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Alexander von
HUMBOLDT im NETZ
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5. Further publications
During his American journey, Humboldt regularly sent reports to scientific colleagues in Spain, France, Germany and England or publishers of periodicals, with the intention of having them published during his absence.
Among those who received such reports were Jean Baptiste Joseph Delambre, Jerôme Joseph de Lalande, Antoine François Comte Fourcroy, Franz Xaver von Zach, Karl Erenbert von Moll. Letters to French scientists were read in the Institut national in Paris, reports to the botanist Karl Ludwig Willdenow in Berlin in the Society of Natural History. Because some of these letters are written in the explicit hope that they will be published, and can actually be regarded as articles for journals, the volume "Letters from America"(19) must be mentioned here as a supplement to the report of the journey.
Humboldt's reports and letters were also the basis for two articles about the American journey not written by himself: In 1804 J. C. de Lamethérie published his "Notice d’un voyage aux tropiques"(20) based on Humboldt’s reports and letters read in the Institut National and, in 1805 F.W. Schütz's publication "Alexander von Humboldt's [...] Reisen um die Welt und durch das Innere von Südamerika"(21) appeared, compiled from Humboldt's published letters.
After his return and before the publication of the volumes of the Voyage aux régions équinoxiales Humboldt tried in two different ways to arouse interest in his work and to present his first results: Preprints of the already written, but not yet published parts (e. g. in Zach's journal Monatliche Correspondenz) and lectures which he had also published (if not in journals, then at least as "private prints for friends"). The lecture "Ueber die Urvölker v. Amerika und die Denkmähler, welche von ihnen übrig geblieben sind"(22) which he held at the Philomatic Society of Berlin of which he had become a member the year before, sums up the available knowledge about precolumbic cultures in a readily understandable fashion, and at various times refers to his work in preparation, the Vues des Cordillères.
Some of these short prose texts exceed the later account of the journey in their expressiveness and stylistic perfection, readily allowing readers to envision Humboldt's adventures in the wide prairies and deserts and to hear the sounds of the jungle. Humboldt later considered some of these texts worthy to be included in the Views of Nature (1807) or his last work, Kleinere Schriften (1853), which he was unable to complete before his death.
Notes:
(19) See note 4
(20) Journal de pysique 59, An 12/13, Thermidor, S. 122-139. (21) Hamburg/Mainz, Vollmer, 1805.(22) Neue Berlinische Monatsschrift 15 (1806), März, S. 117-208.