The Invention of Nature

by Andrea Wulf

  Lyell, Sir Charles, 14.1, 14.2, 17.1, 18.1, 18.2, 20.1, 20.2; Principles of Geology, 14.3, 17.2, 17.3

  Madison, Dolley

  Madison, James, 8.1, 8.2, 8.3, 11.1, 12.1, 12.2, 20.1, 21.1

  Magdalena, Río, 6.1, 12.1, 12.2

  ‘Magnetic Crusade’, 16.1, 18.1

  magnetic field (earth’s); see also geomagnetism

  Mahmud II, Ottoman sultan

  Malthus, Thomas: Essay on the Principle of Population

  Marsh, Caroline, 21.1, 21.2

  Marsh, George Perkins: background and career, 21.1; as Germanophile, 21.2; reads AH, 21.3; languages, 21.4; on AH, 21.5; helps establish Smithsonian, 21.6; political career, 21.7; married life, 21.8, 21.9; appointed Minister to Turkey, 21.10; travels in Egypt and Middle East, 21.11; on comparison between Old and New Worlds, 21.12, 21.13; on damage from agriculture, 14.1, 21.14; on environmental destruction and conservation, 21.15, 21.16, 23.1, 23.2; on deforestation, 21.17, 21.18; AH’s influence on, 21.19, 21.20, 21.21; financial problems, 21.22; appointed ambassador to Italy, 21.23; and American Civil War, 21.24; vision of future of earth, 21.25; and Old World’s lessons from New, 21.26; Man and Nature, prl.1, 21.27, 21.28, 22.1, 23.3

  Mauritia Palm (Mauritia flexuosa)

  Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Fanny

  Mérida (Venezuela)

  Metternich, Prince Klemens Lothar Wenzel, 15.1, 18.1, 20.1

  Mexico: AH visits, 7.1, 8.1, 8.2, 8.3; archives, 8.4; AH threatens to settle in, 14.1; requests AH’s help in negotiating trade agreement with Europe, 15.1; war with USA, 19.1, 20.1; concedes territories to USA, 19.2

  Missouri Compromise (1820)

  Monge, Gaspard

  Mongolia

  monism

  monoculture

  Montesquieu, Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de

  Monticello (Virginia), 8.1, 8.2

  Montúfar, Carlos, 6.1, 7.1, 8.1, 8.2, 9.1, 9.2

  Montúfar, Rosa

  Morse, Samuel

  Moscow

  mosquitoes, 5.1, 5.2, 16.1

  Muir, Daniel, 23.1, 23.2

  Muir, Helen

  Muir, John: affinity with nature, prl.1, 23.1, 23.2; reads Marsh’s Man and Nature, 21.1; appearance, 23.3; background and career, 23.4; travels, 23.5, 23.6, 23.7; thousand-mile walk to Florida, 23.8, 23.9; family moves to USA, 23.10; friendship with Jeanne Carr, 23.11, 23.12, 23.13; in Canada, 23.14; injures eyes, 23.15; in Cuba, 23.16; in California (Yosemite Valley), 23.17; on glaciers, 23.18; reads and marks AH’s books, 23.19, 23.20; on plant distribution, 23.21; Emerson visits, 23.22; campaigns for protection of nature, 23.23; writings, 23.24, 23.25; talk, 23.26; marriage, 23.27; as ranch manager, 23.28; father disapproves of writings, 23.29; accompanies Theodore Roosevelt to Yosemite, 23.30; defends Hetch Hetchy Valley, 23.31; praises AH, 23.32; visits South America, 23.33; My First Summer in the Sierra, 23.34, 23.35

  Muir, Louie (née Strentzel)

  Müller, Johannes

  Murchison, Sir Roderick

  Murray, John (publisher), 13.1, 13.2, 18.1

  Mutis, José Celestino, 6.1, 14.1

  Napoleon I (Bonaparte), Emperor of the French: sells North American territories to USA, 8.1; coronation and rule, 9.1, 9.2; military victories, 9.3, 11.1; disparages Friedrich Wilhelm III, 10.1; creates Confederation of the Rhine, 10.2; enters Berlin, 10.3; hostility to AH, 11.2; reads AH’s books, 11.3; defeat in Russia, 11.4; banished, 11.5, 13.1, 14.1

  Napoleonic Wars, 2.1, 3.1, 6.1, 8.1, 10.1, 11.1, 12.1, 15.1

  Nash, John

  natural selection: theory of; see also evolution

  Naturaliste (ship)

  nature: AH’s understanding of as organism, prl.1, prl.2, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 7.1, 7.2, 7.3, 10.1, 10.2, 13.1, 13.2, 15.1, 16.1; Muir’s affinity with, prl.3, 23.1, 23.2; control of, 1.1; Goethe on unity of, 2.4, 2.5; and food chain, 5.1; and freedom, 8.1; and AH’s Essay on the Geography of Plants, 10.3; Schelling on philosophy of, 10.4; AH writes on, 10.5; Bolívar’s fondness for, 12.1, 12.2, 12.3; Coleridge and Wordsworth on, 13.3; and predation, 17.1; described in Cosmos, 18.1; Thoreau’s affinity with, 19.1, 19.2, 19.3, 19.4; Marsh on human effects on, 21.1; Haeckel on unity of, 22.1; Muir on interconnectedness, 23.3, 23.4; Muir campaigns for protection of, 23.5

  Naturgemälde: AH’s notion of, 7.1, 7.2, 7.3, 10.1, 10.2, 10.3, 13.1, 14.1, 15.1, 19.1, 23.1

  Negro, Rio, 5.1, 5.2

  Neptunists, 6.1, 15.1

  New York Times

  Newton, Sir Isaac, prl.1, 1.1, 1.2; Opticks, 2.1

  Nicholas I, Tsar of Russia, 15.1, 16.1, 16.2, 16.3

  Nile, River

  Obi River (Russia), 16.1, 18.1

  O’Leary, General Daniel

  On the Isothermal Lines and the Distribution of Heat on the Earth (AH)

  Orinoco, River (South America), 4.1, 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 10.1, 17.1

  Oskemen (Kazakhstan)

  Ottoman Empire: war with Russia (1828), 16.1, 16.2

  Páez, José Antonio

  Panama: AH proposes canal, 20.1, 23.1

  Paraguay

  Paris: Caroline in, 3.1, 3.2, 9.1, 9.2; AH visits, 3.3; AH returns to (1804), 9.3; AH’s fondness for, 9.4; changes under Napoleon, 9.5; science in, 9.6, 9.7; life in, 9.8, 11.1, 11.2; Board of Longitude, 9.9; AH meets Bolívar in, 9.10; AH settles in (1807–27), 10.1, 11.3; Prussian peace mission in (1807), 10.2; Allies occupy (1814), 11.4; tourists and visitors, 11.5; cuisine, 13.1; decline as scientific centre under monarchy, 14.1; AH leaves for Berlin (1827), 14.2; AH revisits annually from Berlin, 18.1, 18.2; World Fair (1900), 22.1; see also Académie des Sciences

  Parry, William Edward

  Peale, Charles Willson

  Personal Narrative (AH): success and influence, 13.1; Darwin cherishes, 13.2, 17.1, 17.2, 17.3, 17.4, 20.1; inspires Wordsworth poem, 13.3; incorporated in Voyage to the Equinoctial Regions, 14.1; Thoreau reads, 19.1; new English translation, 20.2; Haeckel acquires, 22.1; on Tenerife, 22.2; Muir owns and reads, 23.1, 23.2

  Peru: rebellion

  Pétion, Alexandre

  Philadelphia, 8.1, 8.2

  Pichincha (volcano, Ecuador), 6.1, 7.1

  Pico del Teide (Canary Islands), 3.1, 10.1, 17.1

  Pinchot, Gifford

  Piòbesi (near Turin)

  Pisba (Colombia)

  Pizarro (Spanish frigate), 3.1, 3.2

  plants: distribution by geography and altitude, prl.1, 7.1, 10.1, 17.1, 18.1, 23.1; classification, 10.2

  Poe, Edgar Allan: Eureka

  Polier, Count Adolphe, 16.1, 16.2

  Political Essay on the Island of Cuba (AH), 12.1, 20.1

  Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain (AH), 12.1, 12.2, 13.1, 13.2, 14.1, 16.1, 17.1, 20.1

  Polk, James K.

  Pound, Ezra

  Prussia: rise to power, 1.1; losses in Napoleonic Wars, 10.1; AH accompanies peace mission to Paris (1807), 10.2; political–economic conditions, 15.1, 15.2; revolution (1848) and demands for reform, 20.1

  Pushkin, Alexander

  Quarterly Review, 13.1, 18.1

  Quito, 6.1, 12.1, 12.2

  radiolarians, 22.1, 22.2

  rainforest: life in

  rationalism, 2.1, 10.1

  Reform Bill (Britain, 1832), 17.1

  revolutions of 1848, 20.1, 20.2

  Rheinischer Merkur (newspaper)

  Richards, Robert: The Tragic Sense of Life, 22.1

  Riga

  Riscasoli, Baron Bettino

  Ritter, Carl

  Rodríguez, Simón, 9.1, 9.2, 12.1

  Romantic movement: in Saxe-Weimar, 2.1; Goethe and, 2.2; on internalizing nature, 2.3, 13.1; poetry, 2.4, 9.1, 13.2, 19.1; Schelling and, 10.1, 19.2; and Emerson’s Transcendentalism, 19.3

  Rome, 9.1, 9.2

  Roosevelt, Theodore

  Rose, Gustave, 16.1, 16.2

  Ross, Captain James Clark

  Rousseau, Jean-Jacques

  Royal Academy (London)

  Royal Society (London)

  Rush, Richard

  Russia: AH travels in, 15.1; gold
and precious minerals in, 16.1; war with Ottomans, 16.2, 16.3; absolutism under Nicholas I, 16.4; geomagnetic research in, 16.5; idolizes AH, 16.6

  St Helena (island), 11.1, 13.1, 16.1, 17.1

  St Petersburg, 16.1, 16.2

  Saint Vincent (island): volcanic eruption (1812)

  San Fernando de Apure (mission, South America), 4.1, 5.1

  San Francisco

  San Salvador see Bahia

  Sanssouci (palace, Potsdam)

  Santander, Francisco de Paula

  Santiago (Cape Verde islands)

  Sargen, Charles

  Schelling, Friedrich: Naturphilosophie, 10.1, 13.1, 19.1

  Schiller, Friedrich, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 3.1, 22.1

  Schlagintweit, Hermann, Rudolph and Adolf, 20.1, 20.2

  Schot, Joseph van der

  science: development, 1.1; and reason and empiricism, 2.1; in Paris, 9.1, 9.2; flourishes in Napoleon’s France, 11.1; and imagination, 13.1, 18.1, 19.1; Coleridge and Wordsworth on reductionism of, 13.2; methods, 19.2

  scientist (word): coined

  Seifert, Johann: accompanies AH to Russia, 16.1; in Berlin with AH, 20.1; attends AH’s funeral, 20.2

  self: and nature, 2.1; Kant on, 2.2; Goethe on, 2.3; Schelling on, 10.1, 13.1

  sequoias (trees), 23.1, 23.2, 23.3

  Sethe, Anna see Haeckel, Anna

  Shelley, Mary: Frankenstein

  Siberia: AH in, 16.1; anthrax epidemic, 16.2, 16.3; plant distribution, 18.1

  Siberian Highway, 16.1, 16.2, 16.3

  Sicily: Haeckel in

  Sierra Club (USA), 23.1, 23.2

  Silla (mountain, Venezuela)

  Slavery Abolition Act (Britain, 1834), 17.1

  slaves and slavery: in South America, 4.1, 8.1; and colonialism, 8.2; in USA, 8.3, 12.1, 15.1, 20.1; AH condemns, 8.4, 12.2, 20.2; Bolívar frees, 12.3; abolished in Britain, 17.1; abolished in USA, 23.1

  Smithsonian Institution, Washington

  Somerville, Mary, 14.1; On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences, 18.1

  South America see Latin America

  Southey, Robert, 9.1, 13.1

  Spain: issues passport to AH, 3.1, 3.2; Latin American empire, 3.3, 6.1, 8.1, 8.2, 12.1, 12.2; and border dispute with USA, 8.3; threatened by Napoleon, 9.1, 12.3; loses South American colonies, 12.4, 12.5; sends fleet to South America, 12.6; AH criticizes rule in Latin America, 12.7

  species: evolution and distribution of, 17.1, 18.1; see also plants

  Stegner, Wallace

  Sturm und Drang (‘Storm and Stress’ movement)

  sugar: cultivation

  Sullivan, Louis

  Talleyrand, Charles-Maurice de

  tapirs

  Tegel (Prussia), 1.1, 1.2, 11.1, 18.1, 20.1, 22.1

  Tenerife (Canary Islands), 3.1, 10.1, 17.1, 22.1

  Thames, River: tunnel

  Thoreau, Henry David: influenced by AH, prl.1, prl.2, 18.1, 19.1; reads AH’s View of Nature, 10.1; cabin, 19.2, 19.3; lives beside Walden Pond, 19.4, 19.5; in Concorde, Mass., 19.6; background and career, 19.7, 19.8; and AH’s Cosmos, 19.9, 19.10, 19.11; on nature’s cycles, 19.12, 19.13; relations with Emerson, 19.14, 19.15, 19.16; influence of nature on, 19.17; on death, 19.18; and local deforestation, 19.19; character and appearance, 19.20; and animals, 19.21, 19.22; appearance and manner, 19.23; love of children, 19.24; affinity with nature, 19.25, 19.26, 19.27, 19.28; nature records, 19.29, 19.30; lectures, 19.31; writing, 19.32, 19.33; notebooks and journals, 19.34, 19.35; library, 19.36; walks, 19.37, 19.38; on unity of nature, 19.39; Transcendentalism, 19.40; ideas and beliefs, 19.41; adopts new daily routine, 19.42; on science, 19.43; and imagination, 19.44; on thawing of embankment, 19.45; calls for preservation of forests, 21.1; and Muir, 23.1; The Maine Woods, 23.2, 23.3; Walden, 19.46, 19.47, 19.48, 19.49, 19.50, 23.4; A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, 19.51

  Thoreau, John

  Thornton, William

  Tierra del Fuego, 17.1, 17.2, 17.3

  Tiffany, Louis Comfort

  Tilsit, Treaty of (1807)

  Timber Culture Act (USA, 1873), 21.1

  Times, The, 20.1

  titi monkeys

  Tobolsk (Russia)

  Tocqueville, Alexis de

  Toro, Fernando del, n

  Torrey, John

  Trafalgar, battle of (1805)

  Transcendentalists, 2.1, 19.1

  Turin (Italy)

  Turner, Frederick Jackson

  United States of America: celebrates AH centenary (1869), prl.1; AH travels to (1804), 8.1; and Louisiana Purchase, 8.2, 12.1; agrarian economy, 8.3, 8.4, 8.5; economic prosperity, 8.6; border with Mexico, 8.7; slavery in, 8.8, 12.2, 15.1, 20.1; exports to South America, 12.3; neutrality in South American revolution, 12.4; Buffon criticizes, 12.5; expansion, 15.2; influence of Cosmos in, 18.1; territorial gains in Northwest and Southwest, 19.1; war with Mexico, 19.2, 20.2; technological advances, 19.3, 21.1; travellers visit AH in Berlin, 20.3; telegraphic link with Europe, 20.4; environment despoiled, 21.2, 21.3, 23.1; Civil War (1861–6), 21.4, 23.2; Marsh’s influence in, 21.5; abolishes slavery, 23.3; transcontinental railways, 23.4; national parks, 23.5

  Ural Mountains

  Valdivia (Chile)

  Valencia, Lake (Venezuela), prl.1, 4.1, 4.2, 5.1, 8.1, 8.2, 16.1, 21.1

  Venezuela: AH in, 3.1; declares independence, 12.1; Bolívar invades, 12.2; Spain reconquers, 12.3; Bolívar returns to from Haiti, 12.4; Bolívar’s campaign in, 12.5

  Venus, transit of

  Vermont: Marsh in, 21.1, 21.2

  Verne, Jules, 10.1, 20.1

  Vesuvius, Mount

  Viceroyalties (Spanish Latin American)

  Victoria, Queen of Great Britain

  Vienna, Congress of (1815)

  Views of Nature (AH): writing, 10.1; popular appeal, 15.1; Darwin requests copy, 17.1; on evolution of species, 17.2; Thoreau reads, 19.1, 19.2; revised edition, 20.1; Haeckel reads, 22.1, 22.2; Muir reads and marks, 23.1, 23.2, 23.3

  volcanoes: AH’s interest in, prl.1, 3.1, 6.1, 7.1, 9.1, 15.1

  Volta, Alessandro, prl.1, 10.1

  Voltaire, Marie François Arouet, 1.1, 14.1

  Voyage to the Equinoctial Regions of the New Continent (AH), 10.1, 11.1, 14.1

  Vues des Cordillères et monuments des peuples indigènes de l’Amérique (AH), 11.1, 12.1, 13.1, 14.1, 22.1

  Vulcanists, 6.1, 15.1

  Vulpius, Christiane

  Walden Pond, Massachusetts, 19.1, 19.2, 19.3

  Washington, DC, 8.1, 8.2, 9.1

  Washington, George, 8.1, 8.2; birthday celebrations (1859), 20.1

  Watt, James

  Wedgwood, Josiah

  Wedgwood, Josiah II

  Weimar: Goethe in, 2.1, 2.2

  Wellesley, Richard Colley, Marquess

  Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, prl.1st Duke of, 11.1

  Werner, Abraham Gottlieb, 15.1

  Westphalia, Kingdom of, 10.1, 15.1

  Whewell, William

  Whitman, Walt, 20.1; Leaves of Grass, 18.1

  Wilberforce, Samuel, Bishop of Oxford

  Wilhelm I, Emperor of Germany (earlier Prince of Prussia), 10.1, 20.1, 22.1

  William IV, King of Great Britain

  William, Prince of Prussia see Wilhelm I, Emperor of Germany

  Williamson, Hugh

  Wislizenus, Frederick

  Wordsworth, William: influenced by AH, prl.1, 13.1; The Excursion, 13.2

  Yekaterinburg (Russia), 16.1, 16.2

  Yellowstone National Park (Wyoming)

  Yosemite National Park

  Yosemite Valley (California), 23.1, 23.2

  Zea, Father Bernardo

  Zea, Francisco Antonio

  Chimborazo in today’s Ecuador was believed to be the highest mountain in the world when Humboldt climbed the volcano in 1802. Chimborazo inspired Simón Bolívar to write a poem about the liberation of the Spanish colonies in Latin America. (Illustration Credit ins.1)

  Alexander von Humboldt and Aimé Bonpland collecting plants at the foot of Chi
mborazo

  Humboldt talking to one of the indigenous people in Turbaco (today’s Colombia) en route to Bogotá (Illustration Credit ins.3)

  Humboldt and his small team at Cayambe volcano near Quito

  This painting of Humboldt and Bonpland in a jungle hut was completed in 1856, more than fifty years after their expedition. Humboldt didn’t like it because the instruments depicted were inaccurate. (Illustration Credit ins.5)

  Thomas Jefferson in 1805, just after he had met Humboldt in Washington, DC. Unlike the more stately portraits of George Washington, Jefferson is purposefully ‘rustic’ to convey an image of simplicity. (Illustration Credit ins.6)

  Humboldt’s spectacular three-foot by two-foot Naturgemälde which was part of his Essay on the Geography of Plants (Illustration Credit ins.7)

  A fragment of an ancient Aztec manuscript that Humboldt purchased in Mexico (Illustration Credit ins.8)

  Taken from an unauthorized atlas that illustrated Humboldt’s Cosmos, a map showing fossil strata through the ages of earth, as well as the subterraneous connections of volcanoes (Illustration Credit ins.9)

  A spread from an unauthorized atlas that accompanied Cosmos, showing different vegetation zones and plant families across the globe (Illustration Credit ins.10)

  American artist Frederic Edwin Church followed in Humboldt’s footsteps through South America and combined scientific details with sweeping views. The exhibition of his magnificent five-foot by ten-foot The Heart of the Andes caused a sensation; when Church was ready to ship the painting to Berlin, he received the news that Humboldt had just died. (Illustration Credit ins.11)

  Humboldt in 1843, two years before he published the first volume of Cosmos (Illustration Credit ins.12)

  According to Humboldt, this illustration was a very faithful representation of the library in his Berlin apartment in Oranienburger Straße. He welcomed his many visitors either in the library or in his study, just visible through the door. (Illustration Credit ins.13)