Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859) was a German explorer and naturalist. He is best known for his works on botanical geography, laying the foundations of the new science of biogeography. Along with the botanist Aimé Bonpland (1773–1858), he travelled widely in South America between 1799 and 1804. Over the course of his travels, he compiled a list of Southern Hemisphere stars, observed a transit of Mercury across the Sun and collected samples of some 60,000 plants that grew at different altitudes and habitats.
Humboldt made a study of the various physical features he came across, including the Orinoco River in Venezuela as well as Mount Chimborazo and other volcanoes in Ecuador. He discovered a cold current of water flowing past the coast of Peru, known today as the Humboldt Current. Humboldt learned how the South American Indians prepared a poison—called curare—from plants, which they used to tip their arrows, and which paralyzed their victims.
In 1829 Humboldt set off on another large expedition that took him to the court of the Russian Emperor and to central Asia, as far as the border with China. Between May and November 1829 the expedition traversed the wide expanse of the Russian empire from the Neva to the Yenisei, accomplishing in twenty-five weeks a distance of 9,614 miles (15,472 km).
In 1845, Humboldt began writing his most famous work, "Kosmos", his effort in his later years to write a work bringing together all the research from his long career. Humboldt had long aimed to write a comprehensive work about geography and the natural sciences. "Kosmos" attempted to unify the sciences then known and to create a compendium of the world's environment. "Kosmos" was ultimately made up of five volumes and completed in 1862, after his death.
Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander was born on 14 Sep 1769. He was the son of Alexander Georg von Humboldt and Marie-Elisabeth, née Colomb. He never married and didn't have any children. He passed away on 6 May 1859[1] and was buried on 11 May 1859 in the family cemetery at Schloss Tegel alongside his brother Wilhelm and his sister-in-law Caroline.[2]
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