Alexander von Humbolt

   Alexander von Humbolt (1769-1859) was a German scientist and geographer. He helped found modern geography and pioneered in plant geography and climatology. He drew the first map with isothermal lines (lines connecting points of the same temperature). He traveled extensively in the Spanish territories of America. In his famous five-volume work, Cosmos (1845-1862), he tried to describe fully the physical universe.
   Humboldt was born in Berlin on Sept. 14, 1769. He studied geology, biology, and political science at the University of Gottingen, and mining and metallurgy at the School of Mines in Freiburg. From 1792 to 1797, he was a mine assessor in Prussia. Then he resigned to study nature, a strong interest since his childhood. Humboldt explored Mexico, Central America, and South America from 1799 to 1804. He lived for the next 20 years in Paris, which was then a center of geographical learning.
   Humboldt spent most of his remaining years in Berlin. At the University of Berlin, he gave the lectures on which he based Cosmos. He made his most important later voyages for the Russian czar, who sent him to the Ural Mountains and Central Asia in 1829 to report on mineral resources.