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Updated: June 10, 2025
Still, even in this sphere, the tendency is in Humboldt's direction; the modern spirit tends more and more to establish a sense of native diversity between our European bent and the Semitic and to eliminate, even in our religion, certain elements as purely and excessively Semitic, and therefore, in right, not combinable with our European nature, not assimilable by it.
Possibilities, I said, not probabilities. Yet even the faint glimmer of so alluring a possibility brings home to one with vividness the truth of Humboldt's perspicuous observation that meteorology can be properly comprehended only when studied in connection with the companion sciences. There are no isolated phenomena in nature.
During this day I was particularly struck with a remark of Humboldt's, who often alludes to "the thin vapour which, without changing the transparency of the air, renders its tints more harmonious, and softens its effects." This is an appearance which I have never observed in the temperate zones.
"From the time of the ancients to the middle of the last century the phenomena of earthquakes were observed and described upon countless occasions," he said. "Yet even Humboldt's 'Cosmos', published as late as 1844, which summarized the then existing knowledge on the subject, did not suggest that earthquakes should be studied like other mechanical motions.
For in the dead stillness of mid-day, when not only the deer, and the agoutis, and the armadillos, but the birds and insects likewise, are all asleep, the crack of a falling branch was all that struck my ear, as I tried in vain to verify the truth of that beautiful passage of Humboldt's true, doubtless, in other forests, or for ears more acute than mine.
Spix's Brazilian Fishes. Second Vacation Trip. Sketch of Work during University Year. Extracts from the Journal of Mr. Dinkel. Home Letters. Hope of joining Humboldt's Asiatic Expedition. Diploma of Philosophy. Completion of First Part of the Spix Fishes. Letter concerning it from Cuvier.
As late as Humboldt's visit, in 1802, when remarking upon the "unnatural modes of communication" by which, through painful delays, the immense treasures of the New World passed from Acapulco, Guayaquil, and Lima, to Spain, he says: "These will soon cease whenever an active government, willing to protect commerce, shall construct a good road from Panama to Porto Bello.
Humboldt's description is somewhat different: he calls it the "vine-leaved fucus;" says, "the leaves are circular, of a tender green, and indented at the edges, stem brown, and three inches long." What I saw of this weed rather agrees with that described by Humboldt the leaves were shaped like the vine leaf, and of a rusty-green colour.
Here, with a serving-man as the real master of his house, with no wife, no child, the author of "Kosmos" did much of his best work. "I was often with my father in Humboldt's house during his lifetime," said my German hostess to me, after my return from these visits.
"It is intellectual culture which contributes most to diversify the features." Humboldt's Personal Narrative, vol. iii., p. 228. Flint's Geography, vol. i., p. 124. "The enemy is assailed with treachery, and, if conquered, treated with revolting cruelty." "A fiendish ferocity assumes full sway." Conquest of Canada, vol. i., p. 206.
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