Humboldt's Cosmos

by Gerard Helferich

  The indefatigable, perspicacious Humboldt made such a favorable impression on the colonial authorities during his stay in New Spain that they offered him a ministerial position. Conversely, a few years later, the leaders of the independence movement, taking inspiration from his republican ideals and his faith in Mexico’s future, would adopt him as a hero of their own cause. Afterward, Benito Júarez, the Mexican president revered for his moral courage and enlightened government, conferred on Humboldt the title “Benefactor of the Nation.” And in the middle of the nineteenth century, fifty years after the Prussian’s departure, President Ignacio Comonfort bestowed on him the Grand Cross of the Order of Guadelupe and proposed christening a town in his honor. In several Mexican cities, streets are still named for him and houses where he stayed have been converted into museums. Though in Mexico, as in the world at large, Humboldt’s name has dimmed over the ensuing centuries, his spirit lives on there, in the reverence for cultural heritage and the continuing struggle for social progress.

  ON March 7,1804, Humboldt, Bonpland, and Carlos Montúifar sailed for Havana. There they reclaimed the crates of geological, botanical, and zoological specimens they had stored for safekeeping. Then on April 29, 1804, they sailed from Cuba on the Spanish frigate Concepción. On their earlier visit, some three years before, Humboldt had found Havana “one of the gayest and most picturesque” ports in the Western Hemisphere. But now, as he watched the quays and fortresses slip by, we can imagine him in a more pensive mood, his ever-active mind ranging over all he had seen and accomplished in the New World.

  After five years’ traveling in uncertain conditions, he must have been eager to find himself again in familiar, comfortable surroundings. And surely he was looking forward to his reunion with Wilhelm, Caroline, and their growing family. Yet that anticipation would have been tinged with the poignant realization that the greatest adventure of his life was drawing to a close. Earlier, in the letter to his friend Delambre posted from Mexico City, Humboldt confessed, perhaps melodramatically, his ambivalence over returning to staid, safe Paris. “It is every man’s duty to seek that position in life in which he can best serve his generation,” he had written. “I almost think that to fulfill my destiny I ought to perish in a crater or be drowned on the high seas. This at least is my present opinion . . . though I can readily believe that with advancing age and the enjoyments of European life I may yet live to change my views.”

  Despite his sensitivity to melancholy, Humboldt wasn’t one to brood over the past for very long. Bursting with restless energy and insatiable curiosity, he was constantly embarking on new projects and making new plans. So as the coast of Cuba receded from view, he must have considered his homecoming with increasing excitement. He would have to get Delambre and von Buch and the others to bring him up to date on all the scientific advances made while he was away. And what stories he would have to tell—he could imagine their expressions when he described the near-capsize in the Orinoco, or showed them rocks from Chimborazo. And what new information he had to share—from the first detailed investigations of American volcanoes, to the location of the earth’s magnetic equator, to the discovery of thousands of previously unknown plants, to his researches on the incredible, neglected history of the continent’s pre-Hispanic inhabitants. What a privilege to be entrusted with the first in-depth scientific exploration of the New World, and with the dissemination of all that new information to professionals and laymen alike. Over the five years of his journey, he had collected enough material to fill dozens of volumes (in the end, there would be thirty based on his American travels). Indeed, though he didn’t know it at the time, he was about to spend the remainder of his fortune and much of the rest of his life acting as the principal emissary from the New Continent to the Old, and revealing to the rest of the world the full scope of America’s natural and man-made wonders.

  But Humboldt’s American adventure wasn’t quite over. For the Concepción was bound for Philadelphia, not Spain. He must also have been looking forward to this visit to the United States, the infant republic for which he held such affection and harbored such high hopes. But first there were more than fifteen hundred waterborne miles to travel between Havana and Philadelphia. After a brief hiatus following the 1802 Treaty of Amiens, the war in Europe had resumed, with Spain allied with France against England, Austria, and Russia. As a result, the Concepción, like any Spanish vessel, would be subject to seizure by enemy warships. There was also the ever-present threat posed by natural hazards such as storms. The frigate was buffeted by a horrendous, week-long gale in the Bahama Straits, during which Humboldt worried obsessively over the safety of their scientific specimens—especially since he still had no idea what had happened to the two other parts of the collection shipped to Europe three years before. (If he had known that the portion entrusted to Juan González had been lost off the coast of Africa, Humboldt’s anxiety would have been all the greater.)

  But the Concepción survived the gale, and twenty-four days out of Havana, the frigate entered the Delaware River and docked safely at the port of Philadelphia. Humboldt’s Latin American odyssey had come to an end. The dissemination of his discoveries and the building of his legacy were about to begin.

  Twelve: Washington, Paris, and Berlin

  AS the Concepción tacked up the Delaware River, the spires of Philadelphia hove into view along the western bank. With its cobbled, poplar-lined streets and handsome brick buildings, the city seemed more familiar, more European, than the capitals of South America that Humboldt had come to know over the past five years. Though the national government had relocated to Washington four years before, Philadelphia remained the cultural hub of the young republic, and Humboldt was eager to call at the prestigious American Philosophical Society and catch up on the scientific advances of the past five years.

  He was also hoping to arrange a meeting with Thomas Jefferson, who remained as president of the Philosophical Society even after having been elected president of the nation. Jefferson was by all accounts a man of rare accomplishment, sensitivity, and intellect, and Humboldt was a longtime admirer; in fact, the possibility of paying his respects was a primary purpose of this visit. The year before, the president had acquired from the French a huge swath of territory, extending from St. Louis to New Orleans, that had once been part of New Spain—the Louisiana Purchase. Humboldt flattered himself that, as Jefferson dispatched his own corps of discovery to explore this new territory, he would be interested in what his visitor had gleaned about the land during all those days spent in the government archives of Mexico City.

  Soon after his arrival, Humboldt wrote a letter in French to the president, who was located in the new capital of Washington, D.C., emphasizing their common political and scientific interests:

  Mr. Jefferson:

  Arrived from Mexico on the blessed ground of this republic . . . I feel it my pleasant duty to present my respects and express my high admiration for your writings, your actions, and the liberalism of your ideas, which have inspired me from my earliest youth. . . .

  For moral reasons I could not resist seeing the United States and enjoying the consoling aspects of a people who understand the precious gift of Liberty. I hope to be able to present my personal respects. . . . I am quite unaware whether you know of me already through my work on galvanism and my publications in the annals of the Institut National in Paris. As a friend of science, you will excuse the indulgence of my admiration. I would love to talk to you about a subject that you have treated so ingeniously in your work on Virginia, the teeth of mammoth which we too discovered in the Andes. . . .

  While he waited for a response, Humboldt sought out the city’s scientific elite, including physician Caspar Wistar, botanist Benjamin Smith Barton, and physician (and signer of the Declaration of Independence) Benjamin Rush. Combing through the public library, he was delighted to come across an item in a scientific journal announcing the “arrival of M. de Humboldt’s manuscripts at his brother’s house in Paris, by
way of Spain.” It was his first indication that any of the precious specimens had safely reached their destination. Humboldt also discovered that some of his European correspondents had forwarded his letters to the French journals, which had been reporting on the progress of his expedition. But he was taken aback to learn that his death had been announced in the press on three separate occasions—most recently in Acapulco, where he had supposedly succumbed to a tropical disease. Humboldt’s arrival in Philadelphia was also duly noted in the city’s newspapers. Relf’s Philadelphia Gazette and Daily Advertiser reported, “Baron de Hombott [sic] arrived in this city on Wednesday night.”

  Within days, Humboldt had a cordial reply from the president. Having just dispatched Lewis and Clark on their great expedition of discovery (they started up the Missouri River in May 1804, the same month that Humboldt arrived in Philadelphia), Jefferson was eager to hear more about the formerly Spanish territories. “A lively desire will be felt generally to receive the information you will be able to give,” the president wrote. “No one will feel it more strongly than myself, because no one perhaps views this New World with more partial hopes of its exhibiting an ameliorated state of the human condition. In the new position in which the seat of our government is fixed, we have nothing curious to attract the observations of a traveler, and can only substitute in its place the welcome with which we should receive your visit, should you find it convenient to add so much to your journey.”

  Soon after, Humboldt, Bonpland, Montúfar, and Charles Wilson Peale (painter, amateur scientist, and friend of Jefferson), set out for Washington. Peale described the long coach ride in his diary: “The Baron spoke English very well, in the German dialect. . . . It was amusing to hear him speak English, French, and Spanish Languages, mixing them together in rapid Speach. He is very communicative and possesses a surprising fund of knowledge, in botany, mineralogy astronomy Philosophy and Natural History . . . he has been travelling ever since he was 11 years of age and never lived in any one place more than 6 months together, as he informed us.” (This latter version of his life wasn’t the first or last time that Humboldt would exaggerate his adventures for effect.)

  Washington City was still very much under construction, but Humboldt was warmly received by the capital’s luminaries, who were greatly impressed by his erudition and energy. Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin wrote his wife, “We all consider him as a very extraordinary man, and his travels, which he intends publishing on his return to Europe will, I think, rank above any other productions of the kind. . . . He speaks twice as fast any anybody I know, German, French, Spanish, and English altogether. But I was really delighted, and swallowed more information of various kinds in less than two hours than I had for two years past in all I had read or heard. . . . The extent of his reading and scientific knowledge is astonishing. . . .”

  Dolley Madison, wife of Secretary of State (and future president) James Madison, was also taken with the visitor. As she wrote her sister, “We have lately had a great treat in the company of a charming Prussian Baron von Humboldt. All the ladies say they are in love with him, notwithstanding his want of personal charms. He is the most polite, modest, well-informed, and interesting traveler we have ever met, and is much pleased with America. . . . He had with him a train of philosophers who, though clever and entertaining, did not compare with the Baron.”

  President Jefferson hosted Humboldt and his companions at a luncheon at the White House and later invited them to Monticello, where they had long discussions ranging over meteorology, agriculture, astronomy, and other shared scientific interests. Jefferson’s secretary William Burwell, who was present at these meetings, wrote that Humboldt was “of small figure, well made, agreeable looks, simple unaffected manners, remarkably sprightly, vehement in conversation and sometimes eloquent. Jefferson welcomed him with greatest cordiality and listened eagerly to the treasure of information.”

  As well he should have. Though Humboldt’s expedition through New Spain had been sponsored by the Spanish government, and the information he’d collected there was of a decidedly sensitive nature (including the most accurate maps ever created of the country and the most extensive data ever compiled on its mines), Humboldt now suffered no qualms of conscience over sharing this intelligence with a neighboring foreign power. The president was particularly eager for any information that might bear on the new Louisiana Territory: “Can the Baron inform me what population may be between those lines of white, red or black people?” he asked in a note to Humboldt. “And whether any & what mines are within them? The information will be thankfully received.” As the nineteenth century progressed and the United States expanded inexorably westward, Humboldt’s maps would prove an invaluable resource for explorers, generals, and engineers for decades to come.

  As time neared for his departure, Humboldt sent Jefferson a note of warm thanks and friendship: “I have had the honor to see the First Magistrate of this great republic living with the simplicity of a philosopher, receiving me with such great kindness as I shall always remember. . . . I take leave in the consolation that the people of this continent march with great strides toward the perfection of a social state, while Europe presents an immoral and melancholy spectacle. . . . I sympathize with you in the hope . . . that humanity can achieve great benefit from the new order of things to be found here. . . .”

  The two men would correspond for many years, and Jefferson’s high regard for Humboldt is obvious in his letters. In one dated December 6, 1813, he addresses the other as “my friend” and assures him of his “constant attachment” as well as his “affectionate esteem and high respect and consideration.” The friendship, rooted in their shared political philosophy and common love of science, would endure for more than twenty years, until Jefferson’s death in 1826.

  On July 9, 1804, Humboldt and his companions departed the New Continent aboard the French frigate La Favorite. Though he had made an enduring impression on the United States, Humboldt’s reception there was a faint glimmer of what was awaiting him in Europe.

  THE transatlantic voyage, for once, was swift and smooth and free of British warships, and La Favorite dropped anchor in Bordeaux on August 1, following a passage of only twenty-three days. While Bonpland visited his brother in La Rochelle, Humboldt and Montúfar took the coach to Paris. After five years of constant travel, Humboldt must have been relieved to be home at last or at least what passed for home to the undomesticated, peripatetic bachelor. But in a letter to a friend, he also admitted his uncertainty over being back in Europe. “I confess that it was with a heavy heart that I parted from the bright glories of tropical lands,” he wrote. “I quite dread this first winter. Everything will be so strange, and it will take me some time to settle down again.”

  The French capital had changed tremendously during his absence. When Humboldt had left for Madrid in 1798, the Directoire had been tottering, the national treasury had been empty, and Napoleon had been leading the French army in Egypt. But by 1804, Bonaparte had been installed as first consul for life, financial and political stability had been restored, and France had emerged as the most powerful nation in Europe. In fact, having ruled as a virtual dictator for years, Napoleon was about to be crowned emperor, with powers more sweeping than those of any Bourbon monarch.

  Humboldt detested absolutism in any form, but more than ever, Paris was the cultural, scientific, and publishing capital of Europe, and he believed that only there could he realize the ambitious series of books based on his American travels. Thus the republican Humboldt made the first in a series of political compromises with European royalty, in this case establishing himself in the capital of an expansionist imperial power—and one that would shortly be at war once again with his native Prussia. Despite his genuine and oft-voiced convictions, he felt compelled to set aside his principles and establish himself in the place he felt would be most conducive to his research and writing.

  Like Napoleon before him, Humboldt was received in Paris as a conqueri
ng hero. Caroline, who was in the city for her brother-in-law’s arrival, reported to Wilhelm the sensation that Alexander was making. “It has rarely fallen to the lot of any private individual to create so much excitement by his presence or to give rise to such widespread interest,” she wrote. And in another letter: “Alexander continues to make the greatest impression. His collections are immense, and to work them over, to compare and develop his ideas, will require from five to six years. . . . He is not in the least aged . . . his face is decidedly fuller and his liveliness of speech and manner has increased—as far as that is possible. . . .” In fact, she was afraid all the attention was going to his head. “Alexander lets himself be swept off his feet by French charm,” she added with a whiff of disapproval. But in the end she decided, he “is always the same. Impossible to describe him. He is such an incredible mixture of charm, vanity, soft feelings, cold, and warmth as I have ever seen in anyone else.”

  Partly it was the force of his personality—the tremendous energy, the penetrating intellect, the enormous erudition—that struck all who came in contact with the thirty-five-year-old explorer. Everyone seemed to recognize in him a larger-than-life figure who comes along once in a generation, if then. But it was not only Humboldt’s huge intellectual capacity that captured the public imagination. No one could deny his amazing physical achievements as well—penetrating rain forests where no European had ever ventured, climbing higher than anyone had thought possible, cheating death on more than one occasion. Humboldt had laid bare a wild, unknown continent, returning with fabulous stories, bizarre plants and animals, and new insights into nature itself. Though later in life he would also be revered for his humanitarianism and his generosity, it was the captivating blend of mental brilliance and physical daring that generated this first, galvanizing rush of celebrity—as if, in a later century, Albert Einstein had been the first to conquer Mount Everest.