HUMBOLDT, ALEXANDER (FRIEDRICH HEINRICH AL EXANDER) Baron von (1769-1859), German naturalist and tray eller, was born at Berlin, on Sept. 14, 1769, son of a major in the Prussian army. His education devolved upon his mother, who was left a widow in 1779. 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 prolonged ex periments on the phenomena of muscular irritability, then re cently discovered by L. Galvani, were contained in his Versuche fiber die gereizte Muskel- and Nervenfaser (Berlin, 1797), en riched in the French translation with notes by Blumenbach.
In 1794 he was admitted to the intimacy of the famous Weimar coterie. and contributed (June to Schiller's new periodical, Die Horen, a philosophical allegory entitled Die Lebenskra f t, oder der rhodische Genius. In 1790 he visited England with George Forster, the companion of Cook on his second voyage. In 1792 and 1797 he was in Vienna; in 1795 he made a geological and botanical tour through Switzerland and Italy. Meanwhile he had been appointed assessor of mines at Berlin, in 1792. He rapidly rose to the highest post in his department, and was entrusted with important diplomatic missions. After the death of his mother in 1796 he severed his official connections, to fulfil his desire to travel. He left for Marseilles with Aime Bonpland, the botanist, hoping to join Bonaparte in Egypt, but the two travellers even tually went to Madrid, where the unexpected patronage of the minister d'Urquijo determined them to make Spanish America the scene of their explorations.
They sailed in the "Pizarro" from Corunna, in stopped six days at Teneriffe for the ascent of the Peak, and landed at Cumana. There Humboldt observed, on the night of the 12-13th of November, that meteor-shower which forms the starting-point of our knowledge of the periodicity of the phenomenon ; thence he proceeded with Bonpland to Caracas; and in 1800 he left to explore the course of the Orinoco. He covered in four months 1,725 m. of wild and uninhabited country, established the ex istence of a communication between the water-systems of the Orinoco and Amazon, and the exact position of the bifurcation. On Nov. 24 the two friends set sail for Cuba, and after a stay of some months regained the mainland at Cartagena. Ascending the Magdalena, and crossing the Cordilleras, they reached Quito on Jan. 6, 1802. They made the ascent of Pichincha and Chim borazo, and an expedition to the sources of the Amazon en route for Lima. At Callao Humboldt observed (c. Nov. 9) the transit of Mercury, and studied the fertilizing properties of guano, the intro duction of which into Europe was mainly due to his writings. After a year spent in Mexico, and a short visit to the United States, they returned (1804) to Europe. _ In this expedition Humboldt laid the foundation in their larger bearings of the sciences of physical geography and meteorology. By his delineation (in 1817) of "isothermal lines," he suggested the idea and devised the means of comparing the climatic condi tions of various countries. He first investigated the rate of de crease in mean temperature with increase of elevation above the sea-level, and afforded, by his enquiries 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 the earth's magnetic force from the poles to the equa tor was communicated (Dec. 7, 1804) to the Paris Institute. His services to geology were mainly based on his study of the volcanoes of the New World. He showed that they fell naturally into linear groups, presumably corresponding with vast subter ranean fissures; and by his demonstration of the igneous origin of rocks previously held to be of aqueous formation, he contrib uted largely to the elimination of erroneous views.
After a short trip to Italy with Gay-Lussac to investigate the law of magnetic declination, and a sojourn of two years and a half in Berlin, he settled (18o8) in Paris for the purpose of securing the scientific co-operation required for the arrangement of the material he had collected on his travels. This colossal task occupied him for 21 years, and even then remained incomplete. With the exception of Napoleon Bonaparte, he was the most fa mous man in Europe. Academies, both native and foreign, were eager to enroll him among their members. Frederick William III. of Prussia gave him a court sinecure. He refused the appointment of Prussian minister of public instruction in 181o. 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 Aix-la-Chapelle. Again in the autumn of 1822 he accompanied the king to the Congress of Verona, proceeded to Rome and Naples, and returned to Paris in the spring of 1823.
In Paris Humboldt found scientific sympathy, and the social stimulus which his mind craved. When at last he received a sum mons to join the court at Berlin he obeyed regretfully. He never ceased to rail against the bigotry without religion, aestheticism without culture, and philosophy without common sense, which he found dominant in Berlin. 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 ac companying the monotonous "oscillations" of the court between Potsdam and Berlin. On May 12, 1827, he settled permanently in the Prussian capital, where his first efforts were directed towards the investigation of the nature and law of "magnetic storms"— a term invented by him to designate abnormal disturbances of the earth's magnetism. 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.
In 181i, and again in 1818, projects of Asiatic exploration were proposed to Humboldt, first by the Russian, and afterwards by the Prussian government ; but it was not until he had entered upon his 6oth year that he resumed his early role of a traveller. Between May and Nov. 1829 he with Gustav Rose and C. G. Ehrenberg, traversed the Russian empire from the Neva to the Yenesei, travelling 9,614 m. in 25 weeks. The journey was too rapid to be profitable. Its most important fruits were the correc tion 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.
Between 1830 and 1848 Humboldt was frequently sent on dip lomatic missions to the court of Louis Philippe, with whom he always maintained cordial personal relations. The death of his brother, Wilhelm von Humboldt (q.v.), saddened the later years of his life. After the accession (1840) of Frederick William IV., Humboldt was more and more in demand at court, and was much hindered in his own work.
The first two volumes of the Kosmos, the great work of his life, were published, and in the main composed, between and 1847, the third and fourth between 1850 and 1858; a fifth appeared posthumously in 1862. The idea of a work which should convey, not only a graphic description, but an imaginative conception of the physical world—which should support generali zation by details, and dignify details by generalization—had first taken shape in lectures in 1827-28. These formed, as his biog rapher expresses it, "the cartoon for the great fresco of the Kosmos," and cover the whole scientific knowledge of the time. The supreme and abiding value of his work consists in its faith ful reflection of the mind of a great man.
In 1857 Humboldt had a slight apoplectic stroke. He died on May 6, 1859, and received a state funeral. Humboldt never mar ried. To his brother's family he was much attached. In his later years the sway of an old and faithful servant held him in more than matrimonial bondage, and four years before his death he executed a deed of gift transferring to this man Seifert the abso lute possession of his entire property. Humboldt's 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 hu manity which formed the ground-work of his character. The faults of his old age are shown in his letters to Varnhagen von Ense. The chief of these was his habit of smooth speaking, almost amounting to flattery, which contrasted with the caustic sarcasm of his confidential utterances. After every deduction has been made Humboldt was a great representative of the scientific side of the culture of his country.
The Voyage aux regions equinoxiales du Nouveau Continent, fait en 1799-1804, par Alexandre de Humboldt et Aime Bonpland (Paris, 1807, etc.) , consisted of 3o vols., and comprised subordinate but important works. Among these may be enumerated Vue des Cordilleres et monu ments des peuples indigenes de l'Amerique (2 vols. folio, 181o) ; Examen critique de l'histoire de la geographie du Nouveau Continent ; Atlas geographique et physique du royaume de la Nouvelle Espagne (181I) ; Essai politique sur le royaume de la Nouvelle Espagne (181I) ; Essai sur la geographic des plantes (18o5, now very rare) ; and Relation historique an unfinished narrative of his travels, including the Essai politique sur file de Cuba. The Nova genera et species plantarum (7 vols. folio, 1815-25), containing descriptions of above 4,500 species of plants collected by Humboldt and Bonpland, was mainly compiled by C. S. Kunth ; J. Oltmanns assisted in prepar ing the Recueil d'observations astronomiques (18o8) ; Cuvier, Latreille, Valenciennes and Gay-Lussac co-operated in the Recueil d'observations de zoologie et d'anatomie comparee . Humboldt's Ansichten der Natur (Stuttgart and Tubingen, 5808) went through three editions in his lifetime, and was translated into nearly every European lan guage. The results of his Asiatic journey were published in Fragments de geologic et de climatologie asiatiques (2 vols. 1831) , and in Asie cen trale (3 vols. 1843)—an enlargement of the earlier work.
The publication of his Briefe an Varnhagen von Ense (Leipzig, 1860) was followed by Briefwechsel mit einem jungen Freunde (Berlin, 1861) ; Briefwechsel mit Heinrich Berghaus (3 vols., Jena, 1863) ; Cor respondence scientifique et litteraire (2 vols., Paris, 1865-69) ; "Lettres a Marc-Aug. Pictet," published in Le Globe, tome vii. (Geneva, 1868) ; Briefe an Bunsen (Leipzig, 1869) ; Briefe zwischen Humboldt and Gauss (1877) ; Briefe an seinen Bruder Wilhelm (Stuttgart, 1880) ; Jugendbriefe an W. G. Wegener (Leipzig, 1896) ; besides some other collections of less note. An edition of Humboldt's principal works was published in Paris by Th. Morgand (5864-66). See also Karl Bruhns (and others), Alexander von Humboldt, eine wissenschaftliche Biogra phie (3 vols., 1872, with bibliography ; Eng. trans. by Lassell, Karl von Baer, Bulletin de l'acad. des sciences de St.-Petersbourg, 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, 186o), p. 97; J. Madler, Geschichte der Himmelskunde, ii. 113 ; J. C. Houzeau, Bibl. astronomique, u. 168. (A. M. C.; X.)