. I have, in many moods, regarded this work as impracticable; and when I had abandoned it, have still, rashly perhaps, returned to it again. — I lay it before my contemporaries with the diffidence which a reasonable mistrust in the measure ^of my abilities inspires. I also endeavour to forget, that works long looked for are commonly less indulgently received. If circumstances, and an irresistible propensity to pur sue science of various kinds, led me to devote myself for many years, and almost exclusively as it seemed, to parti cular branches, — to descriptive botany, geology, chemistry, astronomical observation and terrestrial magnetism, — as preparatives for a journey on a great scale, the special purpose of my studies was always one still higher than this. My main object was to prepare myself to compre Vlll PREFACE. hend the phenomena of corporeal things in their general connection; to embrace Nature as a whole, actuated, ani mated by internal forces. Intercourse with men of rare ability, however, led me, at an early period in my career, to the .conviction, that without serious devotion to the science of individual things, all great and general views of Nature could be nothing more than airy dreams. But particulars in physical science are endowed by their intimate nature with an appropriative and dispensive power, whereby they are reciprocally fructified. Descriptive botany, no longer circumscribed within the narrow circle of determining genera and species, leads the observer who visits distant countries, and ascends lofty mountains, to the doctrine of the geographical distribution of plants over the surface of the earth, according to distance from the equator, and perpendicular elevation above the level of the sea. And again : to interpret the complex causes of this distribution, the laws of climatic difference in respect of temperature and the meteorological processes of the atmosphere must be investigated. In this way is the observer athirst for knowledge carried from one class of phenomena to another, by which it is illustrated, or on which it depends. It has been my fortune, — and few travellers have enjoyed this advantage in the same measure as myself, — that I have PEEFACE. IX seen not merely the coasts of islands and of conti nents, as in voyages round the world, but that I have visited the interior of two great continents which present the most striking contrasts to one another — the Alpine landscapes of tropical America, and the dreary steppe- lands of Northern Asia. Such enterprises, with the par ticular direction of my studies, were felt as a stimulus to general views; they almost necessarily aroused and kept alive a purpose to treat the knowledge at present possessed of the sidereal and terrestrial phenomena of Cosmos in their empirical connection, in a separate work. Through larger views, and the comprehension of created things in celestial space as well as on earth — yielding to the suggestion of perhaps too bold a plan — the hitherto imperfectly seized idea of a Physical Geography thus gradually came to assume the shape of a Physical Cos mography. The form of such a work, if it make any pretensions to a literary character, becomes, from the superabundance of material which the ordering mind must overrule, a matter of very difljcult determination. The descriptions of nature must not be left without animation, and yet does the stringing together of mere general results pro duce even as wearisome an impression, as the heaping up of too many minute details of observation. I do not X PREFACE. flatter myself with having fulfilled every varied requisite in the composition, with having always escaped the rocks which I am only competent to point out. A faint hope does, however, possess my mind, founded on the favourable reception by the public of the small work which I pub lished soon after my return from Mexico, under the title of " Views of Nature." This work treats of several particular portions of the life of the earth — the physiognomy of plants, grassy plains and deserts — under general points of view. It has had more influence through what it has excited in sus ceptible youthful minds, possessed of fancy, than through aught that it has bestowed. In the Cosmos, upon which I am now engaged, as in the " Views of Nature," I have sought to show that a certain completeness of treatment of the particular subjects was not incompatible with a certain liveliness of colouring in the representation. As public lectures afford an easy and decisive means of testing the excellence or indifference of arrangement in the particular parts of a doctrine, I made a point of delivering a Course of Lectures, of several months' duration, on the Physical History of the World, as I had conceived this science, first at Paris, in the French language, and sub sequently at Berlin, within the walls of the University, and in the great Singing Academy simultaneously, in my native tongue. Speaking- without notes, I have no PREFACE. XI memoranda either of my French or German lectures. Even the notes that were made by some of my more diligent auditors have remained unknown to me, and have therefore not been used in the composition of the work which now appears. With the exception of the first forty pages of the first volume, the whole was written by myself, and for the first time, in the course of the years 1843 and 1844. Where present states of observation and opinion (and increasing abundance in the former brings about irrevocable changes in the latter) are to be por trayed, the representation gains, I imagine, in interest, in freshness, and in intimate life, when it is connected with a determinate epoch. The Lectures and Cosmos, con sequently, have nothing more in common than the sequence in which the subjects they embrace are treated. I have only left the " Introduction" with the form of the Discourse, in which the subjects it comprises were in part at least originally presented. It may perhaps be agreeable to the numerous audience which, with so much kindness, followed my course delivered within the walls of the University of Berlin, (between the 3rd of November, 1827, and the 26th of April, 1828, in 61 lectures,) if I here add a note of its divisions, as a memorial of times now long gone by. They were as follows : Nature and Boundary of the Physical Descrip Xll PREFACE. tion of the Universe, and General Survey of Nature, five Lectures; History of the Contemplation of the Universe, three Lectures; Motives inciting to the Study of Nature, two Lectures; Celestial Space, sixteen Lectures; Figure, Density, Internal Heat and Magnetism of the Earth, and the Northern Light, five Lectures; Nature of the Solid Crust of the Glohe, Hot Springs, Volcanic Action, four Lectures; Rocks and Types of Rocky Formations, two Lectures ; Figure of the Earth's Surface, Divisions of Continents, and Elevation of Mountains along Fis sures, two Lectures ; The Liquid Envelope — the Ocean, three, and the Gaseous Envelope — the Atmosphere, in cluding the distribution of heat, ten Lectures ; the Geogra phical Distribution of Organized Beings in general, one Lecture; the Geography of Plants, three ; the Geography of Animals, three ; and the Races of Man, two Lectures. The first volume of my work comprises introductory considerations on the various sources of our enjoyment of nature, and the establishment of the laws of the uni verse; the circumscription and scientific treatment of Physical Cosmography; and a general picture of nature as a survey of the phenomena of Cosmos. The general survey of Nature, beginning with the farthest nebulae, and the revolving double stars of heaven, and coming down to the terrestrial phenomena of the geography of organic beings, PREFACE. Xlll — plants, animals, and the races of mankind — contains the most important and essential portion of my whole under taking : The intimate connection of the General with the Particular; the spirit pervading the treatment of the subjects of experience discussed ; the form and style of the compo sition. The two succeeding volumes will comprise the discussion of the means that incite to the study of nature (through animated accounts of natural scenery, landscape painting, the cultivation and grouping of exotic plants in the hot-house) ; the History of the contemplation of the universe, in other words, the gradual comprehension of the idea of the natural forces co-operating as a whole ; and the Specialities of the several departments, whose reciprocal connections were indicated in the General Picture pre sented in the first volume. I have always separated bibliographical references from the text, as well as evidences of the value of observations, where I have thought it necessary to adduce them, appending them at the end of the several sections. Of my own works, through which, as may be imagined, the facts are variously and widely scattered, I have always referred to the original editions, as it was of importance here to be very particular in the numerical indications, and I am full of mistrust of the accuracy of translators.