Volume 1

Aspects of nature in different lands and different climates; with scientific elucidations / By Alexander von Humboldt. Translated by Mrs. Sabine.

  • Humboldt, Alexander von, 1769-1859.
Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Aspects of nature in different lands and different climates; with scientific elucidations / By Alexander von Humboldt. Translated by Mrs. Sabine. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    47/328 (page 23)
    wearied fisli begin to disperse; long repose and abundant food are required to replace the galvanic force which they have expended. Their shocks become gradually weaker and weaker. Terrified by the noise of the trampling horses, they timidly approach the bank, where they are wounded by harpoons, and cautiously drawn on shore by non-conducting pieces of dry wood. Such is the extraordinary battle between horses and fish. That which forms the invisible but living weapon of this electric eel;—that which, awakened by the contact of moist dissimilar particles, (43) circulates through all the organs of plants and animals;—that which, flashing from the thunder cloud, illumines the wide skyey canopy;—that which draws iron to iron and directs the silent recurring march of the guiding needle;—all, like the several hues of the divided ray of light, flow from one source; and all blend again together in one perpetually, every where diffused, force or power. I might here close the hazardous attempt to trace a picture of nature such as she shows herself in the Steppes. But as on the ocean fancy not unwillingly dwells awhile on the image of its distant, shores, so, before the wide plain disappears from our view, let us cast a rapid glance at the regions by which the Steppes are bounded. The Northern Desert of Africa divides two races of men who belong originally to the same part of the globe, and whose unreconciled discord appears as ancient as the mythus of Osiris and Typhon. (44) North of the Atlas there dwell .nations with long and straight hair, of sallow complexion and