Nature's interpreter

Based upon the latest research and documentation Nature's Interpreter traces the life and times of the scientist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859), from his childhood and early education in Prussia, his training as a mining engineer, his extensive travels in South America, Russia and Siberia to his later scientific work and publications. It brings out the outstanding contributions that Humboldt made to our knowledge of the world in which we live. When he was in the Americas Humboldt kept detailed diaries of his experiences but he also included detailed information about botany, astronomy, cartography, geology, anthropology and linguistics. He sent back to museums in Paris, Berlin and Madrid some 6,000 new species of flora together with samples of rare rocks, minerals and drawings. On returning to Paris he self-financed a series of publications leading to his lifetime's work and masterpiece, Cosmos, which ran to five volumes. Rightly considered the founding father of several scientific disciplines, Humboldt, in his day, was as well-known as Napoleon; his contacts stretched from Paris to Peru, Berlin to Boston. --Book Jacket.