The Invention of Nature
Page 44
30 mountain range instead Casiquiare: Holl 2009, p.131.
31 AH and money: AH Personal Narrative 1814–29, vol.3, p.307; the English edition doesn’t mention the money but the French edition does: AH, Voyage aux régions équinoxiales du Nouveau Continent, vol.4, p.5.
32 letters to be published in newspapers: AH to Ludwig Bolmann, 15 October 1799, Biermann 1987, p.169.
33 43 letters from La Coruña: AH Letters America 1993, p.9.
34 mules and equipment: AH, 7 February 1800, AH Diary 2000, p.185.
35 ‘smiling valleys’: AH Personal Narrative 1814–29, vol.4, p.107.
36 description Aragua: Ibid., p.132.
37 falling water levels: Ibid., p.131ff.; AH, 4 March 1800, AH Diary 2000, p.215ff.
38 outlet lake: AH Personal Narrative 1814–29, vol.4, p.141.
39 sand on islands: Ibid., p.140.
40 average evaporation: Ibid., p.145ff.
41 destruction of forests: Ibid., p.142.
42 water for irrigation: Ibid., pp.148–9.
43 consequences of deforestation: AH, 4 March 1800, AH Diary 2000, p.215.
44 deforestation outside Cumaná: AH Personal Narrative 1814–29, vol.3, pp.24–5.
45 ‘imprudently destroyed’: Ibid., vol.4, p.63.
46 ‘Forest very decimated’: AH, 7 February 1800, AH Diary 2000, p.186.
47 ‘closely connected’: AH Personal Narrative 1814–29, vol.4, p.144.
48 diminished the evaporation: Ibid., p.143.
49 AH and climate change: See AH’s writings but also Holl 2007–8, pp.20–25; Osten 2012, p.61ff.
50 ‘When forests are destroyed’: AH Personal Narrative 1814–29, vol.4, pp.143–4.
51 AH and timber for mines: Weigel 2004, p.85.
52 ‘We had better be’: Evelyn 1670, p.178.
53 ‘France will perish’: Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Schama 1996, p.175.
54 ‘timber will soon’: Bartram, John, ‘An Essay for the Improvements of Estates, by Raising a Durable Timber for Fencing, and Other Uses’, Bartram 1992, p.294.
55 ‘loss for wood’: Benjamin Franklin to Jared Eliot, 25 October 1750; Benjamin Franklin, ‘An Account of the New Invented Pennsylvanian Fire-Places’, 1744, Franklin 1956–2008, vol.2, p.422 and vol.4, p.70.
56 effect on future generations: AH Personal Narrative 1814–29, vol.4, p.143.
57 Lombardy and Peru: Ibid., p.144.
58 forest and ecosystem: AH, September 1799, AH Diary 2000, p.140; AH Personal Narrative 1814–29, vol.4, p.477.
59 ‘The wooded region acts’ (footnote): AH Aspects 1849, vol.1, pp.126–7; AH Views 2014, p.82; AH Ansichten 1849, vol.1, p.158. [
60 tree and oxygen: AH, September 1799, AH Diary 2000, p.140.
61 ‘incalculable’ and ‘brutally’: AH, 4 March 1800, ibid., p.216.
62 shrinking turtle population: AH Personal Narrative 1814–29, vol.4. p.486; AH, 6 April 1800, AH Diary 2000, p.257.
63 depleted pearl oyster: AH Personal Narrative 1814–29, vol.2, p.147.
64 ‘Everything … is interaction’: AH, 2–5 August 1803, AH Diary 2003, vol.2, p.258.
65 ‘nature has made’: Aristotle, Politics, Bk.1, Ch.8.
66 ‘all things are made’: Carl Linnaeus, Worster 1977, p.37.
67 ‘replenish the earth’: Genesis 1:27–8.
68 ‘the world is made’: Francis Bacon, Worster 1977, p.30.
69 ‘the lords and’: René Descartes, Thomas 1984, p.33.
70 ‘howling wilderness’: Rev. Johannes Megapolensis, Myers 1912, p.303.
71 ‘rendered the earth’: Montesquieu, The Spirit of Laws, London, 1750, p.391.
72 ideal of nature: Chinard 1945, p.464.
73 ‘the idea of destruction’: de Tocqueville, 26 July 1833, ‘A Fortnight in the Wilderness’, Tocqueville 1861, vol. 1, p.202.
74 Williamson and deforestation: Hugh Williamson, 17 August 1770, Chinard 1945, p.452.
75 ‘drying up the marshes’: Thomas Wright in 1794, Thomson 2012, p.189
76 ‘subduing of the’: Jeremy Belknap, Chinard 1945, p.464.
77 Buffon and wilderness: Judd 2006, p.4; Bewell 1989, p.242.
78 ‘cultivated nature … beautiful’: Buffon, Bewell 1989, p.243; see also Adam Hodgson, Chinard 1945, p.483.
79 ‘Man can only act’: AH Cosmos 1845–52, vol.1, p.37; AH Kosmos 1845–50, vol.1, p.36.
80 humankind could destroy environment: AH, 4 March 1800, AH Diary 2000, p.216.
Chapter 5: The Llanos and the Orinoco
1 AH in Llanos: Unless otherwise referenced AH Personal Narrative 1814–29, vol.4, p.273ff.; AH, 6 March–27 March 1800, AH Diary 2000, p.222ff.
2 ‘plunged into a vast’: AH Personal Narrative 1814–29, vol.4, p.263.
3 ‘everything seems motionless’: Ibid., p.293.
4 AH clothes: Painting of AH by Friedrich Georg Weitsch from 1806, today at the Alte National Galerie in Berlin.
5 small farm in Llanos: AH Personal Narrative 1814–29, vol.4, p.319ff.; AH, 6–27 March 1800, AH Diary 2000, pp.223–34.
6 ‘fills the mind’: AH Views 2014, p.29; AH Aspects 1849, vol.1, p.2; AH Ansichten 1849, vol.1, p.4; AH Ansichten 1808, p.3.
7 electric eels and following description: AH Aspects 1849, vol.1, pp.22–3; AH Views 2014, pp.39–40; AH Ansichten 1849, pp.32–4; Personal Narrative 1814–29, vol.4, p.347ff.
8 ‘flow forth from’: AH Views 2014, p.40; AH Aspects 1849, vol.1, p.23; AH Ansichten 1849, vol.1, p.34.
9 description journey to Orinoco: AH Personal Narrative 1814–29, vol.4, p.390ff. and vol.5.
10 provisions and food: AH, 30 March 1800, AH Diary 2000, p.239.
11 brother-in-law of governor: AH Personal Narrative 1814–29, vol.4, p.419.
12 no distraction from studies: AH to WH, 17 October 1800, AH WH Letters 1880, p.15.
13 Bonpland always cheerful: AH Personal Narrative 1814–29, vol.3, p.310.
14 crocodiles: AH, 30 March–23 May 1800, AH Diary 2000, pp.241–2.
15 bathing in Orinoco: Ibid., p.255.
16 nightly camps: AH Personal Narrative 1814–29, vol.4, pp.433, 436, 535, vol.5, p.442.
17 snake under animal skin: Ibid., vol.5, p.287.
18 Bonpland and cat: AH, 30 March–23 May 1800, AH Diary 2000, p.244.
19 AH and jaguar: AH Personal Narrative 1814–29, vol.4, p.446; AH, 2 April 1800, AH Diary 2000, p.249.
20 curare poison: AH Personal Narrative 1814–29, vol.5, p.528.
21 ‘flute-like tones’: AH Aspects 1849, vol.1, p.270; AH Views 2014, p.146; AH Ansichten 1849, vol.1, p.333.
22 ‘many voices proclaiming’: AH Personal Narrative 1814–29, vol.4, p.505.
23 ‘man did not disturb’: AH, 31 March 1800, AH Diary 2000, p.240.
24 study animals in their environment: AH Personal Narrative 1814–29, vol.4, pp.523–4.
25 titi monkey: Ibid., p.527.
26 catching titi: AH, 30 March–23 May 1800, AH Diary 2000, p.266.
27 ‘active, organic powers’: AH Views 2014, p.147; AH Aspects 1849, vol.1, p.272; AH Ansichten 1849, vol.1, p.337.
28 ‘swallow a horse’: AH to Baron von Forell, 3 February 1800, Bruhns 1873, vol.1, p.274.
29 ‘man is nothing’: AH Personal Narrative 1814–29, vol.5, p.290.
30 animals at night: AH Aspects 1849, vol.1, p.270ff.; AH Views 2014, pp.146–7; AH Ansichten 1849, vol.1, pp.333–5; AH Personal Narrative 1814–29, vol.4, p.436ff.
31 ‘a long-extended’: AH Views 2014, p.146; AH Aspects 1849, vol.1, p.270; AH Ansichten 1849, vol.1, p.334.
32 ‘some contest’: AH Personal Narrative 1814–29, vol.4, p.437.
33 capybaras, jaguars, flying fish: Ibid., vol.2, p.15.
34 ‘limited only by’: AH Views 2014, p.36; AH Aspects 1849, vol.1, p.15; AH Ansichten 1849, vol.1, p.23.
35 Linnaeus and harmonious balance: Worster 1977, p.35.
36 ‘golden age has’: AH Personal Narrative 1814–29, vol.4, p.421.
37 ‘destructive
hand of man’: AH Aspects 1849, vol.1, p.15; AH Views 2014, p.37; AH Ansichten 1849, vol.1, p.23.
38 AH measured width of Orinoco: AH, 30 March–23 May 1800, AH Diary 2000, p.262.
39 Atures and Maipures rapids: AH Personal Narrative 1814–29, vol.5, p.1ff.; AH Aspects 1849, vol.1, p.219ff.; AH Views 2014, p.123ff.; AH Ansichten 1849, vol.1, p.268ff.
40 ‘majestic scenes of’: AH Personal Narrative 1814–29, vol.5, p.139.
41 almost capsized boat: Ibid., vol.4, p.496; AH, 6 April 1800, AH Diary 2000, p.258.
42 ‘Do not worry’: Bonpland to AH, 6 April 1800, AH Diary 2000, p.258.
43 displayed ‘that coolness’: AH Personal Narrative 1814–29, vol.4, p.496.
44 AH and mosquitos: Ibid., vol.5, pp.87, 112; AH, 15 April 1800, AH Diary 2000, pp.260–61.
45 a ‘third hand’: AH, 15 April 1800, AH Diary 2000, p.261.
46 hornitos: AH Personal Narrative 1814–29, vol.5, pp.103–4.
47 ‘pleasure cruise’: AH, 15 April 1800, AH Diary 2000, p.262.
48 Father Bernardo Zea: AH Personal Narrative 1814–29, vol.4, p.510.
49 ‘travelling menagerie’: Ibid., vol.4, pp.534–6 and vol.5, p.406; AH, 15 April 1800, AH Diary 2000, p.260.
50 difficult to find camps: AH Personal Narrative 1814–29, vol.5, p.441.
51 food provisions and water: Ibid., vol.4, p.320; vol.5, pp.363, 444; AH, 15 April 1800, AH Diary 2000, p.260; AH to WH, 17 October 1800, AH WH Letters 1880, p.17.
52 Brazil nuts: AH Personal Narrative 1814–29, vol.5, pp.365, 541; Humboldt later named it Bertholletia excelsa after the French scientist Claude Louis Berthollet.
53 blossoms in canopy: Ibid., p.256.
54 ‘count their teeth’: AH, April 1800, AH Diary 2000, p.250. ’
55 river water ‘delicious’: AH, April–May 1800, AH Diary 2000, p.285; see also pp.255, 286.
56 ‘excellent geographers’: AH Personal Narrative 1814–29, vol.5, p.309; for worship of nature see vol.3, p.213; for best observers of nature, see AH, ‘Indios, Sinneschärfe’, Guayaquil, 4 January–17 February 1803, AH Diary 1982, pp.182–3.
57 AH fascinated by indigenous people: AH Personal Narrative 1814–29, vol.4, p.532ff.
58 ‘barbarism of civilised man’: Ibid., vol.5, p.234.
59 ‘indolent indifference’: Ibid., vol.4, p.549, vol.5, p.256.
60 ‘chased by demons’: AH, March 1801, AH Diary 1982, p.176.
61 night in jungle: AH Personal Narrative 1814–29, vol.5, p.443.
62 ‘illuminated by the rays’: Ibid., pp.2, 218; AH Aspects 1849, vol.1, pp.216, 224, 231; AH Views 2014, pp.121, 126, 129; AH Ansichten 1849, vol.1, pp. 263, 276, 285.
63 ‘What speaks to the’: AH Personal Narrative 1814–29, vol.4, p.134.
64 AH and Casiquiare: Ibid., vol.5, pp.399–400, 437, 442.
65 living ‘palisade’: Ibid., p.441.
66 Casiquiare and Orinoco: Ibid., p.448.
67 ‘had been invented’: AH, May 1800, AH Diary 2000, p.297.
68 Angostura: AH Personal Narrative 1814–29, vol.5, pp.691–2.
69 AH and Bonpland fever: Ibid., p.694ff.
70 animals in cages: Ibid., vol.6, p.7.
71 slow progress: Ibid., pp.2–3.
72 ‘Infinity of space’: Ibid., p.69.
73 rainy season Llanos: AH Aspects 1849, vol.1, p.19ff.; AH Views 2014, p.38ff.; AH Ansichten 1849, vol.1, p.29ff.
74 ‘air turned into’: AH, March 1800, AH Diary 2000, p.231. Although this is an entry for March, AH was referring here to his later experience in July, an entry that he added later.
75 ‘observed with astonishment’: AH Personal Narrative 1814–29, vol.6, p.7.
76 feeling of ‘coolness’: Ibid., vol.4, p.334.
77 ‘spreads life around’: Ibid., vol.6, p.8.
78 ‘tree of life’: AH Views 2014, p.36; AH Aspects 1849, vol.1, pp.15, 181; AH Ansichten 1849, vol.1, p.23.
Chapter 6: Across the Andes
1 AH and Baudin: AH Personal Narrative 1814–29, vol.7, p.285; AH to Nicolas Baudin, 12 April 1801, Bruhns 1873, vol.1, p.292; AH to Carl Ludwig Willdenow, 21 February 1801, Biermann 1987, p.173; AH, Recollections during voyage from Lima to Guayaquil, 24 December 1802–4 January 1803, AH Diary 2003, vol.2, p.178; National Intelligencer and Washington Advertiser, 12 November 1800.
2 ‘the more I hastened’: AH Personal Narrative 1814–29, vol.7, p.288.
3 ‘It was very uncertain’: AH to Carl Ludwig Willdenow, 21 February 1801, Biermann 1987, p.171.
4 divided collections: AH Personal Narrative 1814–29, vol.7, p.286.
5 ‘The science of two’: Joseph Banks to Jacques Julien Houttou de La Billardière, 9 June 1796, Banks 2000, p.171; see also Wulf 2008, pp.203–4.
6 seeds to Banks from Cumaná (footnote): AH to Banks, 15 November 1800, Banks to Jean Baptiste Joseph Delambre, 4 January 1805, Banks 2007, vol.5, pp.63–4, 406.
7 happier and healthier: AH to Carl Ludwig Willdenow, 21 February 1801, Biermann 1987, p.175.
8 ‘and you, dearest’: AH to Christiane Haeften, 18 October 1800, AH Letters America 1993, p.109.
9 ‘When one is young’: AH, 24 December 1802–4 January 1803, AH Diary 2003, vol.2, p.178.
10 but ‘all difficulties’: AH, Recollections during voyage from Lima to Guayaquil, 24 December 1802–4 January 1803, AH Diary 2003, vol.2, p.178.
11 AH wanted to meet Mutis: Ibid.; AH, 23 June–8 July 1801, AH Diary 2003, vol.1, p.89ff.; AH to WH, 21 September 1801, AH WH Letters 1880, p.32.
12 ‘Mutis, so close!’: AH, 23 June–8 July 1801, AH Diary 2003, vol.1, pp.89–90.
13 ‘signposts’: AH, 19 April–15 June 1801, ibid., pp.65–6. ’
14 journey on Río Magdalena: Ibid., pp.67–78.
15 Honda: AH, 18–22 June 1801, ibid., p.78.
16 journey to Bogotá: AH, 23 June–8 July 1801, ibid., pp.85–9.
17 arrival Bogotá: AH to WH, 21 September 1801, AH WH Letters 1880, p.35; AH, November–December 1801, AH Diary 2003, vol.1, p.90ff (AH wrote this diary entry after they had left Bogotá).
18 Mutis’s drawing school: Holl 2009, p.161.
19 Mutis’s botanical library: AH to WH, 21 September 1801, AH WH Letters 1880, p.35.
20 Bonpland fever: AH, November–December 1801, AH Diary 2003, vol.1, p.91.
21 mules from Bogotá: AH, 8 September 1801, ibid., p.119.
22 porters carrying luggage: AH, 5 October 1801, ibid., p.135.
23 servant José: AH, 23 June–8 July 1801, ibid., p.85.
24 crossing Quindío Pass: AH Cordilleras 1814, vol.1, p.63ff.; AH Cordilleren 1810, vol.1, p.17ff.; Fiedler and Leitner 2000, p.170.
25 ‘These are the paths’: AH, 27 November 1801, see also AH, 5 October 1801, AH Diary 2003, vol.1, pp.131, 155.
26 ‘patch-worked falling’: AH, 27 November 1801, ibid., p.151.
27 progress through Andes: AH, 14 September 1801, ibid., p.124; AH Cordilleras 1814, vol.1, p.64; AH Cordilleren 1810, vol.1, p.19.
28 condor ‘mirror-like’: AH, 22 December 1801, AH Diary 2003, vol.1, p.163.
29 flames from Pasto: AH, 19 December 1801, ibid., vol.2, p.45.
30 ‘I don’t get tired’: AH to WH, 21 September 1801, AH WH Letters 1880, p.27.
31 instruments over abyss: AH, 27 November 1801, AH Diary 2003, vol.1, p.155.
32 carrying and cost of barometer: Ibid., p.152; for José and barometer, see AH, 28 April 1802, AH Diary 2003, vol.2, p.83; for AH’s travel barometer, see Friedrich Georg Weitsch’s portrait of AH from 1806 (today in the Alte National Galerie in Berlin); Seeberger 1999, pp.57–61.
33 ‘Lucky are those’: Wilson 1995, p.296; AH, 19 April–15 June 1801, AH Diary 2003, vol.1, p.66.
34 arrival Quito: AH, Aus Meinem Leben (1769–1850), in Biermann 1987, p.101.
35 ‘since you belong to’: Goethe to AH, 1824, Goethe Encounters 1965–2000, vol.14, p.322.
36 ‘he never remained’: Rosa Montúfar, Beck 1959, p.24.
37 ‘a lost man’
: AH to Carl Freiesleben, 21 October 1793, AH Letters 1973, p.280.
38 ‘undying’ and ’fervent: AH to Wilhelm Gabriel Wegener, 27 March 1789 and AH to Carl Freiesleben, 10 April 1792, ibid., pp.46, 180.
39 ‘I was tied to you’: AH to Reinhard von Haeften, 1 January 1796, ibid., p.477.
40 cried for hours: AH to Carl Freiesleben, 10 April 1792, ibid., p.180.
41 ‘My plans are subordinated’: AH to Reinhard von Haeften, 1 January 1796, ibid., pp.478–9.
42 a ‘good person’: AH to Carl Freiesleben, 4 June 1799, ibid., p.680.
43 ‘lack of true’: Adolph Kohut in 1871 about AH’s time in Berlin in 1805, Beck 1959, p.31.
44 ‘sleeping partner’: Quarterly Review, vol.14, January 1816, p.369.
45 ‘nothing will ever have’: CH to WH, 22 January 1791, WH CH Letters 1910–16, vol.1, p.372.
46 ‘sexual irregularities’: Theodor Fontane to Georg Friedländer, 5 December 1884, Fontane 1980, vol.3, p.365.
47 Humboldt’s ‘Adonis’: José de Caldas to José Celestino Mutis, 21 June 1802, Andress 2011, p.11; Caldas asked if he could join AH, Holl 2009, p.166.
48 ‘I don’t know sensual’: AH to Archibald Maclean, 6 November 1791; see also AH to Wilhelm Gabriel Wegener, 27 March 1789, AH Letters 1973, pp.47, 157.
49 ‘wild urges of’: AH Kosmos 1845–50, vol.1, p.6: ‘vom wilden Drange der Leidenschaften bewegt ist’. The English translation was toned down to ‘passions of men’; see also AH to Archibald Maclean, 6 November 1791, AH Letters 1973, p.157.
50 José carried barometer: AH, 28 April 1802, AH Diary 2003, vol.2, p.83.
51 climbed Pichincha: AH climbed Pichincha three times; AH, 14 April, 26 and 28 May 1802, AH Diary 2003, vol.2, pp.72ff.; 85ff.; 90ff.; AH to WH, 25 November 1802, AH WH Letters 1880, p.45ff.
52 ‘No imagination would’: AH to WH, 25 November 1802, AH WH Letters 1880, p.46.
53 climbed Cotopaxi: AH, 28 April 1802, AH Diary 2003, vol.2, p.83ff.
54 ‘vault of Heaven’: AH Cordilleras 1814, vol.1, pp.121, 125; AH Cordilleren 1810, vol.1, pp.59, 62.
55 shape as created by wood turner: AH, 28 April 1802, AH Diary 2003, vol.2, p.81.
56 climbed Antisana: AH, 14–18 March 1802, ibid., p.57ff.
57 ‘ice needles’: Ibid., pp.57, 62.
58 ‘highest dwelling place’: Ibid., p.61.