AUTHOR’S PREFACE,
TO THE SECOND AND THIRD EDITIONS.
The twofold object of this work,—an anxious endeavour to heighten the enjoyment of nature by vivid representations, and at the same time to increase, according to the present state of science, the reader’s insight into the harmonious co-operation of forces,—was pointed out by me in the preface to the first edition, nearly half a century ago. I there alluded to the several obstacles which oppose themselves to the æsthetic treatment of the grand scenes of nature. The combination of a literary and a purely scientific aim, the desire to engage the imagination, and at the same time to enrich life with new ideas by the increase of knowledge, render the due arrangement of the separate parts, and what is required as unity of composition, difficult of attainment. Notwithstanding these disadvantages, however, the public have continued to receive with indulgent partiality, my imperfect performance.
The second edition of the Views of Nature, was published by me in Paris in 1826. Two papers were then added, one, “An inquiry into the structure and mode of action of Volcanos in different regions of the earth;” the other, “Vital Force, or The Rhodian Genius.” Schiller, in remembrance of his youthful medical studies, loved to converse with me, during my long stay at Jena, on physiological subjects. The inquiries in which I was then engaged, in preparing my work “On the condition of the fibres of muscles and nerves, when irritated by contact with substances chemically opposed,” often imparted a more serious direction to our conversation. It was at this period that I wrote the little allegory on Vital Force, called The Rhodian Genius. The predilection which Schiller entertained for this piece, and which he admitted into his periodical, Die Horen, gave me courage to introduce it here. My brother, in a letter which has recently been published (William von Humboldt’s Letters to a Female Friend, vol. ii. p. 39), delicately alludes to the subject, but at the same time very justly adds; “The development of a physiological idea is exclusively the object of the essay. Such semi-poetical clothings of grave truths were more in vogue at the time this was written than they are at present.”
In my eightieth year I have still the gratification of completing a third edition of my work, and entirely remoulding it to meet the demands of the age. Almost all the scientific illustrations are either enlarged or replaced by new and more comprehensive ones.
I have indulged a hope of stimulating the study of nature, by compressing into the smallest possible compass, the numerous results of careful investigation on a variety of interesting subjects, with a view of shewing the importance of accurate numerical data, and the necessity of comparing them with each other, as well as to check the dogmatic smattering and fashionable scepticism which have too long prevailed in the so-called higher circles of society.
My expedition into northern Asia (to the Ural, the Altai, and the shores of the Caspian Sea) in the year 1829, with Ehrenberg and Gustavus Rose, at the command of the Emperor of Russia, took place between the second and third editions of my work. This expedition has essentially contributed to the enlargement of my views in all that concerns the formation of the earth’s surface, the direction of mountain-chains, the connexion of the Steppes and Deserts, and the geographical distribution of plants according to ascertained influences of temperature. The ignorance which has so long existed respecting the two great snow-covered mountain-chains, the Thian-schan and the Kuen-lün, situated between the Altai and Himalaya, has (owing to the injudicious neglect of Chinese sources of information) obscured the geography of Central Asia, and propagated fancies instead of facts, in works of extensive circulation. Within the last few months the hypsometric comparisons of the culminating points of both continents have unexpectedly received important and corrective illustration, of which I am the first to avail myself in the following pages. The measurement (now divested of former errors) of the altitude of the two mountains, Sorata and Illimani, in the eastern chain of the Andes of Bolivia, has not yet, with certainty, restored the Chimborazo to its ancient pre-eminence among the snowy mountains of the new world. In the Himalaya the recent barometric measurement of the Kinchinjinga (26,438 Parisian, or 28,178 English feet) places it next in height to the Dhawalagiri, which has also been trigonometrically measured with greater accuracy.
To preserve uniformity with the two former editions of the Views of Nature, the calculations of temperature, unless where the contrary is stated, are given according to the eighty degrees thermometer of Reamur. The lineal measurement is the old French, in which the toise is equivalent to six Parisian feet. The miles are geographical, fifteen to a degree of the equator. The longitudes are calculated from the first meridian of the Parisian Observatory.
Berlin, March, 1849.