Humboldt's "Personal Narrative"

I love antique books, during the last few years I've been collecting a few notable science books from
the nineteenth century. I like to write about them on this blog, teaching myself many new things in the process.

The last time I wrote about one of my science books was the August 7, 2017 post. Here is a book that I intended to take on my recent Galapagos trip: Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of the New Continent, During the Years 1799-1804, by Alexander von Humboldt and Aimé Bonpland, published by M. Carey in Philadelphia in 1815. This translation was first published in London. Darwin had brought a copy with him on his long Beagle voyage, and I thought it would be a fun and very nerdy thing to do, too. Thank goodness I didn't, because my bags were already heavy, and the trip was physically tiring.

Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) was a German explorer and naturalist and a pioneering scientist in geography, biogeography, and ecology. His multi-volume work Kosmos was a very

popular account that drew together several fields of the physical sciences. I will write about those books, too, eventually. The Humboldt Current off the South American coast, and many places and institutions are named for him, although he isn't well known today.

Darwin and artist Frederick Edwin Church were inspired by Humboldt to journey to South America, where Humboldt had crafted accurate maps, the envy of cartographers. I formerly admired Humboldt,
I now almost adore him, wrote Darwin. Alfred Russel Wallace, explorer John Muir, and  many others drew inspiration from the German scientist.

Here is a good article about the book: http://naturalhistorynetwork.org/journal/articles/1-alexander-von-humboldt’s-personal-narrative-of-travels-to-the-equinoctial-regions-of-america/

Here is a good article about how Humboldt's narrative influenced Darwin: http://darwin-online.org.uk/EditorialIntroductions/Chancellor_Humboldt.html

On Humboldt and his influence, I've been reading Laura Dassow Walls, Alexander von Humboldt and the Shaping of America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009). See also Aaron Sachs, The Humboldt Current: Nineteenth Century Exploration and the Roots of American Environmentalism (New York: Penguin Books, 2006). On Church and his painting The Heart of the Andes, see Stephen Jay Gould, “Church, Humboldt, and Darwin: The Tension and Harmony of Art and Science,” in Franklin Kelly, with Stephen Jay Gould and James Anthony Ryan, The Paintings of Frederic Edwin Church. Washington: National Gallery of Art, 1989. 94-107.

Here is an upcoming meeting in Ecuador--at the university that facilitated our Galapagos trip this month--in celebration of Humboldt's 250th birthday in September. https://humboldt250-ecuador.org

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Here is the antique book that I actually did take on the trip. It's an 1890 printing of Darwin's Origin of Species, which had gone on someone's trip to Columbia in 1950. I incorporated the book in to my poetry book Backyard Darwin and thought that I had to take this Origin to the Galapagos! I kept it safe from sun screen, however.