Todo claro Isis, estoy en ello.

Isis

Ya veremos que laureles saco José Antonio, por lo pronto el Deutsch me atenaza la garganta!

Es que el alemán me tiene hasta la coronilla hermano, y tu no sabes lo que me cuesta por aquí arriba, encontrar un cubanische con el que se pueda conversar. A mi correo se accede desde La Patria…

Un saludo.

Humboldt studied at the universities of Frankfurt an der Oder and Göttingen from 1787 and later went to the School of Mines at Freiburg in Saxony. In 1792 he joined the mining department of the Prussian government, and promotion came swiftly. One observation he made which proved crucial in his later researches was on the magnetic qualities of rocks; he also invented a safety lamp.

Explorations and Scientific Observations

In 1796 Humboldt’s mother died, and he became sufficiently wealthy to plan a 5-year period of exploration. He started out in June 1799, after studying various techniques of botanical research, meteorological observation, and height estimation from barometric readings.

With Aimé Boupland, a botanist, Humboldt spent 5 years traveling in South America and Mexico, with visits to Cuba and finally to the United States, returning home in August 1804. The achievement was magnificent, for it included new material on volcanoes and on the structure of the Andes, with a vast array of data on climate and on plant geography. The Personal Narrative of this expedition was published in French in 1814-1819, and an English translation appeared in 1825; among its admiring readers was Charles Darwin. Humboldt was a splendid scientific observer. He saw that excessive tree felling could be followed by soil erosion, eagerly noted the relics of the Inca and Aztec civilizations, and in France carefully worked out the climatic conditions under which vines could be grown.

From 1804 to 1827 Humboldt lived mainly in Paris as a writer and scientist, still following researches into geomagnetism which eventually, in 1838, led to the discovery of the magnetic pole. From 1827 he lived in Berlin and in 1829 spent 9 months in Siberia on a mining survey with some botanical and geological work. In 1830 he became an adviser to the King of Prussia and acquired increasing influence at court.

Humboldt’s Asie Centrale appeared in three volumes in Paris in 1843, and the great Kosmos in five volumes in Stuttgart from 1845 to 1862. These works cover a vast range of physical and human phenomena. Caustic in comment, Humboldt was benevolent in disposition, but he was quite unable to manage money. He died on May 6, 1859, in Berlin.

Piet