Alexander von Humboldt
Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt (September 14, 1769 – May 6, 1859) was a Prussian geographer, naturalist and explorer.
Humboldt's quantitative work on botanical geography laid the foundation for the field of biogeography. Between 1799 and 1804, Humboldt travelled extensively in Latin America, exploring and describing it for the first time from a modern scientific point of view. His description of the journey was written up and published in an enormous set of volumes over 21 years. He was one of the first to propose that the lands bordering the Atlantic Ocean were once joined (South America and Africa in particular). Later, his five-volume work, Kosmos (1845), attempted to unify the various branches of scientific knowledge.
Humboldt was born in Berlin. His father, Alexander Georg von Humboldt, belonged to a prominent Pomeranian family; a major in the Prussian Army, he was rewarded for his services in the Seven Years' War with the post of Royal Chamberlain. In 1766, he married Maria Elizabeth Colomb, the widow of Baron von Hollwede, and they had two sons. The money of Baron von Holwede, left to his former wife, was instrumental in funding Alexander's explorations, contributing more than 70% of Alexander's income.
Due to his juvenile penchant for collecting and labelling plants, shells and insects, Alexander received the playful title of "the little apothecary". His father died in 1779, after which his mother saw to his education.
Marked for a political career, he studied finance for six months at the University of Frankfurt; a year later, on April 25, 1789, he matriculated at Göttingen, then known for the lectures of C. G. Heyne and J. F. Blumenbach. His vast and varied interests were by this time fully developed, and during a vacation in 1789, he made a scientific excursion up the Rhine and produced the treatise Mineralogische Beobachtungen über einige Basalte am Rhein (Brunswick, 1790) (Mineralogic Observations on Several Basalts on the River Rhine).
Humboldt's passion for travel was confirmed by a friendship formed at Göttingen with Georg Forster, Heyne's son-in-law and the companion of Captain James Cook on Cook's second voyage.
Thereafter, his talents were devoted to the purpose of preparing himself as a scientific explorer. With this emphasis, he studied commerce and foreign languages at Hamburg, geology at Technische Universität Bergakademie Freiberg under A. G. Werner, anatomy at Jena under J. C. Loder and astronomy and the use of scientific instruments under F. X. von Zach and J. G. Köhler.
The death of his mother, on November 19, 1796, set him free to follow the bent of his genius, and to fulfil his long-cherished dream of travel. On the postponement of Captain Nicolas Baudin's proposed voyage of circumnavigation, which he had been officially invited to accompany, Humboldt left Paris for Marseille with Aimé Bonpland, the designated botanist of the frustrated expedition, hoping to join Napoleon Bonaparte in Egypt. The two travellers eventually found their way to Madrid, where the unexpected patronage of the minister Don Mariano Luis de Urquijo convinced them to make Spanish America the scene of their explorations.
Armed with powerful recommendations from the King of Spain, they sailed in the Pizarro from A Coruña, on June 5, 1799, stopped six days on the island of Tenerife to climb the volcano Teide, and landed at Cumaná, Venezuela, on July 16. He proceeded with Bonpland to Caracas where he would climb the Avila mount with Andres Bello. In February 1800, Humboldt and Bonpland left the coast with the purpose of exploring the course of the Orinoco River. This trip lasted four months and covered 1,725 miles of wild and largely uninhabited country.
Around March 19, 1800, von Humboldt and Bonpland discovered and captured some electric eels. They both received potentially dangerous electric shocks during their investigations.
On November 24, the two friends set sail for Cuba where they met fellow botanist and plant collector John Fraser, and after a stay of some months they regained the mainland at Cartagena, Colombia. Ascending the swollen stream of the Magdalena River and crossing the frozen ridges of the Cordillera Real, they reached Quito on January 6, 1802, after a tedious and difficult journey. Their stay there was marked by the ascent of Pichincha and an attempt on Chimborazo. Humboldt and his party reached an altitude of 19,286 feet, a world record at the time.
The journey concluded with an expedition to the sources of the Amazon en route for Lima, Peru. At Callao, Humboldt observed the transit of Mercury on November 9, and studied the fertilizing properties of guano, the subsequent introduction of which into Europe was due mainly to his writings. A tempestuous sea-voyage brought them to Mexico, where they resided for a year, travelling to different cities.
Next, Humboldt made a short visit to the United States, staying in the White House as a guest of President Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson, a scientist himself, was delighted to have Humboldt as a guest and the two held numerous intense discussions on scientific matters. After six weeks, Humboldt set sail for Europe from the mouth of the Delaware and landed at Bordeaux on August 3, 1804.
The editing and publication of the encyclopedic mass of scientific, political and archaeological material that had been collected by him during his absence from Europe was now Humboldt's most urgent desire. He finally, in the spring of 1808, settled in Paris with the purpose of securing the scientific cooperation required for bringing his great work through the press. This colossal task, which he at first hoped would occupy but two years, eventually cost him twenty-one, and even then it remained incomplete. In these early years in Paris, he shared accommodation and a laboratory with his former rival, and now friend, Joseph-Louis Gay-Lussac, both working together on the analysis of gases and the composition of the atmosphere.
Humboldt viewed nature holistically, and tried to explain natural phenomena without the appeal to religious dogma. He believed in the central importance of observation, and as a consequence had amassed a vast array of the most sophisticated scientific instruments then available. Each had its own velvet lined box and was the most accurate and portable of its time; nothing quantifiable escaped measurement. According to Humboldt, everything should be measured with the finest and most modern instruments and sophisticated techniques available, for that collected data was the basis of all scientific understanding. This quantitative methodology would become known as "Humboldtian science."
Humboldt wrote "Nature herself is sublimely eloquent. The stars as they sparkle in firmament fill us with delight and ecstasy, and yet they all move in orbit marked out with mathematical precision."
Humboldt dedicated large parts of his work to describing the conditions of slaves, Indians and society in general. He often showed his disgust for the slavery and inhumane conditions in which Indians and others were treated and he often criticized the colonial policies.
Humboldt was one of the most famous men in Europe. The acclaimed American painter Rembrandt Peale painted him during his European stay, between 1808 and 1810, as one of the most prominent figures in Europe at the time.
Alexander von Humboldt
Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt (September 14, 1769 – May 6, 1859) was a Prussian geographer, naturalist and explorer.
Humboldt's quantitative work on botanical geography laid the foundation for the field of biogeography. Between 1799 and 1804, Humboldt travelled extensively in Latin America, exploring and describing it for the first time from a modern scientific point of view. His description of the journey was written up and published in an enormous set of volumes over 21 years. He was one of the first to propose that the lands bordering the Atlantic Ocean were once joined (South America and Africa in particular). Later, his five-volume work, Kosmos (1845), attempted to unify the various branches of scientific knowledge.
Humboldt was born in Berlin. His father, Alexander Georg von Humboldt, belonged to a prominent Pomeranian family; a major in the Prussian Army, he was rewarded for his services in the Seven Years' War with the post of Royal Chamberlain. In 1766, he married Maria Elizabeth Colomb, the widow of Baron von Hollwede, and they had two sons. The money of Baron von Holwede, left to his former wife, was instrumental in funding Alexander's explorations, contributing more than 70% of Alexander's income.
Due to his juvenile penchant for collecting and labelling plants, shells and insects, Alexander received the playful title of "the little apothecary". His father died in 1779, after which his mother saw to his education.
Marked for a political career, he studied finance for six months at the University of Frankfurt; a year later, on April 25, 1789, he matriculated at Göttingen, then known for the lectures of C. G. Heyne and J. F. Blumenbach. His vast and varied interests were by this time fully developed, and during a vacation in 1789, he made a scientific excursion up the Rhine and produced the treatise Mineralogische Beobachtungen über einige Basalte am Rhein (Brunswick, 1790) (Mineralogic Observations on Several Basalts on the River Rhine).
Humboldt's passion for travel was confirmed by a friendship formed at Göttingen with Georg Forster, Heyne's son-in-law and the companion of Captain James Cook on Cook's second voyage.
Thereafter, his talents were devoted to the purpose of preparing himself as a scientific explorer. With this emphasis, he studied commerce and foreign languages at Hamburg, geology at Technische Universität Bergakademie Freiberg under A. G. Werner, anatomy at Jena under J. C. Loder and astronomy and the use of scientific instruments under F. X. von Zach and J. G. Köhler.
The death of his mother, on November 19, 1796, set him free to follow the bent of his genius, and to fulfil his long-cherished dream of travel. On the postponement of Captain Nicolas Baudin's proposed voyage of circumnavigation, which he had been officially invited to accompany, Humboldt left Paris for Marseille with Aimé Bonpland, the designated botanist of the frustrated expedition, hoping to join Napoleon Bonaparte in Egypt. The two travellers eventually found their way to Madrid, where the unexpected patronage of the minister Don Mariano Luis de Urquijo convinced them to make Spanish America the scene of their explorations.
Armed with powerful recommendations from the King of Spain, they sailed in the Pizarro from A Coruña, on June 5, 1799, stopped six days on the island of Tenerife to climb the volcano Teide, and landed at Cumaná, Venezuela, on July 16. He proceeded with Bonpland to Caracas where he would climb the Avila mount with Andres Bello. In February 1800, Humboldt and Bonpland left the coast with the purpose of exploring the course of the Orinoco River. This trip lasted four months and covered 1,725 miles of wild and largely uninhabited country.
Around March 19, 1800, von Humboldt and Bonpland discovered and captured some electric eels. They both received potentially dangerous electric shocks during their investigations.
On November 24, the two friends set sail for Cuba where they met fellow botanist and plant collector John Fraser, and after a stay of some months they regained the mainland at Cartagena, Colombia. Ascending the swollen stream of the Magdalena River and crossing the frozen ridges of the Cordillera Real, they reached Quito on January 6, 1802, after a tedious and difficult journey. Their stay there was marked by the ascent of Pichincha and an attempt on Chimborazo. Humboldt and his party reached an altitude of 19,286 feet, a world record at the time.
The journey concluded with an expedition to the sources of the Amazon en route for Lima, Peru. At Callao, Humboldt observed the transit of Mercury on November 9, and studied the fertilizing properties of guano, the subsequent introduction of which into Europe was due mainly to his writings. A tempestuous sea-voyage brought them to Mexico, where they resided for a year, travelling to different cities.
Next, Humboldt made a short visit to the United States, staying in the White House as a guest of President Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson, a scientist himself, was delighted to have Humboldt as a guest and the two held numerous intense discussions on scientific matters. After six weeks, Humboldt set sail for Europe from the mouth of the Delaware and landed at Bordeaux on August 3, 1804.
The editing and publication of the encyclopedic mass of scientific, political and archaeological material that had been collected by him during his absence from Europe was now Humboldt's most urgent desire. He finally, in the spring of 1808, settled in Paris with the purpose of securing the scientific cooperation required for bringing his great work through the press. This colossal task, which he at first hoped would occupy but two years, eventually cost him twenty-one, and even then it remained incomplete. In these early years in Paris, he shared accommodation and a laboratory with his former rival, and now friend, Joseph-Louis Gay-Lussac, both working together on the analysis of gases and the composition of the atmosphere.
Humboldt viewed nature holistically, and tried to explain natural phenomena without the appeal to religious dogma. He believed in the central importance of observation, and as a consequence had amassed a vast array of the most sophisticated scientific instruments then available. Each had its own velvet lined box and was the most accurate and portable of its time; nothing quantifiable escaped measurement. According to Humboldt, everything should be measured with the finest and most modern instruments and sophisticated techniques available, for that collected data was the basis of all scientific understanding. This quantitative methodology would become known as "Humboldtian science."
Humboldt wrote "Nature herself is sublimely eloquent. The stars as they sparkle in firmament fill us with delight and ecstasy, and yet they all move in orbit marked out with mathematical precision."
Humboldt dedicated large parts of his work to describing the conditions of slaves, Indians and society in general. He often showed his disgust for the slavery and inhumane conditions in which Indians and others were treated and he often criticized the colonial policies.
Humboldt was one of the most famous men in Europe. The acclaimed American painter Rembrandt Peale painted him during his European stay, between 1808 and 1810, as one of the most prominent figures in Europe at the time.