HUMBOLDT, hilm'bOlt (Ger. boom'bolt), Friedrich Heinrich Alexander, BARON VON, German traveler and naturalist: b. Berlin, 14 Sept. 1769; d. there, 6 May 1859. His father was chamberlain to the king of Prussia. He studied at the universities of Frankfort-on-the Oder, Berlin and Gottingen, and in 1790 traveled along the Rhine to Holland, France and Eng land. This journey gave rise to his 'Observa tions on the Basalt on the Rhine,' published in 1793. In 1791 he studied mining and botany at the mining school in Freiberg, where his acquirements, mining attractive and instructive con versation, his wit and goodness of heart gained him universal esteem and affection. In 1792 he was appointed assessor in the mining and smelting department, and soon afterward re moved to Bayreuth as overseer of the mines in Franconia. Here he introduced many improve ments, among which was the establishment of the mining school at Steben; he likewise made valuable galvanic experiments, the results of which were published in 1796, in two volumes. But in 1797 he gave up this office from a desire to travel. Owing to the disturbed state of the Continent, however, it was not easy for him to carry out his project. For some time he resided in various parts of Germany, particu larly at Jena, where he became intimately ac quainted with Goethe and Schiller. In 1797 he went, in company with his brother Karl Wil helm, a Prussian minister of state, to Paris, where he became acquainted with Aime Bon pland, a pupil of the medical school and botanic' garden in Paris. He then went to Madrid, and having obtained permission from the Crown to travel through the Spanish colonies in America, immediately sent for his friend Bonpland, and sailed with him from Corunna. They landed at Teneriffe, where they ascended to the crater in Pico, in order to analyze the atmospheric air, and to make geological observations. In July they arrived at Cumana in South America. For five years they were occupied incessantly in traveling through tracts of the earth rich in all that could interest the scientific observer, and till then never scientifically described. They explored the regions of South America watered by the Orinoco and the upper part of the Rio Negro, fully tracing the connection between the Orinoco and the Amazon; then returned to the coast and sailed for Cuba where they remained some months. Leaving Cuba in 1801, they re turned to the South American continent, sailed up the Magdalena as far as they could, pur sued their route by land to Popayan and Quito, and thence as far south as Lima, crossing the Andes no fewer than five times in the course of their jcurney, and, besides other mountain as cents, climbing Chimborazo (23 June 1802) to an elevation of 19,300 feet, being the highest point of the Andes then reached by man; from Lima they sailed to Guayaquil, and thence to Acapulco, Mexico (January 1803). Some months were spent in examining the City of Mexico and the surrounding country, and in a visit to the United States; and in January 1804, they set sail for Europe, taking Cuba again on their way. On 3 Aug. 1804, they arrived at Bordeaux, bringing with them, as the result of their labors, an immense mass of fresh knowledge in geography, geology, clima tology, meteorology, botany, zoology and every branch of natural science, as well as in eth nology and political statistics. Humboldt selected Paris as his residence, no other city offering so many aids to scientific study, or having so many distinguished savants, and re mained there till March 1805, arranging his collections and manuscripts, and experimenting with Gay-Lussac, in the laboratory of the poly technical school, on the chemical elements of the atmosphere. He was accompanied by Gay-Lus sac, who exerted a lasting influence on his chemical studies, in a visit to Rome and Naples, and also by Von Buch on his return through Switzerland to Berlin, where, after an absence of nine years, he arrived in November 1805. As the condition of Germany made it imprac ticable to publish there his large scientific works, he was permitted by King Frederick William III, as one of the eight foreign members of the French Academy of Sciences, to remain in Paris, which was his residence, excepting brief periods of absence, from 1808 to 1827. There appeared his
1810 his elder brother resigned the direction of educational affairs in Prussia to become Am bassador at Vienna, the former post was urged upon Humboldt by Hardenberg; but he declined it, preferring his independence. He had also already decided upon a second scientific expe dition, through Upper India, the region of the Himalaya and Tibet, in preparation for which he was diligently learning the Persian language. The political events between the Peace of Paris and the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle gave him occasion for several excursions. He went to England in the suite of the king of Prussia in 1814; again in company with Arago, when his brother was appointed Ambassador to Lon don; and again in 1818 with Valenciennes from Paris to London, and from London to Aix-la Chapelle, where the king and Hardenberg wished to have him near them during the Con gress. He also accompanied the king to the Congress of Verona, and thence to Rome and Naples; and in 1827, at the solicitation of the monarch, gave up his residence in Paris, and returned by way of London and Hamburg to Berlin, where in the following winter he deliv ered a series of public lectures on the cosmos. Under the ,patronage of the Tsar Nicholas he undertook in 1829 an expedition to northern Asia, to explore the Ural and Altai mountains, the Chinese Dsoungaria and the Caspian Sea. In this expedition he was accompanied by Eh renberg and Gustav Rose. Their course lay through Moscow, Kazan and the ruins of Old Bulghari to Ekaterinburg, the gold mines of the Ural, the platinum mines of Nijni Taghilsk, Bogoslovsk, Verhoturye and Tobolsk, to Bar flan!, Schlangenberg and Ustkamengorsk, in the Altai region, and thence to the Chinese frontier. From the snow-covered Altai Mountains the travelers turned toward the southern part of the Ural Range, and traversed the great steppe of Ischim, passed through Petropavlovsk, Omsk, Miask, the salt lake of Ilmen, Zlatousk, Taganay, Orenburg, Uralsk (the principal seat of the Uralian Cossacks), Saratov Dubovka, Tzaritzin and the Moravian settlement of Sarepta, to Astrakhan and the Caspian Sea. They visited the Kalmuck chief Sered Jaab, and returned by Voronesh, Tula and Moscow. The entire journey of over 1%000 miles was made in nine months; its results are given in Rose's