remarkable. The peak is so white that I could think it nothing but snow, and I was not a little surprised to hear from some learned men in Europe that it was thought to be anything else." Dr. Baikie's Niger expedition has now been two years in progress without attaining any noteworthy results. The expedition lost its first steamboat on the rocks not far from Rabba. Meanwhile all the world had learned through Dr. Barth's fifth volume, that the great western branch of the Niger, leading to Timbuk too, offered great difficulties to navigation. It is to be regretted that the other branch, the Benue, had not before been chosen for exploration. It is now proposed to direct attention to it. Baron Krafft, under the name of Hadj Skander, has set out to visit Timbuktoo. Extracts from his diary are promised

in Petermann.

The nautical director of Dr. Livingstone's expedition, Captain Bedingfield, has unexpectedly returned to England on account of a disagreement with Dr. Livingstone.

A journey from Natal to the river Limpopo is projected by two of the missionaries. The lower and middle parts of this stream, which is probably after the Zambesi, the most important of East Africa, are as yet quite unknown.

ONDARZA'S NEW MAP OF BOLIVIA.-Under the authority of the government of Bolivia, a new map of that country has recently been engraved and printed at the office of Messrs. J. H. Colton & Co., New York.

It is based upon the explorations and surveys of Col. Ondarza, Commandant Mujia, and Major Camacho, the former of whom has been engaged in the work for seventeen years, and has lately been supervising in our country this publication of his results.

The chart (which is issued in four sheets), is almost exclusively limited to the territory of Bolivia itself, but the surveys have extended toward the south into the Argentine confederation. Marginal maps are given of the La Plata and Amazon, from the respective surveys of Page and Herndon, and plans of the cities La Paz and Sucre. The depth and rapidity of the principal rivers are stated at numerous points, and the localities in which are found gold, silver, copper, or other metals are also carefully indicated.

We are informed that in the course of the surveys the elevations of more than three thousand points have been barometrically determined, many of them by repeated observations. One of the determinations affords the means of a comparison between an instrumental leveling extending between 13,000 and about 17,000 feet, and the result of an extended series of barometric observations. The elevations of several of the principal mountains are restored by these observations to the figures originally ascribed to them but very much reduced by Pentland in

his map. This is the case with Sorata and Illimani. The elevations which have been ascertained, and further scientific observations will be given in a volume soon to be published on the geography, statistics, &c. of the country.

A statistical table appended to the map gives the population of Bolivia as follows for 1858:

The map appears to have been executed with great care in its details, and is a very important contribution to the orography of South America.

D. C. G.

ART. XII.-Alexander von Humboldt.

ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT died at Berlin on Friday the sixth of May, having been ill with a severe catarrh accompanied by fever since the 17th of April.

Eulogy by Prof. AGASSIZ, before the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, delivered on the 24th of May.

Gentlemen:-I have been requested to present on this occasion some remarks upon the scientific career of HUMBOLDT. So few days have elapsed since the sad news reached our shore, that I have had no time to prepare an elaborate account of that wonderful career, and I am not myself in a condition in which I could have done it, being deprived of the use of my eyes, so that I had to rely upon the hand of a friend to make a few memoranda on a slip of paper, which might enable me to present my thoughts in a somewhat regular order. But I have, since the day we heard of his death, recalled all my recollections of him; and, if you will permit me, I will present them to you as they are now vividly in my mind.

HUMBOLDT ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT, as he always called himself, though he was christened with the names of FREDERICK HEINRICH ALEXANDER,-was born in 1769, on the 14th of Sep

tember,-in that memorable year which gave to the world those philosophers, warriors and statesmen who have changed the face of science and the condition of affairs in our century. It was in that year that Cuvier also and Schiller were born; and among the warriors and statesmen, Napoleon, the Duke of Wellington and Canning are children of 1769, and it is certainly a year of which we can say that its children revolutionized the world.

Of the early life of Humboldt I know nothing, and I find no records except that in his tenth year he lost his father, who had been a Major in the army during the seven years' war, and afterwards a chamberlain to the King of Prussia. But his mother took excellent care of him, and watched over his early education. The influence she had upon his life is evident from the fact that notwithstanding his yearning for the sight of foreign lands he did not begin to make active preparations for his trayels during her life time. In the winter of 1787-'88 he was sent to the University of Frankfort on the Oder, to study finance. He was to be a statesman; he was to enter high offices, for which there was a fair chance, owing to his noble birth and the patronage he could expect at the Court. He remained, however, but a short time there.

Not finding those studies to his taste, after a semestre's residence in the University we find him again at Berlin, and there in intimate friendship with Willdenow, then Professor of Botany, and who at that time possessed the greatest herbarium in exist

Botany was the first branch of natural science to which Humboldt paid especial attention. The next year he went to Göttingen,-being then a youth of twenty years; and here he studied natural history with Blumenbach; and thus had an opportunity of seeing the progress zoology was making in anticipation of the great movement by which Cuvier placed zoology on a new foundation. For it is an unquestionable fact that in first presenting a classification of the animal kingdom based upon a knowledge of its structure, Blumenbach in a measure antici pated Cuvier; though it is only by an exaggeration of what Blumenbach did that an unfair writer of later times has attempted to deprive Cuvier of the glory of having accomplished this object upon the broadest possible basis. From Göttingen he visited the Rhine, for the purpose of studying geology, and in particular the basaltic formations of the Seven Mountains. At Mayence he became acquainted with George Forster, who proposed to accompany him on a journey to England. You may imagine what an impression the conversation of that active, impetuous powerful man made upon the youthful Humboldt. They went to Belgium and to Holland, and thence to England, where Forster introduced him to Sir Joseph Banks. Thus the companions of Capt. Cook in his first and second voyages round the world,

SECOND SERIES, VOL. XXVIII, No. 82.-JULY, 1859.

who already venerable in years and eminent as promoters of physical science not yet established in the popular favor, were the early guides of Humboldt in his aspirations for scientific dis tinction. Yet Humboldt had a worldly career to accomplish. He was to be a statesman, and this required that he should go to the Academy of Commerce at Hamburg. He remained there five months, but he could endure it no longer, and he begged so hard that his mother allowed him to go to Freyberg and study Geology with Werner, with a view of obtaining a situation in the Administration of Mines. See what combinations of circumstances prepare him for his great career, as no other young man ever was prepared. At Freyberg he received the private instruction of Werner, the founder of Modern Geology, and he had as his fellow student no less a man than Leopold von Buch, then a youth, to whom, at a later period, Humboldt himself dedicated one of his works, inscribing it "to the greatest geologist," as he was till the day of his recent death. From Freyberg he made frequent excursions to the Hartz and Fitchtelgeberg and surrounding regions, and these excursions ended in the publication of a small work upon the Subterranean Flora of Freiberg, (Flora Subterranea Fribergensis), in which he described especially those Cryptogamous plants, or singular low and imperfect formations which occur in the deep mines. But here ends his period of pupilage.

In 1792 he was appointed an officer of the mines (Oberbergmeister.) He went to Beyreuth as Director of the operations in those mines belonging to the Frankish Provinces of Prussia. Yet he was always wandering in every direction, seeking for information and new subjects of study. He visited Vienna, and there heard of the discoveries of Galvani, with which he made himself familiar; went to Italy and Switzerland, where he became acquainted with the then celebrated Professors Jurine and Pictet, and with the illustrious Scarpa. He also went to Jena, formed an intimate acquaintance with Schiller and Goethe, and and also with Loder, with whom he studied anatomy. From that time he began to make investigations of his own, and these investigations were in a line which he has seldom approached since, being experiments in physiology. He turned his attention to the newly discovered power by which he tested the activity of organic substances; and it is plain, from his manner of treating the subject, that he leaned to the idea that the chemical process going on in the living body of animals furnished a clue to the phenomena of life, if it was not life itself. This may be inferred from the title of the book published in 1797-"Über die gereizte Muskel und Nerven-faser, mit Vermuthungen über den chemischen Process des Lebens, in Thieren und Pflanzen." In these explanations of the phenomena we have the sources of the first

impulses in a direction which has been so beneficial in advancing the true explanation of the secondary phenomena of life; but which, at the same time, in its exaggeration as it prevails now has degenerated into the materialism of modern investigators. In that period of all-embracing activity, he began to study Astronomy. His attention was called to it by Baron von Zach, who was a prominent astronomer, and at that time was actively engaged upon astronomical investigations in Germany. He showed Humboldt to what extent astronomy would be useful for him, in his travels, in determining the positions of places, the altitude of mountains, &c.

So prepared Humboldt now broods over his plans of foreign travel. He has published his work on the muscular and nervous fibre at the age of 28. He has lost his mother; and his mind is now inflamed with an ungovernable passion for the sight of foreign and especially tropical lands. He goes to Paris to make preparation by securing the best astronomical, meteorological and surveying instruments. Evidently he does not care where he shall go, for on a proposition of Lord Bristol to visit Egypt he agrees to it. The war prevents the execution of this plan, and he enters into negotiations to accompany the projected expedition of Capt. Baudin to Australia; but when Bonaparte, bent on the conquest of Egypt, started with a scientific expedition, Humboldt wishes to join it. He expects to be one of the scientific party, and to reach Egypt by way of Barbary. But all these plans failing, he goes to Spain with the view of exploring that country, and finding perhaps some means of joining the French expedition in Egypt from Spain. While in Madrid he is so well received at the Court-a young nobleman so well instructed has access everywhere-and he receives such encouragement from persons in high positions, that he turns his thoughts to an exploration of the Spanish provinces of America. He receives permission not only to visit them, but instructions are given to the officers of the colonies to receive him everywhere and give him all facilities, to permit him to transport his instruments, to make astronomical and other observations, and to col-. lect whatever he chooses; and all that only in consequence of the good impression he has made when he appeared there, with no other recommendation than that of a friend who happened to be at that time Danish Minister to the Court of Madrid. With these facilities offered to him, he sails in June, 1799, from Corunna, whence he reaches Teneriffe, makes short explorations of that island, ascending the peak, and sailing straightway to America, where he lands in Cumana, in the month of July, and employs the first year and a half in the exploration of the basin of the Orinoco and its connection with the Amazon. This was a journey of itself, and completed a work of scientific import