feet, and at the western end of 200 feet. To the west of it an additional dock of 6 acres was opened in May, 1880. A capacious graving dock, 460 feet long, which The staple industry of Hull is seed-crushing for oil is entered from the last-mentioned dock, is now (1880) and cake making, It possesses extensive engineering in course of construction. Another dock of 24 acres, works and foundries, large iron shipbuilding yards, to the west of the new West dock, has been com- rope-yards, sail-lofts, tanneries, breweries, flax and menced. Rails in connection with the Northeastern cotton mills, chemical works, and manufactures of blue Railway are laid along the quays of the docks. In and black lead, paints, colors, and varnishes, Portland 1880 an act was obtained for a railway from Hull to and Roman cement, phosphate of lime, tobacco, starch, Barnsley, and a dock in connection with it. The ship- paper, soap, furniture, and organs. ping trade of Hull is chiefly with the Baltic ports, The population of the parliamentary borough, which

scamen.

in

favor with successive monarchs, and the head of which | In 1830 the number of annual lectures or sermons was house was in 1385 created earl of Suffolk. Such was the reduced from twenty to eight; subsequently they were importance of the town in the reign of Edward III. that restricted to four. The annual value of the Hulse enin 1359 it supplied for the armament against France 16 ships and 466 seamen, the quota of London being 25 ships dowment is between £800 and £900, of which eightand 662 seamen, and that of Newcastle 17 ships and 314 tenths go to the professor of divinity and one-tenth to In the reign of Richard II. the fortresses were the prize and lectureship respectively, repaired and a strong castle was erected on the east side of the river Hull. By Henry VI. additional charters were granted, erecting the town and liberties into a county in itself, under the designation of "The Town and County of the Town of Kingston-upon-Hull," constituting it a corporate town, and appointing, instead of a mayor and bailiffs, for its government a mayor, sheriff, and aldermen. In the Wars of the Roses it strenuously maintained the cause of Lancaster; and so zealous was it in its loyalty that after the borough funds were exhausted additional money was raised by the sale of the materials of the market cross. In the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries it suffered greatly from the plague, and in 1527 and 1519 much damage was caused by inundations. During the insurrection in 1536 called the Pilgrimage of Grace, originated by the dissolution of the monasteries, Hull was seized by the insurgents, but, after the dispersion of the main body at Doncaster, the ringleaders in the town were seized by the magistrates and executed. During the second rebellion in Yorkshire in 1537 the town was taken possession of by the insurgents headed by Sir Robert Constable, and held for a month, but the loyal inhabitants, surprising them in the middle of the night, compelled them to surrender; many of them were executed, and the body of Sir Robert Constable was hung in chains over the Beverley gate. In 1510 Hull was visited by Henry VIII., who, after a careful survey of the town and neighborhood, gave directions for the erection of a castle and other fortifications, for the cutting of a canal from Newland to Hull in order to provide additions of fresh water," and for the improvement of Suffolk palace, originally erected by the De la Poles, but since then acquired by the crown. During the parliamentary war the possession of Hull was an object of ambition to both parties on account of its importance as a depôt for arms and military stores. In 1642 the governor, Sir John Hotham, refused to admit Charles I. into the town. In 1613 and 1644 it sustained two long sieges and many vigorous attacks by the Royalists.

HUMBLE-BEE, a name applied by phonetic instinct under various inflections (such as 66 Bumblebee" in England provincially, and "Hummel' Germany) to the large bees of the genus Bombus (which, like the French "Bourdon," is probably also suggested by the noise made by these insects). They belong to the social section of the great family Apida, of which the common hive-bee is the type, and, like that well-known insect, live in colonies composed of the two sexes and neuters. Instead of a single female (or queen), however, many are found in one nest; and the workers do not hibernate. The female also differs from the queen hive-bee in having dense fringes of hairs on the pollen-plates of the hind legs, and a widened base to the hind tarsi, a structure necessitated by her having to work single-handed at the commencement of the season, as the workers and males do not survive the winter. Early in the spring these large hibernated females may be observed on the wing, each becoming the founder of a fresh colony, in which the neuters are first produced. There are two kinds of females, the smaller one only producing male eggs, but not surviving the winter. The number of individuals in a colony varies with the different species, and as a rule is least in those building their nest above ground. In one very common subterranean species, Bombus terrestris, as many as 107 males, 56 females, and 180 workers have been found in one nest. There is considerable difference between the males, females, and neuters; the last two differ, however, but little except in size, whereas the males often exhibit a very varying coloration, and have structural peculiarities, such as an additional segment to the abdomen, longer In 1534 Hull was made the see of a suffragan bishop, but antennæ and tongue, no pollen-basket, etc. They the office was abolished on the death of Edward VI. the 33d of Edward I. the town returned burgesses to Par-armed like the hive-bee. Great difficulty exists in reBy have also no sting, whereas both female and worker are liament. The privilege was afterwards for some time in abeyance till the 12th of Edward II., since which period it

has returned two members.

Among the eminent natives of Hull, besides the De la Poles, are Andrew Marvell, William Mason the friend of Gray the poet, William Wilberforce, and Major-General Perronet Thompson.

The principal histories of Hull are those of Gent, 1735, reprinted 1869 Hadley, 1788; Tickell, 1798; Frost, 1827; and Shea han, 1864. See also Symons's High-Street, Hull, some years since, and Biographical Sketches interspersed with Historical Accounts of the Town, Ancient and Modern, etc., 1862: Wooley's Statutes relating to Kingston-upon-Hull, 1830: Symons's Hullinia, or Selections from Local History, 1872, and Sketches of Hull Authors, 1879.

HULS, a town of Prussia, in the circle of Kempen, and government district of Düsseldorf, is situated at the terminus of a branch railway line to Crefeld and Düsseldorf, 4 miles north of Crefeld and 17 northwest of Düsseldorf. It possesses manufactures of damask and velvet, and in the neighborhood ironstone is obtained. The population in 1875 was 6096.

HULSE, JOHN (1708-1789), founder of the Hulsean lectureship at the University of Cambridge, was born at Middlewich, in Cheshire, in 1708. Entering St. John's College, Cambridge, he graduated in 1728, and on taking holy orders was presented to a small country curacy. His father having died in 1753, Hulse succeeded to his estates in Cheshire, where, owing to feeble health, he lived in retirement till his death in 1789. He bequeathed his estates to Cambridge University for the purpose of maintaining two scholars at St. John's College, of founding a prize for a dissertation, and of instituting the offices of Christian advocate and of Christian preacher or Hulsean lecturer. By a statute in 1860 the Hulsean professorship of divinity was substituted for the office of Christian advocate, and the lectureship was considerably modified. The first course of lectures under the benefaction was delivered in 1820.

ferring these three constituents to their proper species, owing to individual variation, alteration with age, and the difficulty of seeing all the members of a colony at the same time; so that naturalists are not by any means agreed as to the specific status of many of them, and the synonymy is very complicated. The nests are not constructed after the symmetrical fashion of those of the hive-bee, but consist of a collection of oval brownish cells, at first few in number, but receiving additions and extensions as the brood increases, and accompanied by cells containing pollen and honey. The workers assist in rearing the larvæ, and in disengaging the individuals from their pupil integuments as they reach the perfect state; and it has been noticed that this metamorphosis is accelerated by a kind of incubation. The nests are made under bushes, in banks, etc., sometimes as much as 5 feet from the surface. A well-known one is made by the Moss-carder" humble-bee, Bombus muscorum, which has often been observed collecting the natural material for its dome, working in line. As usual with provident or social animals, these interesting insects are subject to encroachment by parasites of various kinds, most noteworthy among which are some species (there are three or four in England) of the closely allied genus Apathus (or Psithyrus), superficially resembling exactly the true humble-bees, but with no pollen-collecting apparatus, and no workers. They exist apparently on friendly terms with their hosts, whose stores are at times materially preyed upon by the larva of Volucella, a genus of Diptera or two-winged flies also resembling humblebees. Various beetles, such as Antherophagus, Cryp tophagus, Leptinus, etc., and the larva of Tinea pellionella, a small moth, also occur in their nests.

As regards distribution, the Bombi are found in Europe, America (North and South), Africa, India,

China, and Java, but not in Australasia, where, in- | Berlin, February 29, 1792. Although the service of deed, it has even been attempted to introduce some the state was consistently regarded by him but as an species for the purpose of fertilizing the introduced apprenticeship to the service of science, he fulfilled its clover, for which the structure of the native insects is duties with such conspicuous ability that he not only apparently insufficient. It is, however, in the north- rapidly rose to the highest post in his department, but ern zone that they flourish best, their hardy nature was besides intrusted with several important diploenabling them to exist in the Arctic regions, as far as matic missions. The death of his mother, November 19, man has penetrated; and the numerous additions con- 1796, set him free to follow the bent of his genius, and, tinually being made to the list of known species from finally, severing his official connections, he waited for the Caucasus, the Amur district, Turkistan, Arizona, an opportunity of executing his long-cherished schemes etc., point, not only to a wide geographical range, but of travel. On the postponement of Captain Baudin's to a large adaptation to some useful end. The experi- proposed voyage of circumnavigation, which he had ments of Darwin, Müller, and others show how im- been officially invited to accompany, he left Paris for portant a part is played by humble-bees in the economy Marseilles with Bonpland, the designated botanist of of nature as plant fertilizers; and, though perhaps the frustrated expedition, hoping to join Bonaparte in not exhibiting such highly developed instincts as the Egypt. The means of transport, however, were not hive-bee, they possess sufficient reasoning power to forthcoming, and the two travellers eventually found enable them, by perforating the base of the calyx of their way to Madrid, where the unexpected patronage certain flowers, to obtain otherwise inaccessible honey. of the Minister d'Urquijo determined them to make HUMBOLDT FRIEDRICH HEINRICH ALEXANDER, Spanish America the scene of their explorations. BARON VON (1769-1859), a distinguished naturalist and traveller, was born at Berlin, September 14, 1769. His father, who was a major in the Prussian army, belonged to a Pomeranian family of consideration, and was rewarded for his services during the Seven Years' War with the post of royal chamberlain. He married in 1766 Maria Elizabeth von Colomb, widow of Baron von Hollwede, and had by her two sons, of whom the younger is the subject of this notice. The childhood of Alexander von Humboldt was not a promising one, as regards either health or intellect. His characteristic tastes, however, soon displayed themselves; and from his fancy for collecting and labelling plants, shells, and insects he received the playful title "of the little apothecary." The care of his education on the unexpected death of his father in 1779 devolved upon his mother, who discharged the trust with constancy and judgment. Destined for a political career, he studied finance during six months at the University of Frankfort-on-the-Oder; and a year later, April 25, 1789, he matriculated at Göttingen, then eminent for the lectures of Heyne and Blumenbach. His vast and varied powers were by this time fully developed; and during the vacation of 1789 he gave a fair earnest of his future performances in a scientific excursion up the Rhine, and in the treatise thence issuing, Mineralogische Beobachtungen über einige Basalte am Rhein (Brunswick, 1790). His native passion for distant travel was confirmed by the friendship formed by him at Göttingen with George Forster, Heyne's son-in-law, the distinguished companion of Cook's second voyage. Henceforth his studies, which his rare combination of parts enabled him to render at once multifarious, rapid, and profound, were directed with extraordinary insight and perseverance to the purpose of preparing himself for his distinctive calling as a scientific explorer. With this view he studied commerce and foreign languages at Hamburg, geology_at_Freiberg under Werner, anatomy at Jena under Loder, astronomy and the use of scientific instruments under Zach and Köhler. His researches into the vegetation of the mines of Freiberg led to the publication in 1793 of his Flora Fribergensis Specimen; and the results of a prolonged course of experiments on the phenomena of muscular irritability, then recently discovered by Galvani, were contained in his Versuche über die gereizte Muskel- und Nervenfaser (Berlin, 1797), enriched in the French translation with notes by Blumenbach.

Armed with powerful recommendations, they sailed in the "Pizarro" from Corunna, June 5, 1799, stopped six days at Teneriffe for the ascent of the Peak, and landed July 16, at Cumana. There Humboldt observed, on the night of the 12-13th of November, that remarkable meteor-shower which forms the starting-point of our acquaintance with the periodicity of the phenomenon; thence he proceeded with Bonpland to Caracas; and in February, 1800, he left the coast for the purpose of exploring the course of the Orinoco. This trip, which lasted four months, and covered 1725 miles of wild and uninhabited country, had the important result of establishing the existence of a communication between the water-systems of the Orinoco and Amazon, and of determining the exact position of the bifurcation. On the 24th of November the two friends set sail for Cuba, and after a stay of some months regained the mainland at Cartagena. Ascending the swollen stream of the Magdalena, and crossing the frozen ridges of the Cordilleras, they reached Quito, after a tedious and difficult journey, January 6, 1802. Their stay there was signalized by the ascent of Pichincha and Chimborazo, and terminated in an expedition to the sources of the Amazon en route for Lima. At Callao Humboldt observed the transit of Mercury on November 9th, and studied the fertilizing properties of guano, the introduction of which into Europe was mainly due to his writings. A tempestuous sea-voyage brought them to the shores of Mexico, and after a year's residence in that province, followed by a short visit to the United States, they set sail for Europe from the mouth of the Delaware, and landed at Bordeaux, August 3, 1804.

Humboldt may justly be regarded as having in this memorable expedition laid the foundation of the sciences of physical geography and meteorology in their larger bearings. By his delineation (in 1817) of "isothermal lines," he at once suggested the idea and devised the means of comparing the climatic conditions of various countries. He first investigated the rate of decrease in mean temperature with increase of elevation above the sea-level, and afforded, by his investigations into the origin of tropical storms, the earliest clue to the detection of the more complicated law governing atmospheric disturbances in higher latitudes; while his essay on the geography of plants was based on the then novel idea of studying the distribution of organic life as affected by varying physical conditions. In 1794 he was admitted to the intimacy of the His discovery of the decrease in intensity of the earth's famous Weimar coterie, and contributed (June, 1795) magnetic force from the poles to the equator was comto Schiller's new periodical, Die Horen, a philosophi- municated to the Paris Institute in a memoir read by cal allegory entitled Die Lebenskraft, oder der rho- him, December 7, 1804, and its importance was attestdische Genius. In the summer of 1790 he paid a fly-ed by the speedy emergence of rival claims. His ing visit to England in company with Forster. In services to geology were mainly based on his attentive 1792 and 1797 he was in Vienna; in 1795 he made a study of the volcanoes of the New World. He showed geological and botanical tour through Switzerland and that they fell naturally into linear groups, presumably Italy. He had obtained in the meantime official em- corresponding with vast subterranean fissures; and by ployment, having been appointed assessor of mines at his demonstration of the igneous origin of rocks hith

erto held to be of aqueous formation, he contributed Russian and afterwards by the Prussian Government; largely to the spread of juster views than those then prevailing.

The reduction into form and publication of the encyclopædic mass of materials scientific, political, and archaeological-collected by him during his absence from Europe was now Humboldt's most urgent desire. After a short trip to Italy with Gay-Lussac for the purpose of investigating the law of magnetic declination, and a sojourn of two years and a half in his native city, he finally, in the spring of 1808, settled in Paris with the view of securing the scientific co-operation required for bringing his great work through the press. This colossal task, which he at first hoped would have occupied but two years, eventually cost him twenty-one, and even then remained incomplete. With the exception of Napoleon Bonaparte, he was now the most famous man in Europe. A chorus of applause greeted him from every side. Academies, both native and foreign, were eager to enrol him among their members. Frederick William III. of Prussia conferred upon him the honor, without exacting the duties, attached to the post of royal chamberlain, together with a pension of 2500 thalers, afterwards doubled. He refused the appointment of Prussian minister of public instruction in 1810. In 1814 he accompanied the allied sovereigns to London. Three years later he was summoned by the king of Prussia to attend him at the congress of Aix-la-Chapelle. Again in the autumn of 1822 he accompanied the same monarch to the congress of Verona, proceeded thence with the royal party to Rome and Naples, and returned to Paris in the spring of 1823.

but on each occasion untoward circumstances inter-
posed, and it was not until he had entered upon his
sixtieth year that he resumed his early rôle of a travel-
ler in the interests of science. Between May and No-
vember, 1829, he, together with his chosen associates
Gustav Rose and Ehrenberg, traversed the wide ex-
panse of the Russian empire from the Neva to the
Yenesei, accomplishing in twenty-five weeks a distance
of 9614 miles. The journey, however, though carried
out with all the advantages afforded by the immediate
patronage of the Russian Government, was too rapid
to be profitable. Its most important fruits were the
correction of the prevalent exaggerated estimate of the
height of the Central-Asian plateau, and the discovery
of diamonds in the gold-washings of the Ural,—a result
which Humboldt's Brazilian experiences enabled him
to predict, and by predicting to secure.
Between 1830 and 1848 Humboldt was frequently
employed in diplomatic missions to the court of Louis
Philippe, with whom he always maintained the most
cordial personal relations. The death of his brother,
Wilhelm von Humboldt, who expired in his arms,
April 8, 1836, saddened the later years of his life. In
losing him, Alexander lamented that he had "lost
half himself." The accession of the crown prince as
Frederick William IV., on the death of his father, in
June, 1840, added to rather than detracted from his
court favor. Indeed, the new king's craving for his
society became at times so importunate as to leave him
only some hours snatched from sleep for the prosecu-
tion of his literary labors.

It is not often that a man postpones to his seventyThe French capital he had long regarded as his true sixth year, and then successfully executes, the crownhome. There he found, not only scientific sympathy, ing task of his life. Yet this was Humboldt's case. but the social stimulus which his vigorous and healthy The first two volumes of the Kosmos were published, mind eagerly craved. He was equally in his element and in the main composed, between the years 1845 and as the lion of the salons and as the savant of the insti- 1847. The idea of a work which should convey, not tute and the observatory. Thus, when at last he only a graphic description, but an imaginative concepreceived from his sovereign a summons to join his tion of the physical world,-which should support gen-. court at Berlin, he obeyed indeed, but with deep and eralization by details, and dignify details by generalizalasting regret. The provincialism of his native city tion,-had floated before his mind for upwards of half a was odious to him. He never ceased to rail against century. It first took definite shape in a set of lectures the bigotry without religion, æstheticism without cul- delivered by him before the University of Berlin in the ture, and philosophy without common sense, which he winter of 1827-28. These lectures formed, as his latest found dominant on the banks of the Spree. The un- biographer expresses it, "the cartoon for the great remitting benefits and sincere attachment of two well- fresco of the Kosmos." The scope of this remarkable meaning princes secured indeed his gratitude, but could work may be briefly described as the representation of not appease his discontent. At first he sought relief the unity amid the complexity of nature. In it the from the "nebulous atmosphere" of his new abode large and vague ideals of the 18th are sought to be by frequent visits to Paris; but as years advanced his combined with the exact scientific requirements of the excursions were reduced to accompanying the monot- 19th century. And, in spite of inevitable shortcomonous "oscillations" of the court between Potsdam ings, the attempt was in an eminent degree successful. and Berlin. On the 12th of May, 1827, he settled Nevertheless, the general effect of the book is rendered permanently in the Prussian capital, where his first to some extent unsatisfactory by its tendency to subefforts were directed towards the furtherance of the stitute the indefinite for the infinite, and thus to ignore, science of terrestrial magnetism. For many years it while it does not deny, the existence of a power outside had been one of his favorite schemes to secure, by and beyond those of nature. A certain heaviness of means of simultaneous observations at distant points, style, too, and laborious picturesqueness of treatment a thorough investigation of the nature and law of make it more imposing than attractive to the general "magnetic storms,' -a term invented by him to desig-reader. Its supreme and abiding value, however, nate abnormal disturbances of the earth's magnetism. consists in its faithful reflection of the mind of a great The meeting at Berlin, September 18, 1828; of a newly man. No higher eulogium can be passed on Alexander formed scientific association, of which he was elected von Humboldt than that, in attempting, and not president, gave him the opportunity of setting on foot unworthily attempting, to portray the universe, he an extensive system of research in combination with succeeded still more perfectly in portraying his own his diligent personal observations. His appeal to the comprehensive intelligence. Russian Government in 1829 led to the establishment The last decade of his long life-his "improbable of a line of magnetic and meteorological stations across years, as he was accustomed to call them-was devoted Northern Asia; while his letter to the duke of Sussex, to the continuation of this work, of which the third then (April, 1836) president of the Royal Society, and fourth volumes were published in 1850–58, and a secured for the undertaking the wide basis of the Brit- fragment of a fifth appeared posthumously in 1862. ish dominions. Thus that scientific conspiracy of In these he sought to fill up what was wanting of nations which is one of the noblest fruits of modern detail as to individual branches of science in the sweepcivilization was by his exertions first successfully ing survey contained in the first volume. Notwithorganized. standing their high separate value, it must be admitIn 1811, and again in 1818, projects of Asiatic ex-ted that, from an artistic point of view, these additions ploration were proposed to Humboldt, first by the were deformities. The characteristic idea of the work,

so far as such a gigantic idea admitted of literary incor- | a considerable number of subordinate but important works. poration, was completely developed in its opening Among these may be enumerated Vue des Cordillères et monportions, and the attempt to convert it into a scientific uments des peuples indigènes de l'Amérique, 2 vols., folio, 1810; encyclopædia was in truth to nullify its generating tinent, 1814-34; Atlas géographique et physique du royaume de Examen critique de l'histoire de la géographie du Nouveau Conmotive. Humboldt's remarkable industry and accu- la Nouvelle Espagne, 1811; Essai politique sur le royaume de la racy were never more conspicuous than in the erection Nouvelle Espagne, 1811; Essai sur la géographie des plantes, of this latest trophy to his genius. Nor did he rely 1805 (now very rare); and Relation historique, 1814-25, an entirely on his own labors. He owed much of what unfinished narrative of his travels, including the Essai pohe accomplished to his rare power of assimilating the litique sur l'ile de Cuba. The Nova genera et species plantarum thoughts and availing himself of the co-operation of 7 vols., folio, 1815-25), containing descriptions of above 4500 species of plants collected by Humboldt and Bonpland, others. He was not more ready to incur than to acwas mainly compiled by C. S. Kunth; Oltmanns assisted in knowledge obligations. The notes to Kosmos overflow preparing the Recueil d'observations astronomiques, 1808; Cuwith laudatory citations, which were, indeed, the vier, Latreille, Valenciennes, and Gay-Lussac co-operated current coin in which he discharged his intellectual in the Recueil d'observations de zoologie et d'anatomie comparée, debts. 1805-33. Humboldt's Ansichten der Natur (Stuttgart and On the 24th of February, 1857, Humboldt was and was translated into nearly every European language. Tübingen, 1808) went through three editions in his lifetime, attacked with a slight apoplectic stroke, which, how- The results of his Asiatic journey were published in Fragever, passed away without leaving any perceptible ments de géologie et de climatologie asiatiques 2 vols., 8vo., 1831), It was not until the winter of 1858-59 that his and in Asie centrale (3 vols., 8vo., 1843)-an enlargement of strength began to decline, and on the ensuing 6th of the earlier work. The memoirs and papers read by him May he tranquilly expired, wanting but six months before scientific societies, or contributed by him to scienof completing his ninetieth year. The honors which tific periodicals, are too numerous for specification. Since his death considerable portions of his correspondhad been showered on him during life followed him after death. His remains, previously to being interred both of time and of importance, is his Briefe an Varnhagen ence have been made public. The first of these, in order in the family resting-place at Tegel, were conveyed in von Ense, Leipsic, 1860. This was followed in rapid sucstate through the streets of Berlin, and received by the cession by Briefwechsel mit einem jungen Freunde (Friedrich prince-regent with uncovered head at the door of the Althaus), Berlin, 1861; Briefwechsel mit Heinrich Berghaus, cathedral. The first centenary of his birth was cele-3 vols., Jena, 1863: Correspondance scientifique et littéraire, brated September 14, 1869, with equal enthusiasm in 2 vols., Paris, 1865-69; Lettres à Marc-Aug. Pictet, published the New as in the Old World; and the numerous sic, 1869; Briefe an seinen Bruder Wilhelm, Stuttgart, 1880; in Le Globe, tome vii., Geneva, 1868; Briefe an Bunsen, Leipmonuments erected in his honor, and newly explored besides some other collections of less note. An octavo ediregions called by his name, bear witness to the universal tion of Humboldt's principal works was published in Paris diffusion of his fame and popularity. by Th. Morgand, 1864-66. (A. M. C).

trace.

Humboldt was never married, and seems to have been at all times more social than domestic in his tastes. To his brother's family he was, however, much attached; and in his later years the somewhat arbitrary sway of an old and faithful servant held him in more than matrimonial bondage. By a singular example of weakness, he executed, four years before his death, a deed of gift transferring to this man Seifert the absolute possession of his entire property. It is right to add that no undue advantage appears to have been taken of this extraordinary concession. Of the qualities of his heart it is less easy to speak than of those of his head. The clue to his inner life might probably be found in a certain egotism of self-culture which influenced his affections as well as regulated his studies. His attachments, however, once formed, were sincere and lasting. He made innumerable friends; and it does not stand on record that he ever lost one. His benevolence was throughout his life active and disinterested. His early zeal for the improvement of the condition of the miners in Galicia and Franconia, his consistent detestation of slavery, his earnest patronage of rising men of science, bear witness to the large humanity which formed the groundwork of his character. The faults of his old age have been brought into undue prominence by the injudicious publication of his letters to Varnhagen von Ense. The chief of these was his habit of smooth speaking, almost amounting to flattery, which formed a painful contrast with the caustic sarcasm of his confidential utterances. His vanity, at all times conspicuous, was tempered by his sense of humor, and was so frankly avowed as to invite sympathy rather than provoke ridicule. After every deduction has been made, he yet stands before us as a colossal figure, not unworthy to take his place beside Goethe as the representative of the scientific side of the culture of his country.

The best biography of Humboldt is that of Professor Karl Bruhns (3 vols., 8vo., Leipsic, 1872), excellently translated into English by the Misses Lassell, with the omission, however, of the exhaustive bibliographical notice and scientific summary contained in the original. The Voyage aux régions équinoxiales du Nouveau Continent, fait 1799-1804, par Alexandre de Humboldt et Aimé Bonpland, (Paris, 1807, etc.), consisted of thirty folio and quarto volumes, and comprised

HUMBOLDT, KARL WILHELM VON (1767-1835), the elder brother of the more celebrated Alexander von Humboldt, was born at Potsdam, on the 22d of June, 1767. After being educated at Berlin, Göttingen, and Jena, in the last of which places he formed a close and life-long friendship with Schiller, he married Fräulein von Dacherode, a lady of birth and fortune, and in 1802 was appointed by the Prussian Government first resident and then minister plenipotentiary at Rome. While there he published a poem entitled Rom, which was reprinted in 1824. This was not, however, the first of his literary productions; his critical essay on Goethe's Hermann and Dorothea, published in 1800, had already placed him in the first rank of authorities on æsthetics, and, together with his family connections, had much to do with his appointment at Rome; while in the years 1795 and 1797 he had brought out translations of several of the odes of Pindar, which were held in high esteem. On quitting his post at Rome he was made councillor of state and minister of public instruction. He soon, however, retired to his estate at Tegel, near Berlin, but was recalled and sent as ambassador to Vienna in 1812 during the exciting period which witnessed the closing struggles of the French empire. In the following year, as Prussian plenipotentiary at the congress of Prague, he was mainly instrumental in inducing Austria to unite with Prussia and Russia against France; in 1815 he was one of the signatories of the capitulation of Paris, and the same year was occupied in drawing up the treaty between Prussia and Saxony, by which the territory of the former was largely increased at the expense of the latter. The next year he was at Frankfort settling the future condition of Germany, but was summoned to London in the midst of his work, and in 1818 had to attend the congress at Aix-la-Chapelle. The reactionary policy of the Prussian Government made him resign his office of privy councillor and give up political life in 1819; and from that time forward he devoted himself solely to literature and study.

During the busiest portion of his political career, however, he had found time for literary work. Thus in 1816 he had published a translation of the Agamem