Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859)

He was born in Germany in the middle of the Frederick the Grand reign. During his life occurred the French revolution, the triumph and the decline of Napoleon and the independence of the American countries, but over all, was in those years when the science and research transformed the men thought and opened new horizons to knowledge.

Through these years Humboldt studied all that can be known, and traveled in order to increase the acquaintance about any branch of knowledge, especially about natural sciences. Humboldt was, perhaps, the greatest explorer and scientific that have ever existed.

At the age of thirty years he traveled to Latin America (from 1799 to 1804) and explored the region embraced between Ecuador and Mexico. He traveled over unknown rivers (during his time), crossed over the Andes four times and climbed its highest peaks (he was the first to climb the Chimborazo Vulcan, at Ecuador). Having explored a distance of 60,000 Km, he recorded about 60,000 samples. Humboldt was the first to appreciate the wide diversity of life in the tropics and consequently the first to understand how big the number of plant and animal species in the world might be.

During his travels he discovered an important ecological principle: the relationship between the latitude and altitude, when he described that climbing a mountain in the tropics is similar to travel from the Ecuador to the North or to the South, in terms of climate and vegetation. He also drew the isotermic lines that are nowadays used in the climatic charts and which indicate the temperatures in all the places, in a given time.

At 1804 he came back to Berlin, where, after 19 years, he published a book that relates his findings in the subjects of geography, astronomy, botany, zoology, anatomy, geology and many others, all these in twenty-nine volumes.

At the age of sixty years he began other great scientific expedition, this time to Russia and Siberia. After this expedition (at the age of seventy-six), Humboldt started to write his great work, and he continued writing it during the rest of his life. That masterpiece, where he try to resume all the knowledge by his time about the world, was entitled "Cosmos". Few authors had ever have the boldness to write such a book and, among them probably, was Alexander von Humboldt who had more success.

Instituto de Investigación de Recursos Biológicos Alexander von Humboldt

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