Alexander von Humboldt was born on this day in 1769! He was the German polymath and naturalist whose work on botanical geography established the field of biogeography. In 1799-1804, he explored South America then traveled to what was then called New Spain and finally visited the U.S., where he met President Jefferson. Jefferson, in turn, sent some of Humboldt's data out to Lewis and Clark, who were already along the Missouri River. Humboldt revitalized the ancient Greek word Kosmos to unify aspects of the natural world--and our intellectual, aesthetic, and emotional pleasure that we derive from Nature. He influenced many scientists, artists, and writers, including Darwin, Alfred Russel Wallace, Frederic Edwin Church, Jules Verne, Walt Whitman, and numerous others. Anti-German sentiment during World War I erased his tremendous popularity in this country, but many places in the U.S. are named for him. Two years ago we got to visit Humboldt University in Berlin. This portrait is in the nearby Nationalgalerie. ...
If you're still interested at this point, LOL, here is a quotation from Smithsonian Magazine. "[Humboldt] claimed to sleep only four hours a night and called coffee 'concentrated sunbeams.' Among his many scientific achievements, Humboldt theorized the spreading of the continental landmasses through plate tectonics, mapped the distribution of plants on three continents and charted the way air and water move to create bands of climate at different latitudes and altitudes. He tracked what became known as the Humboldt Current in the Pacific Ocean and created what he called isotherms to chart mean temperatures around the globe. He observed the relationship between deforestation and changes in local climate, located the magnetic equator and found in the geological strata fossil remains of both plants and animals that he understood to be precursors to modern life forms, acknowledging extinction before many others."
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