of the central plain of Castile; when becalmed on soundings, he examined the weeds collected on the lead, to gain new light for a theory of the colouring of plants; the haze that, for many hours, concealed from his sight the Peak of Teneriffe, induced ingenious speculations on the effects of atmosphere on vision. Even amid the dreary expanse of the ocean, this observant spirit was constantly awake; now analyzing the gases in the air-vessel of a flying-fish, now tracing the source of the phosphorescent gleams that shine from the gambols of a porpoise, and now silently watching the effect of a new firmament on the sense of wonder in his own mind. A swallow that alights in the rigging, gives the hint for a treatise on the migration of birds; and when the shadows of night encompass the vessel, and clouds obscure the stars, the indefatigable inquirer lingers on his watch to note "the dip of the needle."

But his investigation of nature was as universal as it was constant; and it is to this quality we chiefly ascribe its great results. In certain departments of science others have accomplished more; but in the discovery of truths resulting from a combination of all, Humboldt is pre-eminent. His great distinction is the comprehensive view he takes of the laws and facts of the physical world. No naturalist ever so united minute observation with the ability to generalize. The smallest trait of material form or action did not evade his curious eye; and the grandest hypothesis could not subdue his intelligent soul.

Cuvier looked more extensively into comparative anatomy, Herschel mapped out more elaborately the chart of the heavens, Davy tried, with more subtle and various tests, the composition of air, and Linnæus more fully nomenclated the genera of plants; but over these and every other field of natural science, Humboldt wandered with enthusiasm. He represents in science the genuine eclectic. He intuitively recognised the unity of nature, and understood the relative worth of details far better than those who were satisfied with grasping them in an isolated way. He studied celestial phenomena with reference to the history, the processes, and the condition of the earth, the sea in its influence upon the land, and vegetation as connected with the air. He sought for great central truths, and estimated particular facts according as they led to these. Hence both the range and the minuteness of his observation. While arranging his instruments on the top of a lofty mountain, to calculate its altitude, inclination, and relation to other terrestrial masses, he chronicles the peculiarities of a little hairy bee that creeps across his hand. The "thick, cylindrical trunks, and delicate, lace-like foliage of the treeferns in the humid clefts of the Cordilleras," are described by him with the same zest as the "strife of the liquid element with the solid land." He records both the singular fact that insect-life exists in the tubular holes of the glacier, and the sublime one that the age of the hills may be ascertained by "the

character of the sedimentary strata they have uplifted." He collected crania from aboriginal sepulchres to aid the study of human physiology and races, as well as rare flowers to illustrate botanical science; he examined the vast superficies of a steppe in Asia, as well as calculated the distance to which the howling of a species of wild monkey can be heard; he watched the conflict between a horse and the electric eel, with the same careful interest as he scrutinized the traits of a fossil. The luxuriance of tropical vegetation, the roll of the Pacific waves, the direction of an aerolite, the flora and geology of Mexico and Siberia, volcanoes and cataracts, the influence of temperature, eclipses, tides, thunderstorms, earthquakes-all natural events and agencies, from the grandest to the most common, attracted his studious notice. His activity of mind in this respect has seldom been equalled; and if we follow his career from the time when he entered himself a pupil of Werner, in the mining school at Freyburg, at the age of twenty-one, to his eightieth birthday, which recently occurred, we find him undertaking the most formidable journeys to realize this rare capacity and intense thirst for observation. Blest with an excellent physical constitution, and an adequate estate, he early devoted himself to scientific research, not only with ardour, but with calm resolution; and, in pursuit of this object, exposed himself to all vicissitudes of climate, to the greatest privations, to years of toil and danger, with the most

cheerful hardihood. From his first essay on the Basalts of the Rhine to his Cosmos, we trace the results of experiment, the data of positive knowledge, the fruits of patient observation. Whether

making the Continental tour in youth, giving his manhood to the exploration of the American Continent, or braving the frozen regions of Siberia in his old age, we find him always looking upon nature with the inquisitive, expectant, yet reverent eye of the philosopher, wearied with no minutiæ, overawed by no mystery, and baffled by no obstacle. If detained in a provincial town, he gathers the statisties of trade, population, and health. After a long day's excursion amid the solitudes of the desert, or in a radiant forest of the tropics, he devotes the evening to arranging for preservation the specimens he has gathered; and when the natural resources of a locality have been exhausted, he turns to the language of its inhabitants; and, by certain philological analogies, discovers their identity with some other and far distant race. The same assiduity which crowned the ornithological expeditions of Audubon with success, the same insight which enabled Franklin to trace the relations of electric phenomena, impelled and guided Humboldt throughout the realm of science. If Wordsworth has been justly regarded as the interpreter of the sentiment of nature, Humboldt may, with equal truth, be considered the interpreter of her laws. He looked upon the material universe as Shakespeare looked upon

human life, not with the partial glance of a selfish theorist, nor the careless one of an inconsiderate spectator, but with the large, sympathetic, keen, and rational vision of a man who would recognise eternal principles and universal laws, who would reunite the links of a vast chain and detect the wisdom concealed in such consummate power.

This intense habitude of observation, by means of which Humboldt gathered so many important natural facts, opened so many avenues to discovery, and afforded so many invaluable hints to the whole. scientific fraternity, yielded him chiefly materials for induction and reference. He recorded them for the benefit of the world, in elaborate works descriptive of the countries he had explored as revealed by the light of science. But it would be unjust to his claims, were we to recognise him only as an industrious and bountiful purveyor in the realms of knowledge, like Sir Joseph Banks. The value of his researches is immeasurably enhanced by the reflective process to which he submitted them; and he excelled many of his brilliant cotemporaries in this regard, from the fact that his power of combination equalled, if it did not surpass, that of analysis. Heretofore the universe had been examined, as it were, piecemeal. One inquirer gave his life to geological examinations, another to botanical studies. Arago experimented on the polarization of light; Priestley made chemical discoveries; Buffon wrote a history of the animal kingdom; while Humboldt,