Chapter III: Introduction (2)

[footnote continued] The actual height of the Swiss mountains fluctuates, according to Eschman's observations, as much as 25 English feet, owing to the varying thickness of the stratum of snow that covers the summits. Chimborazo is, according to my trigonometrical measurements, 21,421 feet (see Humboldt, 'Recueil d'Obs. Astr.', tome i., p. 73), and Dhawalagiri, 28,074 feet. As there is a difference of 445 feet between the determinations of Blake and Webb, the elevation assigned to the Dhawalagiri (or white mountain, from the Sanscrit 'dhawala', white, and 'giri', mountain) can not be received with the same confidence as that of the Jawahir, 25,749 feet, since the latter rests on a complete trigonomietrical measurement (see Herbert and Hodgson in the 'Asiat. Res.', vol. xiv., p. 189, and Suppl. to 'Encycl. Brit.', vol. iv., p. 643). I have shown elsewhere ('Ann. des Sciences Naturelles', Mars, 1825) that the height of the Dhawalagiri (28,074 feet) depends on several elements that have not been ascertained with certainty, as azimuths and latitudes (Humboldt, 'Asie Centrale', t. iii., p. 282). It has been believed, but without foundation, that in the Tartaric chain, north of Thibet, opposite to the chain of Kuen-lun, there are several snowy summits, whose elevation is about 30,000 English feet (almost twice that of Mont Blanc), or, at any rate, 29,000 feet (see Captain Alexander Gerard's and John Gerard's 'Journey to the Boorendo Pass', 1840, vol. i., p. 143 and 311). Chimborazo is spoken of in the text only as 'one' of the highest summits of the chain of the Andes; for in the year 1827, the learned and highly-gifted traveler, Pentland, in his memorable expedition to Upper Peru (Bolivia), measured the elevation of two mountains situated to the east of Lake Titicaca, viz., the Sorata, 25,200 feet, and the Illimani, 24,000 feet, both greatly exceeding the height of Chimborazo, which is only 21,421 feet, and being nearly equal in elevation to the Jawahir, which is the highest mountain in the Himalaya that has as yet been accurately measured. Thus Mont Blanc is 5646 feet below Chimborazo; Chimborazo, 3779 feet below the Sorata; the Sorata, 549 feet below the Jawahir, and probably about 2880 feet below the Dhawalagiri. According to a new measurement of the Illimani, by Pentland, in 1838, the elevation of this mountain is given at 23,868 feet, varying only 133 feet from the measurement taken in 1827. The elevations have been given in this note with minute exactness, as erroneous numbers have been introduced into many maps and tables recently published, owing to incorrect reductions of the measurements. [In the preceding note, taken from those appended to the Introduction in the French translation, rewritten by Humboldt himself, the measurements are given in meters, but these have been converted into English feet, for the greater convenience of the general reader.] -- 'Tr.'

But although the mountains of India greatly surpass the Cordilleras of South America by their astonishing elevation (which, after being long contested, has at last been confirmed by accurate measurements), they can not, from their geographical position, present the same inexhaustible variety of phenomena by which the latter are characterized. The impression produced by the grander aspects of nature dies not depend exclusively on height. The chain of the Himalaya is placed far beyond the limits of the torrid zone, and scarcely is a solitary palm-tree to be found in the beautiful valleys of Kumaoun and Garhwal.*

[Footnote] *The absence of palms and tree-ferns on the temperate slopes of the Himalaya is shown in Don's 'Flora Nepalensis', 1825, and in the remarkable series of lithographs of Wallich's 'Flora Indica', whose catalogue contains the enormous number of 7683 Himalaya species, almost all phanerogamic plants, which have as yet been but imperfectly classified. In Nepaul (lat. 26 1/2 degrees to 27 1/4 degrees) there has hitherto been observed only one species of palm, Chamaerops martiana, Wall. ('Plantae Asiat.', lib. iii., p. 5,211), which is found at the height of 5250 English feet above the level of the sea, in the shady valley of Bunipa. The magnificent tree-fern, Alsophila brunoniana, Wall. (of which a stem 48 feet long has been in the possession of the British Museum since 1831), does not grow in Nepaul, but is found on the mountains of Silhet, to the northwest of Calcutta, in lat. 24 degrees 50 minutes. The Nepaul fern, Paranema cyathoides, Don, formerly known as Sphaeroptera barbata, Wall. ('Plantae Asiat.', lib. i., p. 42, 48), is indeed, nearly related to Cyathea, a species of which I have seen in the South American Missions of Caripe, measuring 33 feet in height; this is not, however, properly speaking a tree.

On the southern slope of the ancient Paropamisus, in the latitudes of 28 degrees and 34 degrees, nature no longer displays the same abundance of tree-ferns and arborescent grasses, heliconias and orchideous plants, which in tropical p 30 regions are to be found even on the highest plateaux of the mountains. On the slope of the Himalaya, under the shade of the Deodora and the broad-leaved oak, peculiar to these Indian Alps, the rocks of granite and of mica schist are covered with vegetable forms almost similar to those which characterize Europe and Northern Asia. The species are not identical, but closely analogous in aspect and physiognomy, as, marsh parnassia, and the prickly species of Ribes.* The chain of the Himalaya is also wanting in the imposing phenomena of volcanoes, which in the Andes and in the Indian Archipelago often reveal to the inhabitants, under the most terrific forms, the existence of the forces pervading the interior of our planet.

[footnote] *Ribes nubicola, R. glaciale, R. grossularia. The species which compose the vegetation of the Himalaya are four pines, notwithstanding the assertion of the ancients regarding Eastern Asia (Strabo, lib. 11, p. 510, Cas.), twenty-five oaks, four birches, two chestnuts, seven maples, twelve willows, fourteen roses, three species of strawberry, seven species of Alpine roses ('rhododendra'), one of which attains a height of 20 feet, and many other northern genera. Large white apes, having black faces, inhabit the wild chestnut-tree of Kashmir, which grows to a height of 100 feet, in lat. 33 degrees (see Carl von Hugel's 'Kaschmir', 1840, 2d pt. 249). Among the Coniferae, we find the Pinus deodwara, or deodara (in Sanscrit, 'dewa-daru', the timber of the gods), which is nearly allied to Pinus cedrus. Near the limit of perpetual snow flourish the large and showy flowers of the Gentiana venusta, G. Moorcroftiana, Swertia purpurescens, S. speciosa, Parnassia armata, P. nubicola, Poenia Emode, Tulipa stellata; and besides varieties of European genera peculiar to these Indian mountains, true European species as Leontodon taraxacum, Prunella vulgaris, Galium aparine, and Thlaspi arvense. The heath mentioned by Saunders, in Turner's 'Travels', and which had been confounded with Calluna vulgaris, is an Andromeda, a fact of the greatest importance in the geography of Asiatic plants. If I have made use, in this work, of the unphilosophical expressions of European genera, 'European' special, 'growing wild in Asia', etc., it has been in consequence of the old botanical language, which, instead of the idea of a large dissemination, or, rather, of the coexistence of organic productions, has dogmatically substituted the false hypothesis of a migration, which, from predilection for Europe, is further assumed to have been from west to east.

Moreover, on the southern declivity of the Himalaya, where the ascending current deposits the exhalations rising from a vigorous Indian vegetation, the region of perpetual snow begins at an elevation of 11,000 or 12,000 feet above the level of the sea,* thus setting a limit to the development of organic p 31 life in a zone that is nearly 3000 feet lower than that to which it attains in the equinoctial region of the Cordilleras.

[footnote] *On the southern declivity of the Himalaya, the limit of perpetual snow is 12,978 feet above the level of the sea; on the northern declivity, or, rather, on the peaks which rise above the Thibet, or Tartarian plateau, this limit is at 16,625 feet from 30 1/2 degrees to 32 degrees of latitude, while at the equator, in the Andes of Quito, it is 15,790 feet. Such is the result I have deduced from the combination of numerous data furnished by Webb, Gerard, Herbert, and Moorcroft. (See my two memoirs on the mountains of India, in 1816 and 1820, in the 'Ann. de Chimie et de Physique', t. iii., p. 303; t. xiv., p. 6, 22, 50.) The greater elevation to which the limit of perpetual snow recedes on the Tartarian declivity is owing to the radiation of heat from the neighboring elevated plains, to the purity of the atmosphere, and to the infrequent formation of snow in an air which is both very cold and very dry. (Humboldt, 'Asie Centrale', t. iii., p. 281-326.) My opinion on the difference of height of the snow-line on the two sides of the Himalaya has the high authority of Colebrooke in its favor. He wrote to me in June, 1824, as follows: "I also find, from the data in my possession, that the elevation of the line of perpetual snow is 13,000 feet. On the southern declivity, and at latitude 31 degrees, Webb's measurements give me 13,500 feet, consequently 500 feet more than the height deduced from Captain Hodgson's observations. Gerard's measurements fully confirm your opinion that the line of snow is higher on the northern than on the southern side." It was not until the present year (1840) that we obtained the complete and collected journal of the brothers Gerard, published under the supervision of Mr. Lloyd. ('Narrative of a Journey from Cawnpoor to the Boorendo Pass, in the Himalaya, by Captain Alexander Gerard and John Gerard, edited by George Lloyd', vol. i., p. 292, 311, 320, 327 and 341.) Many interesting details regarding some localities may be found in the narrative of 'A Visit to the Shatool, for the Purpose of determining the Line of Perpetual Snow on the southern face of the Himalaya, in August', 1822. Unfortunately, however, these travelers always confound the elevation at which sporadic snow falls with the maximum of the height that the snow-line attains on the Thibetian plateau. Captain Gerard distinguishes between the summits that rise in the middle of the plateau, where he states the elevation of the snow-line to be between 18,000 and 19,000 feet, and the northern slopes of the chain of the Himalaya, which border on the defile of the Sutledge, and can radiate but little heat, owing to the deep ravines with which they are intersected. The elevation of the village of Tangno is given at only 9300 feet, while that of the plateau surrounding the sacred lake of Maqasa is 17,000 feet. Captain Gerard finds the snow-line 500 feet lower on the northern slopes, where the chain of the Himalaya is broken through, than toward the southern declivities facing Hindostan, and he there estimates the line of perpetual snow at 15,000 feet. The most striking differences are presented between the vegetation on the Thibetian plateau and that characteristic of the southern slopes of the Himalaya. On the latter the cultivation of grain is arrested at 9974 feet and even there the corn has often to be cut when the blades are still green. The extreme limit of forests of tall oaks and deodars is 11,960 feet; that of dwarf birches, 12,983 feet. On the plains, Captain Gerard found pastures up to the height of 17,000 feet; the cereals will grow at 14,100 feet, or even at 18,540 feet; birches with tall stems at 14,100 feet, and copse or brush wood applicable for fuel is found at an elevation of upward of 17,000 feet, that is to say, 1280 feet and above the lower limits of the snow-line at the equator, in the province of Quito. It is very desirable that the 'mean' elevation of the Thibetian plateau, which I have estimated at only about 8200 feet between the Himalaya and the Kuen-lun, and the difference in the height of the line of perpetual snow on the southern and on the northern slopes of the Himalaya, should be again investigated by travelers who are accustomed to judge of the general conformation of the land. Hitherto simple calculations have too often been confounded with actual measurements, and the elevations of isolated summits with that of the surrounding plateau. (Compare Carl Zimmerman's excellent Hypsometrical Remarks in his 'Geographischen Analyse der Karte von Inner Asien', 1841, s. 98.) Lord draws attention to the difference presented by the two faces of the Himalaya and those of the Alpine chain of Hindoo-Coosh, with respect to the limits of the snow-line. "The latter chain," he says, "has the table-land to the south, in consequence of which the snow-line is higher on the southern side, contrary to what we find to be the case with respect to the Himalaya, which is bounded on the south by sheltered plains, as Hindoo-Coosh is on the north." It must, however, be admitted that the hypsometrical data on which these statements are based require a critical revision with regard to several of their details; but still they suffice to establish the main fact, that the remarkable configuration of the land in Central Asia affords man all that is essential to the maintenance of life, as habitation, food, and fuel, at an elevation above the level of the sea which in almost all other parts of the globe is covered with perpetual ice. We must except the very dry districts of Bolivia, where snow is so rarely met with, and where Pentland (in 1838) fixed the snow-line at 15,667 feet, between 16 degrees and 17 3/4 degrees south latitude. The opinion that I had advanced regarding the difference in the snow-line on the two faces of the Himalaya has been most fully confirmed by the barometrical observations of Victor Jacquemont, who fell an early sacrifice to his noble and unwearied ardor. (See his 'Correspondance pendant son Voyage dans l'Inde', 1828 'a' 1832, liv. 23, p. 290, 296, 299.) "Perpetual snow," says Jacquemont, "descends lower on the southern than on the northern slopes of the Himalaya, and the limit constantly rises as we advance to the north of the chain bordering on India. On the Kionbrong, about 18,317 feet in elevation, according to Captain Gerard, I was still considerably below the limit of perpetual snow which I believe to be 19,690 feet in this part of Hindostan." (This estimate I consider much too high.)

[Footnote continues] The same traveler says, "To whatever height we rise on the southern declivity of the Himalaya, the climate retains the same character, and the same division of the seasons as in the plains of India; the summer solstice being every year marked by the same prevalence of rain which continues to fall without intermission until the autumnal equinox. But a new, a totally different climate begins at Kashmir, whose elevation I estimate to be 5350 feet, nearly equal to that of the cities of Mexico and Popayan" ('Correspond. de Jacquemont', t. ii., p. 58 et 74). The warm and humid air of the sea, as Leopold von Buch well observes, is carried by the monsoons across the plains of India to the skirts of the Himalaya which arrest its course, and hinder it from diverging to the Thibetian districts of Ladak and Lassa. Carl von Hugel estimates the elevation of the Valley of Kashmir above the level of the sea at 5818 feet, and bases his observation on the determination of the boiling point of water (see theil 11, s. 155, and 'Journal of Geog. Soc.', vol. vi., p. 215). In this valley, where the atmosphere is scarcely ever agitated by storms, and in 34 degrees 7 minutes lat., snow is found, several feet in thickness, from December to March.

p 32 But the countries bordering on the equator possess another advantage, to which sufficient attention has not hitherto been p 33 directed. This portion of the surface of the globe affords in the smallest space the greatest possible variety of impressions from the contemplation of nature. Among the colossal mountains of Cundinamarea, of Quito, and of Peru, furrowed by deep ravines, man is enabled to contemplate alike all the families of plants, and all the stars of the firmament. There, at a single glance, the eye surveys majestic palms, humid forests of bambusa, and the varied species of Musaceae, while above these forms of tropical vegetation appear oaks, medlars, the sweet-brier, and umbelliferous plants, as in our European homes. There as the traveler turns his eyes to the vault of heaven, a single glance embraces the constellation of the Southern Cross, the Magellanic clouds, and the guiding stars of the constellation of the Bear, as they circle round the arctic pole. There the depths of the earth and the vaults of heaven display all the richness of their forms and the variety of their phenomena. There the different climates are ranged the one above the other, stage by stage, like the vegetable zones, whose succession they limit; and there the observer may readily trace the laws that regulate the diminution of heat, as they stand indelibly inscribed on the rocky walls and abrupt declivities of the Cordilleras.

Not to weary the reader with the details of the phenomena which I long since endeavored graphically to represent,* I will here limit myself to the consideration of a few of the general results whose combination constitutes the 'physical delineation of the torrid zone.' That which, in the vagueness of our p 34 impressions, loses all distinctness of form, like some distant mountain shrouded from view by a vail of mist, is clearly revealed by the light of mind, which, by its scrutiny into the causes of phenomena, learns to resolve and analyze their different elements, assigning to each its individual character. Thus, in the sphere of natural investigation, as in poetry and painting, the delineation of that which appeals most strongly to the imagination, derives its collective interest from the vivid truthfulness with which the individual features are portrayed.

[footnote] *See, generally my 'Essai sur la Geographie des Plantes, et le Tableau physique des Regions Equinoxiales', 1807, p. 80-88. On the diurnal and nocturnal variations of temperature, see Plate 9 of my 'Atlas Geogr. et Phys. du Nouveau Continent'; and the Tables in my work, entitled 'De distributione Geographica Plantarum, secundum coeli tempriem, et altitudinem Montium', 1817, p. 90-116; the meteorological portion of my 'Asie Centrale', t. iii., p. 212, 224; and, finally, the more recent and far more exact exposition of the variations of temperature experienced in correspondence with the increase of altitude on the chain of the Andes, given in Boussingault's Memoir, 'Sur la profondeur a laquelle on trouve, sous les Tropiques, la couche de Temperature Invariable.' (Ann. de Chimie et de Physique, 1833, t. liii., p. 225-247.) This treatise contains the elevations of 128 points, included between the level of the sea and the declivity of the Antisana (17,900 feet), as well as the mean temperature of the atmosphere, which varies with the height between 81 degrees and 35 degrees F.

The regions of the torrid zone not only give rise to the most powerful impressions by their organic richness and their abundant fertility, but they likewise afford the inestimable advantage of revealing to man, by the uniformity of the variations of the atmosphere and the development of vital forces, and by the contrasts of climate and vegetation exhibited at the different elevations, the invariability of the laws that regulate the course of the heavenly bodies, reflected, as it were, in terrestrial phenomena. Let us dwell, then, for a few moments, on the proofs of this regularity, which is such that it may be submitted to numerical calculation and computation.

In the burning plains that rise but little above the level of the sea, reign the families of the banana, the cycas, and the palm, of which the number of species comprised in the flora of tropical regions has been so wonderfully increased in the present day by the zeal of botanical travelers. To these groups succeed, in the Alpine valleys, and the humid and shaded clefts on the slopes of the Cordilleras, the tree-ferns, whose thick cylindrical trunks and delicate lace-like foliage stand out in bold relief against the azure of the sky, and the cinchona, from which we derive the febrifuge bark. The medicinal strength of this bark is said to increase in proportion to the degree of moisture imparted to the foliage of the tree by the light mists which form the upper surface of the clouds resting over the plains. Every where around, the confines of the forest are encircled by broad bands of social plants, as the delicate aralia, the thibaudia, and the myrtle-leaved Andromeda, while the Alpine rose, the magnificent befaria, weaves a purple girdle round the spiry peaks. In the cold regions of the Paramos, which is continually exposed to the fury of storms and winds, we find that flowering shrubs and herbaceous plants, bearing large and variegated blossoms, have given place to monocotyledons, whose slender spikes constitute the sole covering of the soil. This is the zone of the p 35 grasses, one vast savannah extending over the immense mountain plateaux, and reflecting a yellow, almost golden tinge, to the slopes of the Cordilleras, on which graze the lama and the cattle domesticated by the European colonist. Where the naked trachyte rock pierces the grassy turf, and penetrates into those higher strata of air which are supposed to be less charged with carbonic acid, we meet only with plants of an inferior organization, as lichens, lecideas, and the brightly-colored, dust-like lepraria, scattered around in circular patches. Islets of fresh-fallen snow, varying in form and extent, arrest the last feeble traces of vegetable development, and to these succeeds the region of perpetual snow, whose elevation undergoes but little change, and may be easily determined. It is but rarely that the elastic forces at work within the interior of our globe have succeeded in breaking through the spiral domes, which, resplendent in the brightness of eternal snow, crown the summits of the Cordilleras; and even where these subterranean forces have opened a permanent communication with the atmosphere, through circular craters or long fissures, they rarely send forth currents of lava, but merely eject ignited scoriae, steam, sulphureted hydrogen gas, and jets of carbonic acid.

In the earliest stages of civilization, the grand and imposing spectacle presented to the minds of the inhabitants of the tropics could only awaken feelings of astonishment and awe. It might, perhaps, be supposed, as we have already said, that the periodical return of the same phenomena, and the uniform manner in which they arrange themselves in successive groups, would have enabled man more readily to attain to a knowledge of the laws of nature; but, as far as tradition and history guide us, we do not find that any application was made of the advantages presented by these favored regions. Recent researches have rendered it very doubtful whether the primitive seat of Hindoo civilization -- one of the most remarkable phases in the progress of mankind -- was actually within the tropics. Airyana Vaedjo, the ancient cradle of the Zend, was situated to the northwest of the upper Indus, and after the great religious schism, that is to say, after the separation of the Iranians from the Brahminical institution, the language that had previously been common to them and to the Hindoos assumed among the latter people (together with the literature, habits, and conditions of society) an individual form in the Magodha of Madhya Desa,* a district that is bounded by the great chain p 36 of Himalaya and the smaller range of the Vindhya.

[footnote] *See, on the Madhjadeca, properly so called, Lassen's excellent work, entitled 'Indische Alterthumskunde', bd. i., s. 92. The Chinese give the name of Mo-kie-thi to the southern Bahar, situated to the south of the Ganges (see 'Foe-Koue-Ki' by, 'Chy-Fa-Hian', 1836, p. 256). Djambu-dwipa is the name given to the whole of India; but the words also indicate one of the four Buddhist continents.

In less ancient times the Sanscrit language and civilization advanced toward the southeast, penetrating further within the torrid zone, as my brother Wilhelm von Humboldt has shown in his great work on the Kavi and other languages of analogous structure.*

[Footnote] *'Ueber die Kawi Sprache auf der Insel Java, nebst einer Einleitung uber die Verschiedenheit des menschlichen Sprachbaues und ihren Ein fluss auf die geistige Entwickelung des Menschengrshlecht's' von Wilhelm v. Humboldt, 1836, bd. i., s. 50519.

Notwithstanding the obstacles opposed in northern latitudes to the discovery of the laws of nature, owing to the excessive complication of phenomena, and the perpetual local variations and the distribution of organic forms, it is to the inhabitants of a small section of the temperate zone that the rest of mankind owe the earliest revelation of an intimate and rational acquaintance with the forces governing the physical world. Moreover, it is from the same zone (which is apparently more favorable to the progress of reason, the softening of manners, and the security of public liberty) that the germs of civilization have been carried to the regions of the tropics, as much by the migratory movement of races as by the establishment of colonies, differing widely in their institution from those of the Phoenicians or Greeks.

In speaking of the influence exercised by the succession of phenomena on the greater or lesser facility of recognizing the causes producing them, I have touched upon that important stage of our communion with the external world, when the enjoyment arising from a knowledge of the laws, and the mutual connection of phenomena, associates itself with the charm of a simple contemplation of nature. That which for a long time remains merely an object of vague intuition, by degrees acquires the certainty of positive truth; and man, as an immortal poet has said, in our own tongue -- Amid ceaseless change seeks the unchanging pole.*

[Footnote] *This verse occurs in a poem of Schiller, entitled 'Der Spaziergang' which first appeared in 1795, in the 'Horen.'

In order to trace to its primitive source the enjoyment derived from the exercise of thought, it is sufficient to cast a rapid glance on the earliest dawnings of the philosophy of nature, or of the ancient doctrine of the 'Cosmos.' We find even p 37 among the most savage nations (as my own travels enable me to attest) a certain vague, terror-stricken sense of the all-powerful unity of natural forces, and of the existence of an invisible, spiritual essence manifested in these forces, whether in unfolding the flower and maturing the fruit of the nutrient tree, in upheaving the soil of the forest, or in rending the clouds with the might of the storm. We may here trace the revelation of a bond of union, linking together the visible world and that higher spiritual world which escapes the grasp of the senses. The two become unconsciously blended together, developing in the mind of man, as a simple product of ideal conception and independently of the aid of observation, the first germ of a 'Philosophy of Nature.'

Among nations least advanced in civilization, the imagination revels in strange and fantastic creations, and, by its predilection for symbols, alike influences ideas and language. Instead of examining, men are led to conjecture, dogmatize, and interpret supposed facts that have never been observed. The inner world of thought and of feeling does not reflect the image of the external world in its primitive purity. That which in some regions of the earth manifested itself as the rudiments of natural philosophy, only to a small number of persons endowed with superior intelligence, appears in other regions, and among entire races of men, to be the result of mystic tendencies and instinctive intuitions. An intimate communion with nature, and the vivid and deep emotions thus awakened, are likewise the source from which have sprung the first impulses toward the worship and deification of the destroying and preserving forces of the universe. But by degrees, as man, after having passed through the different gradations of intellectual development, arrives at the free enjoyment of the regulating power of reflection, and learns by gradual progress, as it were, to separate the world of ideas from that of sensations, he no longer rests satisfied merely with a vague presentiment of the harmonious unity of natural forces; thought begins to fulfill its noble mission; and observation, aided by reason, endeavors to trace phenomena to the causes from which they spring.

The history of science teaches us the difficulties that have opposed the progress of this active spirit of inquiry. Inaccurate and imperfect observations have led, by false inductions, to the great number of physical views that have been perpetuated as popular prejudices among all classes of society. Thus by the side of a solid and scientific knowledge of natural phenomena there has been preserved a system of the pretended p 38 results of observation, which is so much the more difficult to shake, as it denies the validity of the facts by which it may be refuted. This empiricism, the melancholy heritage transmitted to us from former times, invariably contends for the truth of its axioms with the arrogance of a narrow-minded spirit. Physical philosophy, on the other hand, when based upon science, doubts because it seeks to investigate, distinguishes between that which is certain and that which is merely probable, and strives incessantly to perfect theory by extending the circle of observation.

This assemblage of imperfect dogmas, bequeathed by one age to another -- this physical philosophy, which is composed of popular prejudices -- is not only injurious because it perpetuates error with the obstinacy engendered by the evidence of ill-observed facts, but also because it hinders the mind from attaining to higher views of nature. Instead of seeking to discover the 'mean' or 'medium' point, around which oscillate, in apparent independence of forces, all the phenomena of the external world, this system delights in multiplying exceptions to the law, and seeks, amid phenomena and in organic forms for something beyond the marvel of a regular succession, and an internal and progressive development. Ever inclined to believe that the order of nature is disturbed, it refuses to recognize in the present any analogy with the past, and guided by its own varying hypotheses, seeks at hazard, either in the interior of the globe or in the regions of space, for the cause of these pretended perturbations.

It is the special object of the present work to combat those errors which derive their source from a vicious empiricism and from imperfect inductions. The higher enjoyments yielded by the study of nature depend upon the correctness and the depth of our views, and upon the extent of the subjects that may be comprehended in a single glance. Increased mental cultivation has given rise, in all classes of society, to an increased desire of embellishing life by augmenting the mass of ideas, and by multiplying means for their generalization; and this sentiment fully refutes the vague accusations advanced against the age in which we live, showing that other interests, besides the material wants of life, occupy the minds of men.

It is almost with reluctance that I am about to speak of a sentiment, which appears to arise from narrow-minded views, or from a certain weak and morbid sentimentality -- I allude to the 'fear' entertained by some persons, that nature may by degrees lose a portion of the charm and magic of her power, p 39 as we learn more and more how to unvail her secrets, comprehend the mechanism of the movements of the heavenly bodies, and estimate numerically the intensity of natural forces. It is true that, properly speaking, the forces of nature can only exercise a magical power over us as long as their action is shrouded in mystery and darkness, and does not admit of being classed among the conditions with which experience has made us acquainted. The effect of such a power is, therefore, to excite the imagination, but that, assuredly, is not the faculty of mind we would evoke to preside over the laborious and elaborate observations by which we strive to attain to a knowledge of the greatness and excellence of the laws of the universe.

The astronomer who, by the aid of the heliometer or a double-refracting prism,* determines the diameter of planetary bodies; who measures patiently year after year, the meridian altitude and the relative distances of stars, or who seeks a telescopic comet in a group of nebulae, does not feel his imagination more excited -- and this is the very guarantee of the precision of his labors -- than the botanist who counts the divisions of the calyx, or the number of stamens in a flower, or examines the connected or the separate teeth of the peristoma surrounding the capsule of a moss. Yet the multiplied angular measurements on the one hand, and the detail of organic relations on the other, alike aid in preparing the way for the attainment of higher views of the laws of the universe.

[Footnote] *Arago's ocular micrometer, a happy improvement upon Rochon's prismatic or double-refraction micrometer. See M. Mathieu's note in Delambre's 'Histoire de l'Astronomie au dix-huitieme Siecle', 1827.

We must not confound the disposition of mind in the observer at the time he is pursuing his labors, with the ulterior greatness of the views resulting from investigation and the exercise of thought. The physical philosopher measures with admirable sagacity the waves of light of unequal length which by interference mutually strengthen or destroy each other, even with respect to their chemical actions; the astronomer, armed with powerful telescopes, penetrates the regions of space, contemplates, on the extremest confines of our solar system, the satellites of Uranus, or decomposes faintly sparkling points into double stars differing in color. The botanist discovers the constancy of the gyratory motion of the chara in the greater number of vegetable cells, and recognizes in the genera and natural families of plants the intimate relations or organic forms. The vault of heaven, studded with nebulae p 40 and stars, and the rich vegetable mantle that covers the soil in the climate of palms, can not surely fail to produce on the minds of these laborious observers of nature an impression more imposing and more worthy of the majesty of creation than on those who are unaccustomed to investigate the great mutual relations of phenomena. I can not, therefore, agree with Burke when he says, "it is our ignorance of natural things that causes all our admiration and chiefly excites our passions."

While the illusion of the senses would make the stars stationary in the vault of heaven, Astronomy, by her aspiring labors, has assigned indefinite bounds to space; and if she have set limits to the great nebula to which our solar system belongs, it has only been to show us in those remote regions of our optic powers, islet on islet of scattered nebulae. The feeling of the sublime, so far as it arises from a contemplation of the distance of the stars, of their greatness and physical extent, reflects itself in the feeling of the infinite, which belongs to another sphere of ideas included in the domain of mind. The solemn and imposing impressions excited by this sentiment are owing to the combination of which we have spoken, and to the analogous character of the enjoyment and emotions awakened in us, whether we float on the surface of the great deep, stand on some lonely mountain summit enveloped in the half-transparent vapory vail of the atmosphere, or by the aid of powerful optical instruments scan the regions of space, and see the remote nebulous mass resolve itself into worlds of stars.

The mere accumulation of unconnected observations of details, devoid of generalization of ideas, may doubtlessly have tended to create and foster the deeply-rooted prejudice, that the study of the exact sciences must necessarily chill the feelings, and diminish the nobler enjoyments attendant upon a contemplation of nature. Those who still cherish such erroneous views in the present age, and amid the progress of public opinion, and the advancement of all branches of knowledge, fail in duly appreciating the value of every enlargement of the sphere of intellect, and the importance of the detail of isolated facts in leading us on to general results. The fear of sacrificing the free enjoyment of nature, under the influence of scientific reasoning, is often associated with an apprehension that every mind may not be capable of grasping the truths of the philosophy of nature. It is certainly true that in the midst of the universal fluctuation of phenomena and vital p 41 forces -- in that inextricable net-work of organisms by turns developed and destroyed -- each step that we make in the more intimate knowledge of nature leads us to the entrance of new labyrinths; but the excitement produced by a presentiment of discovery, the vague intuition of the mysteries to be unfolded, and the multiplicity of the paths before us, all tend to stimulate the exercise of thought in every stage of knowledge. The discovery of each separate law of nature leads to the establishment of some other more general law, or at least indicates to the intelligent observer its existence. Nature, as a celebrated physiologist* has defined it, and as the word was interpreted by the Greeks and Romans, is "that which is ever growing and ever unfolding itself in new forms."

[Footnote] *Carus, 'Von den Urtheilen des Knochen und Schalen Gerustes', 1828 6.

The series of organic types becomes extended or perfected in proportion as hitherto unknown regions are laid open to our view by the labors and researches of travelers and observers; as living organisms are compared with those which have disappeared in the great revolutions of our planet; and as microscopes are made more perfect, and are more extensively and efficiently employed. In the midst of this immense variety, and this periodic transformation of animal and vegetable productions, we see incessantly revealed the primordial mystery of all organic development, that same great problem of 'metamorphosis' which Göthe has treated with more than common sagacity, and to the solution of which man is urged by his desire of reducing vital forms to the smallest number of fundamental types. As men contemplate the riches of nature, and see the mass of observations incessantly increasing before them, they become impressed with the intimate conviction that the surface and the interior of the earth, the depths of the ocean, and the regions of air will still, when thousands and thousands of years have passed away, open to the scientific observer untrodden paths of discovery. The regret of Alexander can not be applied to the progress of observation and intelligence.*

[footnote] * Plut., in 'Vita Alex. Magni', cap. 7

General considerations, whether they treat of the agglomeration of matter in the heavenly bodies, or of the geographical distribution of terrestrial organisms, are not only in themselves more attractive than special studies, but they also afford superior advantages to those who are unable to devote much time to occupations of this nature. The different branches of the study of natural history are only accessible in certain positions of social life, and do not, at every season p 42 and in every climate, present like enjoyments. Thus, in the dreary regions of the north, man is deprived for a long period of the year of the spectacle presented by the activity of the productive forces of organic nature; and if the mind be directed to one sole class of objects, the most animated narratives of voyages in distant lands will fail to interest and attract us, if they do not touch upon the subjects to which we are most partial.

As the history of nations -- if it were always able to trace events to their true causes -- might solve the ever-recurring enigma of the oscillations experienced by the alternately progressive and retrograde movement of human society, so might also the physical description of the world, the science of the 'Cosmos', if it were grasped by a powerful intellect, and based upon a knowledge of all the results of discovery up to a given period, succeed in dispelling a portion of the contradictions which, at first sight, appear to arise from the complication or phenomena and the multitude of the perturbations simultaneously manifested.

The knowledge of the laws of nature, whether we can trace them in the alternate ebb and flow of the ocean, in the measured path of comets, or in the mutual attractions of multiple stars, alike increases our sense of the calm of nature, while the chimera so long cherished by the human mind in its early and intuitive contemplations, the belief in a "discord of the elements," seems gradually to vanish in proportion as science extends her empire. General views lead us habitually to consider each organism as a part of the entire creation, and to recognize in the plant or the animal not merely an isolated species, but a form linked in the chain of being to other forms either living or extinct. They aid us in comprehending the relations that exist between the most recent discoveries and those which have prepared the way for them. Although fixed to one point of space, we eagerly grasp at a knowledge of that which has been observed in different and far-distant regions. We delight in tracking the course of the bold mariner through seas of polar ice, or in following him to the summit of that volcano of the antarctic pole, whose fires may be seen from afar, even at mid-day. It is by an acquaintance with the results of distant voyages that we may learn to comprehend some of the marvels of terrestrial magnetism, and be thus led to appreciate the importance of the establishments of the numerous observatories which in the present day cover both hemispheres, and are designed to note p 43 the simultaneous occurrence of perturbations, and the frequency and duration of 'magnetic storms.'

Let me be permitted here to touch upon a few points connected with discoveries, whose importance can only be estimated by those who have devoted themselves to the study of the physical sciences generally. Examples chosen from among the phenomena to which special attention has been directed in recent times, will throw additional light upon the preceding considerations. Without a preliminary knowledge of the orbits of comets, we should be unable duly to appreciate the importance attached to the discovery of one of these bodies, whose elliptical orbit is included in the narrow limits of our solar system, and which has revealed the existence of an ethereal fluid, tending to diminish its centrifugal force and the period of its revolution.

The superficial half-knowledge, so characteristic of the present day, which leads to the introduction of vaguely comprehended scientific views into general conversation, also gives rise, under various forms, to the expression of alarm at the supposed danger of a collision between the celestial bodies, or of disturbance in the climatic relations of our globe. These phantoms of the imagination are so much the more injurious as they derive their source from dogmatic pretensions to true science. The history of the atmosphere, and of the annual variations of its temperature, extends already sufficiently far back to show the recurrence of slight disturbances in the mean temperature of any given place, and thus affords sufficient guarantee against the exaggerated apprehension of a general and progressive deterioration of the climates of Europe. Encke's comet, which is one of the three 'interior comets', completes its course in 1200 days, but from the form and position of its orbit it is as little dangerous to the earth as Halley's great comet, whose revolution is not completed in less than seventy-six years (and which appeared less brilliant in 1835 than it had done in 1759): the interior comet of Biela intersects the earth's orbit, it is true, but it can only approach our globe when its proximity to the sun coincides with our winter solstice.

The quantity of heat received by a planet, and whose unequal distribution determines the meteorological variations of its atmosphere, depends alike upon the light-engendering force of the sun; that is to say, upon the condition of its gaseous coverings, and upon the relative position of the planet and the central body.

p 44 There are variations, it is true, which, in obedience to the laws of universal gravitation, affect the form of the earth's orbit and the inclination of the ecliptic, that is, the angle which the axis of the earth makes with the plane of its orbit; but these periodical variations are so slow, and are restricted within such narrow limits, that their thermic effects would hardly be appreciable by our instruments in many thousands of years. The astronomical causes of a refrigeration of our globe, and of the diminution of moisture at its surface, and the nature and frequency of certain epidemics -- phenomena which are often discussed in the present day according to the benighted views of the Middle Ages -- ought to be considered as beyond the range of our experience in physics and chemistry.

Physical astronomy presents us with other phenomena, which can not be fully comprehended in all their vastness without a previous acquirement of general views regarding the forces that govern the universe. Such, for instance, are the innumerable double stars, or rather suns, which revolve round one common center of gravity, and thus reveal in distant worlds the existence of the Newtonian law; the larger or smaller number of spots upon the sun, that is to say, the openings formed through the luminous and opaque atmosphere surrounding the solid nucleus; and the regular appearance about the 13th of November and the 11th of August, of shooting stars, which probably form part of a belt of asteroids, intersecting the earth's orbit, and moving with planetary velocity.

Descending from the celestial regions to the earth, we would fain inquire into the relations that exist between the oscillations of the pendulum in air (the theory of which has been perfected by Bessel) and the density of our planet; and how the pendulum, acting the part of a plummet, can, to a certain extent, throw light upon the geological constitution of strata at great depths? By means of this instrument we are enabled to trace the striking analogy which exists between the formation of the granular rocks composing the lava currents ejected from active volcanoes, and those endogenous masses of granite, porphyry, and serpentine, which, issuing from the interior of the earth, have broken, as eruptive rocks, through the secondary strata, and modified them by contact, either in rendering them harder by the introduction of silex, or reducing them into dolomite, or, finally, by inducing within them the formation of crystals of the most varied composition. The elevation of sporadic islands, of p 45 domes of trachyte, and cones of basalt, by the elastic forces emanating from the fluid interior of our globe, has led one of the first geologists of the age, Leopold von Buch, to the theory of the elevation of continents, and of mountain chains generally. This action of subterranean forces in breaking through and elevating strata of sedimentary rocks, of which the coast of Chili, in consequence of a great earthquake, furnished a recent example, leads to the assumption that the pelagic shells found by M. Bonpland and myself on the ridge of the Andes, at an elevation of more than 15,000 English feet, may have been conveyed to so extraordinary a position, not by a rising of the ocean, but by the agency of volcanic forces capable of elevating into ridges the softened crust of the earth.

I apply the term 'volcanic', in the widest sense of the word, to every action exercised by the interior of a planet on its external crust. The surface of our globe, and that of the moon, manifest traces of this action, which in the former, at least, has varied during the course of ages. Those who are ignorant of the fact that the internal heat of the earth increases so rapidly with the increase of depth that granite is in a state of fusion about twenty or thirty geographical miles below the surface,* can not have a clear conception of the causes, and the simultaneous occurrence of volcanic eruptions at places widely removed from one another, or of the extent and intersection of 'circles of commotion' in earthquakes, or of the uniformity of temperature, and equality of chemical composition observed in thermal springs during a long course of years.

[Footnote] * The determinations usually given of the point of fusion are in general much too high for refracting substances. According to the very accurate researches of Mitscherlich, the melting point of granite can hardly exceed 2372 degrees F. [Dr. Mantell states in 'The Wonders of Geology', 1848, vol. i., p. 34, that this increase of temperature amounts to 1 degree of Fahrenheit for every fifty-four feet of vertical depth.] -- Tr.

The quantity of heat peculiar to a planet is, however, a matter of such importance -- being the result of its primitive condensation, and varying according to the nature and duration of the radiation -- that the study of this subject may throw some degree of light on the history of the atmosphere, and the distribution of the organic bodies imbedded in the solid crust of the earth. This study enables us to understand how a tropical temperature, independent of latitude (that is, of the distance from the poles), may have been produced by deep fissures remaining open, and exhaling heat from the interior p 46 of the globe, at a period when the earth's crust was still furrowed and rent, and only in a state of semi-solidification; and a primordial condition is thus revealed to us, in which the temperature of the atmosphere, and climates generally, were owing rather to a liberation of caloric and of different gaseous emanations (that is to say, rather to the energetic reaction of the interior on the exterior) than to the position of the earth with respect to the central body, the sun.

The cold regions of the earth contain, deposited in sedimentary strata, the products of tropical climates; thus, in the coal formations, we find the trunks of palms standing upright amid coniferae, tree ferns, goniatites, and fishes having rhomboidal osseous scales;* in the Jura limestone, colossal skeletons of crocodiles, plesiosauri, planulites, and stems of the cycadeae; in the chalk formations, small polythalmia and bryozoa, whose species still exist in our seas; in tripoli, or polishing slate, in the semi-opal and the farina-like opal or mountain meal, agglomerations of siliceous infusoria, which have been brought to light by the powerful microscope of Ehrenberg;** and, lastly, in transported soils, and in certain caves, the bones of elephants, hyenas, and lions.

[Footnote] *See the classical work on the fishes of the Old World by Agassiz, 'Rech. sur les Poissons Fossiles', 1834, vol. i., p. 38; vol. ii., p. 3, 28, 34, App., p. 6. The whole genus of Amblypterus, Ag., nearly allied to Palaeoniscus (called also Palaeothrissum), lies buried beneath the Jura formations in the old carboniferous strata. Scales which, in some fishes, as in the family of Lepidoides (order of Ganoides), are formed like teeth, and covered in certain parts with enamel, belong, after the Placoides, to the oldest forms of fossil fishes; their living representatives are still found in two genera, the 'Bichir' of the Nile and Senegal, and the 'Lepidosteus' of the Ohio.

[Footnote] **[The 'polishing slate' of Bilin is stated by M. Ehrenberg to form a 'series' of strata fourteen feet in thickness, entirely made up of the siliceous shells of 'Gaillonellae', of such extreme minuteness that a cubic inch of the stone contains forty-one thousand millions! The 'Bergmehl' ('mountain meal' or 'fossil farina') of San Fiora, in Tuscany, is one mass of animalculites. See the interesting work of G. A. Mantell, 'On the Medals of Creation', vol. i., p. 233.] -- Tr.

An intimate acquaintance with the physical phenomena of the universe leads us to regard the products of warm latitudes that are thus found in a fossil condition in northern regions not merely as incentives to barren curiosity, but as subjects awakening deep reflection, and opening new sources of study.