other aeriform. Contrasts and analogies which these envelopes -- the sea
and the atmosphere -- present in their conditions of aggregation and
electricity, and in their relations of currents and temperature. Depths of
the ocean and of the atmosphere, the shoals of which constitute our
highlands and mountain chains. The degree of heat at the surface of the sea
in different latitudes and in the lower strata. Tendency of the sea to
maintain the temperature of the surface in the strata nearest to the
atmosphere, in consequence of the mobility of its particles and the
alteration in its density. Maximum of the density of salt water. Position
of the zones of the hottest water, and of those having the greatest saline
contents. Thermic influence of the lower polar current and the counter
currents in the straits of the sea -- p. 302-304 and notes. General level
of the sea, and permanent local disturbances of equilibrium; the periodic
disturbances manifested as tides. Oceanic currents; the equatorial or
rotation current, the Atlantic warm Gulf Stream, and the further impulse
which it receives; the cold Peruvian stream in the eastern portion of the
Pacific Ocean of the southern zone. Temperature of shoals. The universal
diffusion of life in the ocean. Influence of the small submarine sylvan
region at the bottom of beds of rooted algae, or on far-extending floating
layers of fucus -- p. 302-311 and notes.
h. The gaseous envelope of our planet, the atmosphere. Chemical
composition of the atmosphere, its transparency, its polarization, pressure,
temperature, humidity, and electric tension. Relation of oxygen to
nitrogen; amount of carbonic acid; carbureted hydrogen; ammoniacal vapors.
Miamata. Regular (horary) changes in the pressure of the atmosphere. Mean
barometrical height at the level of the sea in different zones of the earth.
Isobarometrical curves. Barometrical windroses. Law of rotation of the
winds, and its importance with reference to the knowledge of many
meteorological processes. Land and sea winds, trade winds and monsoons --
p. 311-317. Climatic distribution of heat in the atmosphere, as the effect
of the relative position of transparent and opaque masses (fluid and solid
superficial area), and of the hypsometrical configuration of continents.
Curvature of the isothermal lines in a horizontal and vertical direction, on
the earth's surface and in the superimposed strata of air. Convexity and
concavity of the isothermal lines. Mean heat of the year, seasons, months,
and days. Enumeration of the causes which produce disturbances in the form
of isothermal lines, i.e., their deviation from the position of the
geographical parallels. Isochimenal and isotheral lines are the lines of
equal winter and summer heat. Causes which raise or lower the temperature.
Radiation of the earth's surface, according to its inclination, color,
density, dryness, and chemical composition. The form of the cloud which
announces what is passing in the upper strata of the atmosphere is the image
of the strongly radiating ground projected on a hot summer sky. Contrast
between an insular or littoral climate, such as is experienced by all
deeply-articulated continents, and the climate of the interior of large
tracts of land. East and west coasts. Difference between the southern and
northern hemispheres. Thermal scales of
p 22
cultivated plants, going down from the vanilla, cacoa, and musaceae, by
citrous and olives, and to vines yielding potable wines. The influence
which these scales exercise on the geographical distribution of cultivated
plants. The favorable ripening and the immaturity of fruits are essentially
influenced by the difference in the action of direct or scattered light in a
clear sky or in one overcast with mist. General summary of the causes which
yield a more genial climate to the greater portion of Europe considered as
the western peninsula of Asia -- p. 326. Determination of the changes in
the mean annual and summer temperature, which correspond to one degree of
geographical latitude. Equality of the mean temperature of a mountain
station, and of the polar distance of any point lying at the level of the
sea. Decrease of temperature with the decrease in elevation. Limits of
perpetual snow, and the fluctuations in these limits. Causes of disturbance
in the regularity of the phenomenon. Northern and southern chains of the
Himalaya; habitability of the elevated plateaux of Thibet -- p. 331.
Quantity of moisture in the atmosphere, according to the hours of the day,
the seasons of the year, degrees of latitude, and elevation. Greatest
dryness of the atmosphere observed in Northern Asia, between the river
districts of the Irtysch and the Obi. Dew, a consequence of radiation.
Quantity of rain -- p. 335. Electricity of the atmosphere, and disturbance
of the electric tension. Geographical distribution of storms.
Predettermination of atmospheric changes. The most important climatic
disturbances can not be traced, at the place of observation, to any local
cause, but are rather the consequence of some occurrence by which the
equilibrium in the atmospheric currents has been destroyed at some
considerable distance -- p. 335-339.
i. Physical geography is not limited to elementary inorganic terrestrial
life, but, elevated to a higher point of view, it embraces the sphere of
organic life, and the numerous gradations of its typical development.
Animal and vegetable life. General diffusion of life in the sea and on the
land; microscopic vital forms discovered in the polar ice no less than in
the depths of the ocean within the tropics. Extension imparted to the
horizon of life by Ehrenberg's discoveries. Estimation of the mass (volume)
of animal and vegetable organisms -- p. 339-346. Geography of plants and
animals. Migrations of organisms in the ovum, or by means of organs capable
of spontaneous motion. Spheres of distribution depending on climatic
relations. Regions of vegetation, and classification of the genera of
animals. Isolated and social living plants and animals. The character of
flora and fauna is not determined so much by the predominance of separate
families, in certain parallels of latitude, as by the highly complicated
relations of the association of many families, and the relative numerical
value of their species. The forms of natural families which increase or
decrease from the equator to the poles. Investigations into the numerical
relation existing in different districts of the earth between each one of
the large families to the whole mass of phanerogamia -- p. 346-351. The
human race considered according to its physical gradations, and the
geographical distribution of its simultaneously occurring types. Races and
varieties. All races of men are forms of one single species. Unity of the
human race. Languages considered as the intellectual creations of mankind,
or as portions of the history of mental activity, manifest a character of
nationality, although certain historical occurrences have been the means of
diffusing idioms of the same family of languages among nations of wholly
different descent -- p. 351-359.
In This material taken from pages 23 to 56
COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1
by Alexander von Humboldt
Translated by E C Otte
from the 1858 Harper & Brothers edition of Cosmos, volume 1
--------------------------------------------------
p 23
INTRODUCTION.
----------------
REFLECTIONS ON THE DIFFERENT DEGREES OF ENJOYMENT PRESENTED TO US BY THE
ASPECT OF NATURE AND THE STUDY OF HER LAWS.
In attempting, after a long absence from my native country, to develop the
physical phenomena of the globe, and the simultaneous action of the forces
that pervade the regions of space, I experience a two-fold cause of anxiety.
The subject before me is so inexhaustible and so varied, that I fear either
to fall into the superficiality of the encyclopedist, or to weary the mind
of my reader by aphorisms consisting of mere generalities clothed in dry and
dogmatical forms. Undue conciseness often checks the flow of expression,
while diffuseness is alike detrimental to a clear and precise exposition of
our ideas. Nature is a free domain, and the profound conceptions and
enjoyments she awakens within us can only be vividly delineated by thought
clothed in exalted forms of speech, worthy of bearing witness to the majesty
and greatness of the creation.
In considering the study of physical phenomena, not merely in its bearings
on the material wants of life, but in its general influence on the
intellectual advancement of mankind, we find its noblest and most important
result to be a knowledge of the chain of connection, by which all natural
forces are linked together, and made mutually dependent upon each other; and
it is the perception of these relations that exalts our views and ennobles
our enjoyments. Such a result can, however, only be reaped as the fruit of
observation and intellect, combined with the spirit of the age, in which are
reflected all the varied phases of thought. He who can trace, through
by-gone times, the stream of our knowledge to its primitive source, will
learn from history how, for thousands of years, man has labored, amid the
ever-recurring changes of form, to recognize the invariability of natural
laws, and has thus, by the force of mind, gradually subdued a great portion
of the physical world to his dominion. In interrogating the history of the
past, we trace the mysterious course of ideas yielding the first glimmering
perception of the same image of
p 24
a Cosmos, or harmoniously ordered whole, which, dimly shadowed forth to the
human mind in the primitive ages of the world, is now fully revealed to the
maturer intellect of mankind as the result of long and laborious observation.
Each of these epochs of the contemplation of the external world -- the
earliest dawn of thought and the advanced stage of civilization -- has its
own source of enjoyment. In the former, this enjoyment, in accordance with
the simplicity of the primitive ages, flowed from an intuitive feeling of
the order that was proclaimed by the invariable and successive reappearance
of the heavenly bodies, and by the progressive development of organized
beings; while in the latter, this sense of enjoyment springs from a definite
knowledge of the phenomena of nature. When man began to interrogate nature,
and, not content with observing, learned to evoke phenomena under definite
conditions; when once he sought to collect and record facts, in order that
the fruit of his labors might aid investigation after his own brief
existence had passed away, the 'philosophy of Nature' cast aside the vague
and poetic garb in which she had been enveloped from her origin, and, having
assumed a severer aspect, she now weighs the value of observations, and
substitutes induction and reasoning for conjecture and assumption. The
dogmas of former ages survive now only in the superstitions of the people
and the prejudices of the ignorant, or are perpetuated in a few systems,
which, conscious of their weakness, shroud themselves in a vail of mystery.
We may also trace the same primitive intuitions in languages exuberant in
figurative expressions; and a few of the best chosen symbols engendered by
the happy inspiration of the earliest ages, having by degrees lost their
vagueness through a better mode of interpretation, are still preserved among
our scientific terms.
Nature considered 'rationally', that is to say, submitted to the process of
thought, is a unity in diversity of phenomena; a harmony blending together
all created things, however dissimilar in form and attributes; one great
whole ([Greek words]) animated by the breath of life. The most important
result of a rational inquiry into nature is, therefore, to establish the
unity and harmony of this stupendous mass of force and matter, to determine
with impartial justice what is due to the discoveries of the past and to
those of the present, and to analyze the individual parts of natural
phenomena without succumbing beneath the weight of the whole. Thus, and
thus alone, is it permitted to man, while mindful of the high destiny
p 25
of his race, to comprehend nature, to lift the vail that shrouds her
phenomena, and as it were, submit the results of observation to the test of
reason and of intellect.
In reflecting upon the different degrees of enjoyment presented to us in the
contemplation of nature, we find that the first place must be assigned to a
sensation, which is wholly independent of an intimate acquaintance with the
physical phenomena presented to our view, or of the peculiar character of
the region surrounding us. In the uniform plain bounded only by a distant
horizon, where the lowly heather, the cistus, or waving grasses, deck the
soil; on the ocean shore, where the waves, softly rippling over the beach,
leave a track, green with the weeds of the sea; every where, the mind is
penetrated by the same sense of the grandeur and vast expanse of nature,
revealing to the soul, by a mysterious inspiration, the existence of laws
that regulate the forces of the universe. Mere communion with nature, mere
contact with the free air, exercise a soothing yet strengthening influence
on the wearied spirit, calm the storm of passion, and soften the heart when
shaken by sorrow to its inmost depths. Every where, in every region of the
globe, in every stage of intellectual culture, the same sources of enjoyment
are alike vouchsafed to man. The earnest and solemn thoughts awakened by a
communion with nature intuitively arise from a presentiment of the order and
harmony pervading the whole universe, and from the contrast we draw between
the narrow limits of our own existence and the image of infinity revealed on
every side, whether we look upward to the starry vault of heaven, scan the
far-stretching plain before us, or seek to trace the dim horizon across the
vast expanse of ocean.
The contemplation of the individual characteristics of the landscape, and of
the conformation of the land in any definite region of the earth, gives rise
to a different source of enjoyment, awakening impressions that are more
vivid, better defined, and more congenial to certain phases of the mind,
than those of which we have already spoken. At one time the heart is
stirred by a sense of the grandeur of the face of nature, by the strife of
the elements, or, as in Northern Asia by the aspect of the dreary barrenness
of the far-stretching steppes; at another time, softer emotions are excited
by the contemplation of rich harvests wrested by the hand of man from the
wild fertility of nature, or by the sight of human habitations raised beside
some wild and foaming torrent. Here I regard less the degree of intensity
than the difference existing in the
p 26
various sensations that derive their charm and permanence from the peculiar
character of the scene.
If I might be allowed to abandon myself to the recollections of my own
distant travels, I would instance, among the most striking scenes of nature,
the calm sublimity of a tropical night, when the stars, not sparkling, as in
our northern skies, shed their soft and planetary light over the
gently-heaving ocean; or I would recall the deep valleys of the Cordilleras,
where the tall and slender palms pierce the leafy vail around them, and
waving on high their feathery and arrow-like branches for, as it were, "a
forest above a forest;"* or I would describe the summit of the Peak of
Teneriffe, when a horizontal layer of clouds, dazzling in whiteness, has
separated the cone of cinders from the plain below, and suddenly the
ascending current pierces the cloudy vail, so that the eye of the traveler
may range from the brink of the crater, along the vine-clad slopes of
Orotava, to the orange gardens and banana groves that skirt the shore. In
scenes like these, it is not the peaceful charm uniformly spread over the
face of nature that moves the heart, but rather the peculiar physiognomy and
conformation of the land, the features of the landscape, the ever varying
outline of the clouds, and their blending with the horizon of the sea,
whether it lies spread before us like a smooth and shining mirror, or is
dimly seen through the morning mist. All that the senses can but
imperfectly comprehend, all that is most awful in such romantic scenes of
nature, may become a source of enjoyment to man, by opening a wide field to
the creative powers of his imagination. Impressions change with the varying
movements of the mind, and we are led by a happy illusion to believe that we
receive from the external world that with which we have ourselves invested
it.
[footnote] *This expression is taken from a beautiful description of
tropical forest scenery in 'Paul and Virginia', by Bernardia de Saint Pierre.
When far from our native country, after a long voyage, we tread for the
first time the soil of a tropical land, we experience a certain feeling of
surprise and gratification in recognizing, in the rocks that surround us,
the same inclined schistose strata, and the same columnar basalt covered
with cellular amygdaloids, that we had left in Europe, and whose identity of
character, in latitudes so widely different, reminds us that the
solidification of the earth's crust is altogether independent of climatic
influences. But these rocky masses of schist and of basalt are covered with
vegetation of a character with which we are unacquainted, and of a
physiognomy wholly
p 27
unknown to us; and it is then, amid the colossal and majestic forms of an
exotic flora, that we feel how wonderfully the flexibility of our nature
fits us to receive new impressions, linked together by a certain secret
analogy. We so readily perceive the affinity existing among all the forms
of organic life, that although the sight of a vegetation similar to that of
our native country might at first be most welcome to the eye, as the sweet
familiar sounds of our mother tongue are to the ear, we nevertheless, by
degrees, and almost imperceptibly, become familiarized with a new home and a
new climate. As a true citizen of the world, man every where habituates
himself to that which surrounds him; yet fearful, as it were, of breaking
the links of association that bind him to the home of his childhood, the
colonist applies to some few plants in a far-distant clime the names he had
been familiar with in his native land; and by the mysterious relations
existing among all types of organization, the forms of exotic vegetation
present themselves to his mind as nobler and more perfect developments of
those he had loved in earlier days. Thus do the spontaneous impressions of
the untutored mind lead, like the laborious deductions of cultivated
intellect, to the same intimate persuasion, that one sole and indissoluble
chain binds together all nature.
It may seem a rash attempt to endeavor to separate, into its different
elements, the magic power exercised upon our minds by the physical world,
since the character of the landscape, and of every imposing scene in nature,
depends so materially upon the mutual relation of the ideas and sentiments
simultaneously excited in the mind of the observer.
The powerful effect exercised by nature springs, as it were, from the
connection and unity of the impressions and emotions produced; and we can
only trace their different sources by analyzing the individuality of objects
and the diversity of forces.
The richest and most varied elements for pursuing an analysis of this nature
present themselves to the eyes of the traveler in the scenery of Southern
Asia, in the Great Indian Archipelago, and more especially, too, in the New
Continent, where the summits of the lofty Cordilleras penetrate the confines
of the aerial ocean surrounding our globe, and where the same subterranean
forces that once raised these mountain chains still shake them to their
foundation and threaten their downfall.
Graphic delineations of nature, arranged according to systematic views, are
not only suited to please the imagination,
p 28
but may also, when properly considered, indicate the grades of the
impressions of which I have spoken, from the uniformity of the sea-shore, or
the barren steppes of Siberia, to the inexhaustible fertility of the torrid
zone. If we were even to picture to ourselves Mount Pilatus placed on the
Schreckhorn,* or the Schneekoppe of Silesia on Mont Blanc, we should
p 29
not have attained to the height of that great Colossus of the Andes, the
Chimborazo, whose height is twice that of Mont Aetna; and we must pile the
Righi, or Mount Athos, on the summit of the Chimborazo, in order to form a
just estimate of the elevation of the Dhawalagiri, the highest point of the
Himalaya.
[footnote] *These comparisons are only approximative. The several
elevations above the level of the sea are, in accurate numbers, as follows:
The Schneekoppe or Riesenkoppe, in Silesia about 5270 feet, according to
Hallaschka. The Righi, 5902 feet, taking the height of the Lake of Lucerne
at 1426 feet, according to Eschman. (See 'Compte Rendu des Mesures
Trigonometriques en Suisse', 1840, p. 230.) Mount Athos, 6775 feet,
according to Captain Gaultier; Mount Pilatus, 7546 feet; Mount Aetna, 10,871
feet, according to Captain Smyth; or 10,874 feet, according to the
barometrical measurement made by Sir John Herschel, and communicated to me
in writing in 1825, and 10,899 feet, according to angles of altitude taken
by Cacciatore at Palermo (calculated by assuming the terrestrial refraction
to be 0.076); the Schreckhorn, 12,383 feet; the Jungfrau, 13,720 feet,
according to Tralles; Mount Blanc, 15,775 feet, according to the different
measurements considered by Roger ('Bibl. Univ.', May, 1828, 0. 24-53),
15,733 feet, according to the measurements taken from Mount Columbier by
Carlini in 1821, and 15,748 feet, as measured by the Austrian engineers from
Trelod and the Glacier d'Ambin.
[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.'