DREAMS OF TRAVEL.

15

duties, was spent in each other's society. What conversations they must have had of that eventful journey round the world, and what schemes they planned for the future! The active imagination of the young student, fresh from the reading of wonderful adventures in the New World, the chronicles of Vasco Nuñes de Balboa, Pizarro, and the rest of those grand old Spaniards, was fired with the thought of making new voyages and discoveries, which should cast the old ones for ever in the shade. Voyages in the long swell of tropic seas, under constellations that never shine to European eyes: sailing along the dim outlines of the western continent, dark with the long belt of the pathless forests, or ragged with the peaks of inland mountains, capped with eternal snow or up great rivers a thousand leagues in length, on, on, into the heart of the New World, the primeval solitudes of Nature! The best hours of a man's life are those that he wastes in dreams, and happy is he who can make them true, as Humboldt did.

But this was recreation rather than study, and as he went to the University to study, a graver mood soon succeeded. The University was rich in scientific collections, none of which were neglected by the earnest young student. When not attending the lectures of Blumenbach and Heyne, which were generally given in their own houses, he pursued his researches and experiments in the University Museum. To-day in the laboratory among its vials and crucibles, testing acids and gases, or in the botanic gardens, theorizing over tropic plants and trees: to-morrow in the anatomical room, surrounded by casts and models; and many a long night in the observatory unwinding the dances of the stars.

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TOO LATE TO WRITE OF HIS YOUTH.

William meanwhile was deep in the philosophy of Kant, and the esthetic speculations of Goethe and Schiller Occasionally the brothers strolled through the city, arm in arm. Led on by their vagrant fancies they would cross into the market-place to watch the fountain splashing its broad basin; lounge on the bridge and look at the boats below; or quickening their steps they would hasten to the ramparts, and saunter up and down the shaded avenue of lime trees. If the day was beautiful, they wandered out of the city gates into the fertile valleys beyond, and perhaps clomb the Hainberg before they returned.

So passed their university life. It ended in the autumn of 1789.

It is to be regretted that we have no fuller account of the youth of Humboldt, for if there is anything interesting in the life of a great man like him, it is a minute relation of his youth. We want a living record of his sayings and doings in the ductile period of his genius: even his sports, if we can recover nothing better, will give us some insight into his character. We have presented, as the reader will perceive, the merest skeleton of the first twenty years of Humboldt's life. He may clothe it with flesh, if he pleases, we can do no more. Nor can others at this late day. It is easy to write the biographies of those who die young, they leave so many behind who recollect all that we desire to know; but when a man of genius lives to the age of ninety, as Humboldt did, and leaves no auto-biography, the sweetest time of his life is lost,

"In the dark backward and abysm of Time."

CHAPTER II.

STUDIES AND DREAMS.

IN the summer of 1789, Campe, who had been for some years canon and councillor in Brunswick, deter mined to make a trip to Paris, to be present at the funeral of French despotism, and it was deemed advisable for William to accompany him. They arrived in Paris on the 3d of August. Not being fortunate enough while there to follow Tyranny to its grave, Campe revenged his disappointment by doing what most authors would have done in his place-he wrote patriotic letters in favor of the revolution, and attracted much attention. Alexander remained behind, probably at Gottingen, pursuing his favorite studies, and constantly corresponding with Forster, who was then at Mayence, where he was councillor and librarian of the University. The plan of the great transatlantic journey, formed a year or two before, was laid aside for a time, in order that he might study what was then a new science-Geology. He was deep in the writings of the then celebrated geologist, Abraham Gottlob Werner.

In his peculiar department of science Werner was un doubtedly the most remarkable man of his time. The son of a poor iron-worker, he commenced his career as a

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WERNER, THE GEOLOGIST.

mineralogist in the Mineralogical Academy of Freyberg, before he was out of his teens. From thence he went to Leipsic, where he busied himself in defining the external character of minerals, experimenting, and eventually, in 1774, publishing a work on the subject. Up to that time the descriptive language of mineralogists had been too indefinite to convey accurate information, or to enable those of different countries to understand each other. After publishing this work, which was long a manual, Werner returned to the Mineralogical Academy at Frey. berg, and took charge of its noble cabinet of natural history. He lectured on mineralogy, and the art of mining, rendering the latter intelligible to all, by his simplification of the machinery, and his drawings and figures. His cabinet of minerals was unrivalled for its completeness and arrangement, numbering one hundred thousand specimens. He wrote largely in the scientific reviews of that day, the reading of which probably drew the attention of Humboldt towards him. He contributed more to extend the practical knowledge of mineralogy than any one who preceded him, although his method of classifying minerals according to their external characteristics, instead of their internal essences, if we may use the phrase, was rather empirical than scientific. geology, too, was shallow. His observations were made on the limited portion of the earth's surface in his own vicinity, and the succession of rock-formations which he found there, extended, he reasoned, over the whole surface of the globe. A wider range of observation would have shown him, that at a little distance from Freyberg, many of his supposed universal rock-formations were not to be found, and that other rocks supply their place.

His

HUMBOLDT'S FIRST BOOK.

19

But as he was obstinate in his theory he remained ignorant of this fact. He contended for the aqueous forma tion of almost every kind of rock, the Neptunic theory as it was called, maintaining that even pumice stone was the production of water. He would not visit, however, the volcanic districts of Italy, and the ancient volcanoes of France, fearing perhaps that he might be led to aban don his first theory-a common fault of scientific men. Still, considering the time in which he lived, and the little that was then known of the true formation of the earth, Werner was entitled to much credit, and is still honorably mentioned as a pioneer in science. He raised the art of mining into the science of geology.

Such was Abraham Gottlob Werner, over whose multifarious writings Alexander was now poring. That they made a deep impression on him may be gathered from the fact that we find him, in company with his friend Forster, in the spring of 1790, making a mineralogical journey. Their route was to the Rhine, through Holland, and to England. While in England Forster introduced him to Sir Joseph Banks, the famous President of the Royal Society. Humboldt studied the rockformations of the countries through which he passed, especially the basaltic rocks of the Rhine, and embodied the result in a small work which was published in that year. It was entitled, "Mineralogical Observations on some Basaltic Formations of the Rhine," and was intended to 'support the Neptunic theory of Werner. Forster collected materials for his magnum opus, "The Views of the Lower Rhine." In the meantime William, who had returned from Paris, vibrated between Erfurt, where he and the beautiful daughter of the president,