CHAPTER 1
1.1 Introduction
Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859) is considered one of the fathers of modern geography.2 As a physical geographer, founder of plant and climatic geography, as an author of problem-oriented regional studies with a strong involvement in conditions relevant to human geography and geopolitics, as a cartographer, and with the didactically skillful graphic presentation of profiles he set the standards for the modern development of geography as a science. According to Hettner (1927),
"a new age for geography has dawned with the year 1799. It is the year when Alexander von Humboldt set out on his great American journey; we must ascribe the greatest advances in geography to this journey: the foundation of several branches of general geography as well as the foundation of scientific regional geography."3
This paper consists of four chapters. First chapter will cover the early life of Humboldt, his academic life from his childhood education to university education, and finally his early professional life. The second chapter will summarize Humboldt’s career as a traveler. The third chapter will comprehensively discuss some of his renowned publications and his scholarly contribution to the discipline of Geography. And finally, the fourth chapter will conclude the discussion by recapitulating the central idea of the paper. To prepare this paper, relevant and trustworthy English-language research papers, articles, biographies from journals and websites are reviewed.
1.2 Early Life
(Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich) Alexander, Freiherr von (Baron) Humboldt (Figure 1) was born in Berlin, on September 14, 1769. Humboldt was the son of a Prussian nobleman. Humboldt’s father was an officer in the army of Frederick the Great; his mother, the daughter of a wealthy manufacturer and member of the Prussian civil service, was of Huguenot descent. Alexander and his older brother Wilhelm spent winters in Berlin and summers at the family castle in Tegel but their childhoods were lonely.
Their father died when Alexander was nine and their mother was severe and cold. Though the brothers were close and remained so their entire lives—Wilhelm would become a linguist and philosopher—their only companions were the private tutors who gave them a rigorous education in the classics.1, 12 From his early childhood, he had a knack for observing and gathering specimens of plants, insects, and shells, and this earned him the nickname ‘the little apothecary’.4
1.3 Academic Life
As a child, he received a private education and was a slow learner and sickly much of the time. On his own, he loved collecting local plants and animals and reading books on foreign travel and adventure. He also loved to draw, mostly landscapes. Typical of the time, science was not part of his schooling; Humboldt was generally self-taught in that area. (Alexander von Humboldt-Lee, Jeff)
1.3.1 Early Academic Life
At an early age, Humboldt was taught by tutors; this was grounded in mathematics and languages. The first tutor appointed was Campe, known as the author of the “Boy Robinson Crusoe,” and it is believed that his teaching gradually fostered the young Humboldt desire for long voyages of discovery. A young man of twenty, Christian Kunth, remarkable for his knowledge of languages was the second tutor for Alexander and later he was taught by the great DR. Heim, who gave him the first instruction in botany. After that, in 1783 Humboldt with his brother went to Berlin for further education, but Humboldt did not display any extraordinary skills in the field directed by his tutor rather he followed his own interest. (doc.pdf)
1.3.2 University Life of Humboldt
Humboldt was becoming more excited about the various aspects of the physical world when he met and attended the series of lectures on scientific subjects, including the demonstration of scientific instruments by the physician Marcus Herz, a disciple of Immanuel Kant. After that, in 1786 Humboldt went to the university of Frankfort on the Oder to where he studied political economy and later studied factory management in Berlin at his mother insistence. (Martin, 2005) In 1789, he moved into the Göttingen University where he met with the renowned Blumenbach, the natural historian, and the great George Forster. (doc.pdf) Humboldt formed a strong friendship with naturalist-ethnologist-revolutionary Georg Forster, who had accompanied his father on Captain James Cook’s second voyage of exploration around the world. After spending time with Forster, traveling to London and back through revolutionary Paris, Humboldt seemed to have found his calling: thereafter he pursued a relentless, self-imposed program of study, both curricular and extracurricular, to become a scientific explorer himself. He studied commerce, geology, botany, foreign languages, anatomy, astronomy, and scientific instruments as if possessed by a demon.6 Later Humboldt said that it was George Froster who fostered the interest in geography in him. (Martin, 2005)
During his university life, Humboldt met and correspond with an unprecedented number of important figures in a wide range of disciplines. Some of his prominent instructors were geologist Abraham Gottlob Werner, anatomist Justus Christian Loder, and astronomers Franz Xaver von Zach and Johann Gottfried Köhler.6
1.4 Early Professional Life
In 1792, Humboldt received his first official employment as assessor of mines for the Prussian Ministry of Industry and Mines. A job that satisfied his mother’s desire for him to ascend the ranks of the Prussian civil service while allowing him to travel widely across the kingdom and conduct personal experiments in geology, anatomy, and electricity. This service to the state he viewed as an apprenticeship only, but he performed it so diligently—his first report, which weighed in at 150 pages, won him an immediate promotion to chief inspector—that he probably would have become superintendent.1,6
CHAPTER 2
2.1 Life as a traveler/Exploring the World:
In 1793 Humboldt already began to systematically prepare the journey to the tropics of the New World. While travelling Italy and Switzerland in 1795 he did not only transform already existing geological, physical-geographic, plant-geographic, and astronomic knowledge through observation and also through his contact with scientists from Geneva, but he also tested the most modern instruments and gained practical experience in the determination of location and altitude as well as in the drawing of ground profiles and maps.3
After his mother's death in 1796, he came into possession of a small fortune. Alexander's expedition plans were pursued with determination, and the journey to the tropics was most carefully prepared. In 1797, despite the best offers he resigned the job in the civil service and devoted himself entirely to science. (martin, 2005; 3)
After losing several opportunities to go overseas, in 1798 Humboldt with his French botanist friend named Aime Bonpland decided to go to Marseilles, from there they were planning to go to the Algiers and finally to the overland of Egypt. However, unfortunately, their plan to travel to Upper Egypt failed when they were unable to reach the coast of Marseilles and this tour opens a new direction in front of them. After finding out that they might be successful in getting passage on a ship from a Spanish port, they started their journey for the city of Madrid (Fig. 1). Humboldt made daily observations of the temperature and altitude during the voyages to Madrid and made the first accurate measurement of the Spanish Meseta. (Martin, 2005)
In Madrid, Humboldt’s position in the Prussian aristocracy gave him opportunities to introduce himself to the king and queen at court, where he explained his desire to visit Spanish-American colonies and the possible benefits that might result. Indeed, King Carlos IV thought a good geologist in New Spain might discover rich mineral deposits and readily agreed to lend his support: Humboldt and Bonpland were given unlimited permission to explore Spanish territory and passports that would open any door they encountered. One of the largest territories on the earth, stretching from Cape Horn to California, including most of the West Indies and all of Central America, as well as one-third of what is now the continental United States, was offered up for his scientific exploration! Most of that terrain was terra incognita, and no foreign scientist had been given such free rein there.6
2.1.1 Exploring South America:
During the five-year expedition (1799–1804) to the Americas (Figure 2), Humboldt and Bonpland covered six thousand miles, from 52° N to 12° S, and bring back forty-five cases of specimens as well as a mass of astronomical, geological, meteorological, botanical, and oceanographic data. The expedition would lay the groundwork for a new direction in geography.6 Humboldt’s travels in the “equinoctial regions of the new continent” began at Cumana in Venezuela.
At first, Humboldt and Bonpland went to Caracas and began their exploration of the long-settled part of the country (Martin, 2005). They travelled south through grasslands and scrublands until they reached the banks of the Apure, a tributary of the Orinoco River. They continued their journey on the river by canoe as far as the Orinoco. Following its course and that of the Casiquiare, they proved that the Casiquiare River formed a connection between the vast river systems of the Amazon and the Orinoco.12 during this travel, Humboldt’s with the help of his instruments established the exact latitude of places and came very close to correct longitudes (Martin, 2005).
In 1801, Humboldt and Bonpland started their expedition of the Andes of Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. While traveling through Peru, the group crossed the magnetic equator, where the compass needle balances between north and south; Humboldt’s measurement of the spot’s magnetic intensity would become a standard reference for future geomagnetic readings.6
On a sea voyage from Guayaquil to Callao, Humboldt measured the temperature and flow of the current and for the first time described the movement of ocean water, later known as Humboldt current (Martin, 2005).
Reaching Acapulco in March 1803, the men spent the next year exploring Mexico. In the Mexico City, Humboldt spent much of his time doing research in government offices, archives, and libraries as background for the first regional geographic essay ever written, his Essai politique sur le Royaume de la Nouvelle-Espagne.6
After his five-year voyage through Latin America, Humboldt landed in the United States in May 1804. There they visited the American Philosophical society and then Humboldt had several meetings with President Thomas Jefferson, who is already known for his interest in geography. From there, the two men sailed back to Bordeaux on 1804. (Martin, 2005).
2.2 Later Life of Humboldt:
2.2.1 Life in Paris
On his return to a welcome from all the scientists and learned men of Europe, Humboldt settled in Paris from 1804 to 1827 in order to publish the scientific results of his five years' American expedition. These results were of considerable importance for various branches of knowledge: geography, geophysics, geology, oceanography, botany, zoology, archaeology (Humboldt and England.Pdf, 4).
Humboldt remained in Paris, engaged with his labour of love, ascend Mount Vesuvius, and finally acceded to the royal wish he moved his penates back to Berlin in 1827. (doc.pdf)
2.2.2 Return to Berlin
His labors and travels were so extensive that he exhausted his considerable fortune and was forced to accept, regretfully, an offer of the salaried post of chamberlain and so returned in 1827 to his birthplace and took up residence in a first-floor apartment at 67 Oranienburger Strasse (Figure 3). From the fall of 1827 through April 1828, he delivered sixty-one lectures on physical geography at the University of Berlin, which his brother had founded in 1810. With echoes of Sir Francis Bacon, Humboldt argued that knowledge had to be derived from verifiable experience, but that scientific fact (data) could also appeal to the imagination. Delivered in fluent German, from bare outlines without notes, the lectures were hugely popular with the public. They became the basis of his final great work, Kosmos. The idea of the "Kosmos" was to convey not only a graphic description of the physical world but an imaginative concept as well.6,7
2.2.3 Time in Russia
In April 1829, at the invitation of Russian czer, he went to Russia to consult about the metal called platinum as well as to fulfill his grand dream of exploring Asia. But at that time, he was older and known to people, which hindrance his travelling quest and his expedition became a mere traveling circus with entourage of officials of Czar Nicholas I. During the six months’ excursion, the party covered approximately 9,700 miles (some by river), passed through 658 post-stations, and used more than 12,000 post-horses. After knowing the geology of the Ural Mountains, Humboldt predicted the location of the metal and later the metals were found on that location. During that trip, Humboldt was impressed by the variation in temperatures, he observed that temperatures varied at the same latitude in accordance with distance from the sea. Later by collecting data from different weather stations Humboldt produced the first world map of average temperatures, also known as the isotherm map (Figure 4).
CHAPTER 3
3.1 “Kosmos: A Sketch of a Physical Description of the World”. A great work of Humboldt
After his brother died in 1835, leaving him deeply bereft, Humboldt devoted himself to his masterwork about the entire material world, titled “Kosmos: A Sketch of a Physical Description of the World” (Figure 5). The first volume appeared in 1845 when he was seventy-six, the second when he was seventy-eight, the third at eighty-one, and the fourth at the age of eighty-nine! The fifth volume, unfinished at his death, published posthumously in 1862, was based on the copious notes he left. The first volume makes a general presentation of the whole picture of the universe. The second volume starts with a discussion of the portrayal of nature through the ages by landscape painters and by poets and then continues with a history of man’s effort to discover and describe the earth since the time of the ancient Egyptians. The third one deals with the laws of celestial space, which we would called astronomy. The fourth volume deals with the earth, not only with geophysics but also with man. (Martin, 2005; 6)
Humboldt viewed nature as a unified whole of which humanity was part, and he thought that scientific knowledge was part of a country’s wealth, a natural resource that needed support and development. He also believed that all the races of man had a common origin and nor race was necessarily inferior to others, and all the races are equally destined for freedom, individually or in groups. (Martin, 2005; 6)
3.2 Other Publications by Humboldt
(a002431.pdf) Humboldt’s numerous publications can be divided into three groups. First, there were his early writings, from around 1799, most famously a work on organic electricity, “Versuche u¨ber die gereizte Muskel- und Nervenfaser”. Second, there were the many and sometimes voluminous publications that resulted from his exploration of the equatorial Americas. Most of these were written during Humboldt’s Parisian period (1808–1826) when he lived as an independently wealthy, private scholar. The production of this American oeuvre was a major undertaking that exhausted Humboldt’s personal fortune. The thirty-volume work carried the collective title “Voyage aux Regions e´quinoxiales du Nouveau Continent”. It dealt with botany, plant geography, zoology, physical geography, political economy, and included such classics as the “Essai politique sur le royaume de la Nouvelle-Espagne” and the “Relation historique du voyage”. Third, there were the publications of Humboldt’s Berlin period (1827–1859) during which he was employed as a royal chamberlain at the Prussian Court. Among these were the accounts of his relatively short and hasty Siberian journey, but also and most famously his Kosmos, a work that constituted both the summary of most of Humboldt’s lifelong interests and a holistic digest of the scientific study of celestial and terrestrial phenomena.
3.3 Contribution of Humboldt in the field of Geography
3.3.1 Disseminating geographical knowledge across Europe
Humboldt’s work is not restricted to the theoretical and methodological sphere. He was also a prominent scientific voice. He was hyperactive in networks and, with a correspondence estimated at around 30 000 letters, he contributed actively to the circulation of geographical knowledge across Europe. Anxious to ensure the independence of geography, he took part with Ritter in the creation of two geography societies and in their activities, the Paris Geographical Society in 1821 and the Berlin Geographical Society in 1828. He delivered a series of more than sixty lectures on the "physics of the world" between 1827 and 18928, free and open to all in the Sing Akademie in Berlin, and very popular with the Berlin audiences. Through these kinds of activities, Humboldt worked towards the advancement of science in general, and particularly to field of geography.2
3.3.2 Regional geography
In his celebrated Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain (1811–1812), he laid the foundations of modern regional geography on the basis of physical geography, using Mexico as his example. Humboldt was the first to make the correlation between colonialism, with its crude emphasis on extracting resources and disregard for indigenous populations, and ecological devastation. (1, 8).
While dealing with the subject matter of geography, Humboldt coined a term 'cosmography' and divided it into Uranography and geography. In his opinion, Urnography is the descriptive astronomy, which deals with the celestial bodies. Geography, on the other hand, was confined to physical geography, which deals with the terrestrial part. geography, according to him is the description of the earth, which deals with the interrelationship of phenomena that exist together in an area. (http://www.travel-university.org/general/geography/history/humboldt.html)
3.3.3 Physical Geography
During his entire travelling life, Humboldt did countless measurements to determine locations, for the exact barometric determination of air pressure and thus also the altitude above sea level, temperature, humidity, geomagnetism, air electricity, etc. were made. In addition, many other geophysical, and meteorological measured values were also determined. These revolutionary quantifications and its interpretation as well as the numerous topographic specifications described by Humboldt specified his contributions to the field of physical geography. (a10v77…pdf)
Upon his return to Europe, he perfected the use of isothermal lines to depict temperature variations across the surface of the earth, and influenced colleagues, among them the cartographer Heinrich Berghaus, to construct global distribution maps, not only of climate and vegetation, but also of ocean currents, rainfall, magnetism, and various other features of physical geography (a002431.pdf)
3.3.4 In the field of demography:
Humboldt’s efforts in the field of demography are of enduring value. He introduced the examination of the quotient of extremes into population statistics, thus making it possible to supplement the abstract figure of population density by citing the low quotient in countries uniformly densely (or sparsely) settled and the high quotient in countries unevenly settled. He also made allowance for population dynamics, furnishing birth and mortality rates for Mexico. These figures were long unavailable for such regions.8
3.3.5 Classifying plants by climate zones:
Humboldt traveled so far, saw so much, and observed so closely that he began to notice similarities across continents. Rhododendron-like plants on the mountains near Caracas reminded him of alpine trees in the Swiss Alps; a sea of cacti, seen from the distance, recalled the grasses in the marshes of northern Europe; a moss in the Andes resembled a species he had found growing in German forests.8
This comparative approach allowed him to take staggering intellectual leaps. He looked beyond the characteristics of organisms and tried to determine the structures underlying nature, leading him to formulate the idea of ecosystems. He was the first to understand that climate emerged from the “perpetual interrelationship” between land, ocean, wind, elevation, and organic life. He introduced the idea of classifying plants by climate zones instead of taxonomy, considering altitude, temperature, and other conditions related to location.8
CHAPTER 4
4.1 Conclusion
He suffered a minor stroke on February 24, 1857. Two years later, his health began to decline and at the age of 89, he died on May 6, 1859. The year coincided with the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species, marking the beginning of a new era in the natural sciences. (livi-bacci.pdf)
Alexander von Humboldt as an explorer with an ingenious capacity of observation contributed a great deal to the development of the image of the “New World” in Europe. He has managed to familiarize European science and later also a larger audience with huge parts of the Central and South American tropics. He did much for the Europeans’ understanding of Latin America and contributed to the development of a Latin-American identity. He played a role of paramount significance especially in the field of social sciences which gave way to many other explorers discover cognizance concerning earth and the human beings. Moreover, his expertise triggered many other scholars learn and unveil the sea routes and a number of islands. Humboldt played the role of backbone in the field of Geography coinciding other sciences and giving it a special place in all sciencesVon Humboldt was the last true master but one of the first to bring geography to the world. (a10v77n.pdf) . (http://www.slideshare.net/haroonkhan12345/alexander-von-humboldt-by-haroon-khan-bazai-uob) (martin, 2005). According to Martin (2005), Once von Humboldt died,
"no individual scholar could hope any longer to master the world's knowledge about
the earth." (Martin, 2005. page 131).