The Invention of Nature
Page 55
74 feeling and rational thought: Muir marked Humboldt’s assertion in Cosmos that the connection between the ‘sensuous and the intellectual’ was vital for the understanding of nature; Muir’s copy of AH Cosmos 1878, vol.2, p.438, MHT.
75 ‘I’m in the woods’: Muir to Jeanne Carr, autumn 1870, JM online.
76 ‘dancing, waltzing in’: Muir 1911, pp.79, 135.
77 ‘Come higher’: ibid., pp.90, 113
78 ‘It’s all Love’: Muir to Ralph Waldo Emerson, 26 March 1872, JM online.
79 ‘universal profusion’ (footnote): Muir’s copy of AH Views 1896, vol.1, pp. 210, 215, MHT.
80 ‘breath of Nature’: Muir 1911, pp.48, 98.
81 ‘part of wild Nature’: Muir 1911, p.326.
82 ‘Four cloudless April’: Muir Journal ‘Twenty Hill Hollow’ 1869, 5 April 1869; Holmes 1999, p.197.
83 ‘mountain temple’: Muir to Jeanne Carr, 20 May 1869, ibid.
84 ‘a thousand windows’: Muir 1911, pp. 82, 205.
85 preaching nature like ‘apostle’: Muir to Daniel Muir, 17 April 1869, JM online.
86 ‘violation of these’: Muir’s copy of AH Personal Narrative 1907, vol.1, p.502, see also vol.2, p.214, MHT; Muir’s copy AH Cosmos 1878, vol.2, pp.377, 381, 393, MHT.
87 ‘no other worship’: Muir’s copy of AH Personal Narrative 1907, vol.2, p.362, MHT.
88 ‘sacred sanctuaries’: Muir’s copy of AH Views 1896, p.21, MHT.
89 ‘sanctum sanctorum’: Muir to Jeanne Carr, 26 July 1868, JM online.
90 Muir highlighted references to AH: Muir’s Thoreau and Darwin books, MHT.
91 Muir and AH’s comments on deforestation: Muir’s copy of AH Personal Narrative 1907, vol.1, pp.98, 207, 215, 476–7; vol.2, pp.9–10, 153, 207, MHT; Muir’s copy of AH Views 1896, pp.98, 215, MHT.
92 15 million acres: Johnson 1999, p.515.
93 railway tracks: Richardson 2007, p.131; Johnson 1999, p.535.
94 ‘The rough conquest’: Frederick Jackson Turner in 1903, Nash 1982, p.147.
95 ‘entice people to look’: Muir to Jeanne Carr, 7 October 1874, JM online.
96 Muir and Man and Nature: Wolfe 1946, p.83.
97 for ‘national preserves’: Muir’s copy of Thoreau’s Maine Woods (1868), p.160 and also pp.122–3, 155, 158, MHT.
98 ‘Nature’ was ‘a poet’: Muir 1911, p.211.
99 ‘Our foreheads felt’: Samuel Merrill, ‘Personal Recollections of John Muir’; see also Robert Underwood Johnson, C. Hart Merriam, ‘To the Memory of John Muir’, Gifford 1996, pp.875, 889, 891, 895.
100 ‘glory in it all’: Muir and Sargent, September 1898, Anderson 1915, p.119.
101 ‘Squirrelville, Sequoia Co’: Muir to Jeanne Carr, autumn 1870, JM online.
102 a glorious wilderness’: Muir 1911, pp.17, 196.
103 ‘You cannot warm’ (footnote): Daniel Muir to Muir, 19 March 1874, JM online.
104 Muir in San Francisco: Worster 2008, p.216ff.
105 ‘barren & beeless’: Muir to Strentzels, 28 January 1879, JM online.
106 Muir about his future: Muir to Sarah Galloway, 12 January 1877, JM online; Worster 2008, p.238.
107 Carr introduced Louie: Worster 2008, p.238ff.
108 ‘lost & choked’: Muir to Millicent Shin, 18 April 1883, JM online.
109 Muir as father: Worster 2008, p.262.
110 Louie in Yosemite: Muir to Annie Muir, 16 July 1884, JM online.
111 Louie’s father died: Worster 2008, pp.324–5; for management of Martinez, see Kennedy 1996, p.31.
112 Muir, Johnson and Yosemite: Worster 2008, p.312ff., Nash 1982, p.131ff.
113 ‘no doubt these trees’: Muir 1920.
114 ‘But the pine is no’ (footnote): Muir’s copy of Thoreau’s Maine Woods (1868), p.123.
115 articles in the Century: Muir, ‘The Treasures of the Yosemite’ and ‘Features of the Proposed Yosemite National Park’, Century, vols. 40 and 41, 1890.
116 ‘mountain streets full of life’: and following quotes, Muir, ‘The Treasures of the Yosemite’, Century, vol.40, 1890.
117 Yosemite National Park: Nash 1982, p.132.
118 ‘Uncle Sam’: Muir 1901, p.365.
119 ‘defence association’: Robert Underwood Johnson, 1891, Nash 1982, p.132.
120 ‘do something for wildness’: Muir to Henry Senger, 22 May 1892, JM online.
121 Muir’s publications: Kimes and Kimes 1986, pp.1–162.
122 ‘I do not want anyone’: Theodore Roosevelt to Muir, 14 March 1903, JM online.
123 ‘solemn temple of’: Theodore Roosevelt to Muir, 19 May 1903, ibid.
124 ‘I have no plan’: Muir to Charles Sprague Sargent, 3 January1898, ibid.
125 Hetch Hetchy fight: Nash 1982, pp.161–81; Muir, ‘The Hetch Hetchy Valley’, Sierra Club Bulletin, vol.6, no.4, January 1908.
126 ‘universal struggle’: New York Times, 4 September 1913.
127 ‘aroused from sleep’: Muir to Robert Underwood Johnson, 1 January 1914, Nash 1982, p.180.
128 ‘Nothing dollarable is’: Muir, Memorandum from John Muir, 19 May 1908 (for 1908 Governors Conference on Conservation), JM online.
129 plans for South America early years: Muir to Daniel Muir, 17 April and 24 September 1869; Muir to Mary Muir, 2 May 1869; Muir to Jeanne Carr, 2 October 1870; Muir to J.B. McChesney, 8 June 1871, ibid.
130 ‘Have I forgotten’: Muir to Betty Averell, 2 March 1911, Branch 2001, p.15.
131 Muir in Berlin: Muir, 26–9 June 1903, Muir Journal ‘World Tour’, pt.1, 1903, JM online.
132 ‘your Humboldt trip[s]’: Helen S. Wright to Muir, 8 May 1878, ibid.
133 ‘under Humboldt’: Henry F. Osborn to Muir, 18 November 1897, ibid.
134 to be ‘a Humboldt’: Muir to Jeanne Carr, 13 September 1865, ibid.
135 ‘before it is too late’: Muir to Robert Underwood Johnson, 26 January 1911, Branch 2001, p.10; see also p.xxvi ff.; Fay Sellers to Muir, 8 August 1911, JM online.
136 Muir leaves California for East Coast: Branch 2001, pp.7–9.
137 ‘the great hot river’: Muir to Katharine Hooker, 10 August 1911, ibid., p.31.
138 ‘Don’t fret about’: Muir to Helen Muir Funk, 12 August 1911, ibid., p.32.
139 ‘I only went out’: Muir in 1913, Wolfe 1979, p.439.
Epilogue
1 Boston orator: Louis Agassiz, 14 September 1869, New York Times, 15 September 1869.
2 bonfire in Cleveland: Reported in New York Times on 4 April 1918, Nichols 2006, p.409; centennial Cleveland, New York Herald, 15 September 1869.
3 Cincinnati and anti-German sentiment: Nichols 2006, p.411.
4 ‘severe, pervasive and’: IPCC, Fifth Assessment Synthesis Report, 1 November 2014, p.7.
5 ‘There is in fact no’: Wendell Berry, ‘It all Turns on Affection’, Jefferson Lecture 2012, http://www.neh.gov/about/awards/jefferson-lecture/wendell-e-berry-lecture.
6 ‘mankind’s mischief’: AH, February 1800, AH Diary 2000, p.216.
7 ‘barren’ and ‘ravaged’: AH, 9–27 November 1801, Popayán, AH Diary 1982, p.313.
8 ‘fountain with many’: Goethe to Johann Peter Eckermann, 12 December 1826, Goethe and Eckermann 1999, p.183.
A Note on Humboldt’s Publications
1 A Note on Humboldt’s Publications: If not referenced otherwise the information on Humboldt’s publications is based on Alexander von Humboldts Schriften. Bibliographie der selbständig erschienenen Werke (Fiedler and Leitner 2000).
2 AH never saw German edition: AH to Cotta, 20 January 1840, AH Cotta Letters 2009, pp.223–4.
3 ‘the most prominent work’: Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, 1843, vol.13, Fiedler and Leitner 2000, p.359.
4 ‘It had to be done’: AH to Heinrich Christian Schumacher, 22 May 1843, AH Schumacher Letters 1979, p.112.
5 ‘owners of East India’: AH to Johann Georg von Cotta, 16 March 1849, AH Cotta Letters 2009, p.360.
6 ‘Book of Nature’: AH to Varnhagen, 24 O
ctober 1834, AH Varnhagen Letters 1860, p.19; my translation from the German edition AH Varnhagen Letters German 1860, p.13.
A Note on Humboldt’s Publications
The chronology of Alexander von Humboldt’s publications is still muddled today. Not even Humboldt himself knew exactly what was published when and in which language. It doesn’t help that some of the books were published in different formats and editions, or as part of a series, but then also separately as single volumes. His publications related to Latin American became the thirty-four-volume Voyage to the Equinoctial Regions of the New Continent, illustrated with 1,500 engravings. As a reference, I have compiled a list of the publications that are referred to throughout The Invention of Nature, but I have not listed his specialized publications on botany, zoology, astronomy etc.
Publications that were part of the thirty-four-volume ‘Voyage to the Equinoctial Regions of the New Continent’
Essay on the Geography of Plants
This was the first volume that Humboldt completed after his return from Latin America. It was originally published in German as Ideen zu einer Geographie der Pflanzen and in French as Essai sur la géographie des plantes – both in 1807. The Essay introduced Humboldt’s ideas on plant distribution and nature as a web of life. It was illustrated with the large three-foot-by-two-foot hand-coloured fold-out, his so-called ‘Naturgemälde’ – the mountain with plants placed according to their altitude as well as the columns to the left and to the right with additional information on gravity, atmospheric pressure, temperature, chemical composition and so on. Humboldt dedicated the Essay to his old friend Goethe. It was published in Spanish in the South American journal Semanario in 1809 but never translated into English until 2009.
Views of Nature
This was Humboldt’s favourite book, combining scientific information with poetic landscape descriptions. It was divided into chapters such as ‘Steppes and Deserts’ or ‘Cataracts of the Orinoco’. It was first published in Germany in early 1808 and followed in the same year by a French translation. Views of Nature went through several editions. The third and extended edition was published on Humboldt’s eightieth birthday on 14 September 1849. The same edition was published in English in two competing translations under two titles: Aspects of Nature (1849) and Views of Nature (1850).
Vues des Cordillères et monumens des peuples indigènes de l’Amérique
These two volumes were the most lavish of Humboldt’s publications. They contained sixty-nine engravings of Chimborazo, Inca ruins, Aztec manuscripts and Mexican calendars – of which twenty-three were coloured. Vues des Cordillères was published in Paris in seven instalments between 1810 and 1813 as a large folio edition. Depending on the paper quality the price was either 504 francs or 764 francs. Only two of the instalments were translated into German in 1810. Like Personal Narrative, the English translation of Vues des Cordillères was done by Helen Maria Williams and overseen by Humboldt. It was published in Britain in 1814 as a less monumental two-volume octavo edition which included all the text but only twenty engravings. The English title was Researches concerning the Institutions & Monuments of the Ancient Inhabitants of America with Descriptions & Views of some of the most Striking Scenes in the Cordilleras! – the exclamation mark was part of the title.
Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of the New Continent during the years 1799–1804
Humboldt’s seven-volume travel account of the expedition in Latin America was part travelogue, part science book, following Humboldt’s and Bonpland’s voyage chronologically. Humboldt never finished it. The last volume ended with their arrival at the Río Magdalena on 20 April 1801 – not even half of the expedition. It was first published in France in a quarto edition under the title Voyage aux régions équinoxiales du Nouveau Continent fit en 1799, 1800, 1801, 1802, 1803 et 1804 (with volumes published from 1814 to 1831) and then followed by a smaller and much cheaper octavo edition (1816–31). Prices ranged from 7 francs to 234 francs per volume. Depending on the edition, it was also sold as a three-volume publication. It was almost immediately published in England as Personal Narrative (1814–29), translated by Helen Maria Williams who lived in Paris and who worked closely with Humboldt. In 1852 a new English edition (an unauthorized translation by Thomasina Ross) was published. Also unauthorized was the German translation which was published between 1818 and 1832. On 20 January 1840 Humboldt told his German publisher that he had never even seen the German edition, and later – once he had read it – complained that the translation was terrible.
Confusingly, the last volume was also published as a separate book as Essai politique sur l’île de Cuba in 1826 – translated as Political Essay on the Island of Cuba.
Political Essay on the Island of Cuba
Humboldt’s detailed account of Cuba was first published in French in 1826 as Essai politique sur l’île de Cuba and as part of Voyage aux régions équinoxiales du Nouveau Continent fit en 1799, 1800, 1801, 1802, 1803 et 1804 (or Personal Narrative in English). It was densely packed with information on climate, agriculture, ports, demographics as well as economic data such as import and exports – including Humboldt’s scathing criticism of slavery. It was also translated into Spanish in 1827. The first English translation (by J.S. Thrasher) was published in the United States in 1856 and did not include Humboldt’s chapter on slavery.
Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain
Humboldt’s portrait of the Spanish colonies was based on his own observations but also his archival research in Mexico City. Like the Political Essay on the Island of Cuba, it was a handbook of facts, hard data and statistics. Humboldt wove together information on geography, plants, agriculture, manufacturing and mines but also on demographics and economics. It was first published in French as Essai politique sur le royaume de la Nouvelle-Espagne between 1808 and 1811 (in two volumes as a quarto edition and five volumes for the octavo edition). It went through several updated editions. A German translation was published between 1809 and 1814. The English translation was completed in 1811 as Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain in four volumes. A Spanish translation was published in 1822.
Other Publications
Fragmens de géologie et de climatologie asiatiques
Following his Russia expedition, Humboldt published Fragmens de géologie et de climatologie asiatique in 1831 – much of it was based on lectures he did in Paris between October 1830 and January 1831. As the title says, it was a book that presented Humboldt’s observations on the geology and climate of Asia. It was a preliminary publication to the longer Asie centrale which followed in 1843. The book was published in Germany as Fragmente einer Geologie und Klimatologie Asiens in 1832 but never translated into English.
Asie centrale, recherches sur les chaînes de montagnes et la climatogie comparée
Humboldt published the fuller results of his Russian expedition in spring 1843 in French in three volumes. Note the word ‘comparée’ in the title – everything was based on comparison. Asie centrale brought together up-to-date information about the geology and climate of Asia, including detailed accounts of the mountain ranges in Russia, Tibet and China. A reviewer in the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society called it ‘the most prominent work on geography which has appeared during the last year’. Humboldt dedicated the book to Tsar Nicholas I but resented it. ‘It had to be done,’ he told a friend, because the expedition had been financed by the tsar. The German translation was published in 1844 as Central-Asien. Untersuchungen über die Gebirgsketten und die vergleichende Klimatologie, and included more and newer research than the earlier French edition. Humboldt was surprised that Asie centrale was never translated into English. It was strange, he said, that the British were so obsessed with Cosmos when the ‘owners of East India’ should have been more interested in Asie centrale and its information about the Himalaya.
Cosmos
Humboldt worked for more than two decades on Cosmos. It was first published in German as Kosmos
. Entwurf einer physischen Weltgeschichte. Originally planned as a two-volume publication, it eventually became five, published between 1845 and 1862. It was Humboldt’s ‘Book of Nature’, the culmination of his working life and loosely based on his Berlin lectures in 1827–8. The first volume was a journey through the external world, from nebulae and stars, to volcanoes, plants and humans. The second volume was a voyage of the mind through human history from ancient Greeks to modern times. The last three volumes were more specialized scientific tomes that didn’t appeal to the general readership that had been attracted by the first two volumes.
The first two volumes were huge bestsellers and by 1851 Cosmos had been translated into ten languages. In Britain three competing editions appeared almost at the same time – but only the one translated by Elizabeth J.L. Sabine and published by John Murray was authorized by Humboldt (and only the first four volumes were translated). By 1850, the first volume of Sabine’s translation was already in the seventh edition and the second in the eighth edition. By 1849, some 40,000 English copies had been sold. In Germany several smaller and cheaper editions were published just before and after Humboldt’s death – they were affordable for a broad readership and comparable to today’s paperbacks.
Sources and Bibliography
The Works of Alexander von Humboldt
Alexander von Humboldt und August Böckh. Briefwechsel, ed. Romy Werther and Eberhard Knobloch, Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2011
Alexander von Humboldt et Aimé Bonpland. Correspondance 1805–1858, ed. Nicolas Hossard, Paris: L’Harmattan, 2004
Alexander von Humboldt und Cotta. Briefwechsel, ed. Ulrike Leitner, Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2009
Alexander von Humboldt. Johann Franz Encke. Briefwechsel, ed. Ingo Schwarz, Oliver Schwarz and Eberhard Knobloch, Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2013
Alexander von Humboldt. Friedrich Wilhelm IV. Briefwechsel, ed. Ulrike Leitner, Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2013