Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 1 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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It Would Have Been Possible To Blend These Different Materials In A
Work Devoted Wholly To The Description Of The Volcanoes Of Peru And
New Spain.
Had I given the physical description of a single
province, I could have treated separately everything relating to
its
Geography, mineralogy, and botany; but how could I interrupt
the narrative of a journey, a disquisition on the manners of a
people, or the great phenomena of nature, by an enumeration of the
productions of the country, the description of new species of
animals and plants, or the detail of astronomical observations. Had
I adopted a mode of composition which would have included in one
and the same chapter all that has been observed on one particular
point of the globe, I should have prepared a work of cumbrous
length, and devoid of that clearness which arises in a great
measure from the methodical distribution of matter. Notwithstanding
the efforts I have made to avoid, in this narrative, the errors I
had to dread, I feel conscious that I have not always succeeded in
separating the observations of detail from those general results
which interest every enlightened mind. These results comprise in
one view the climate and its influence on organized beings, the
aspect of the country, varied according to the nature of the soil
and its vegetable covering, the direction of the mountains and
rivers which separate races of men as well as tribes of plants; and
finally, the modifications observable in the condition of people
living in different latitudes, and in circumstances more or less
favourable to the development of their faculties.
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