ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT. 135 planned a journey to Asia, and if possible, to East India, with what perseverance and trouble lie had prepared himself for a journey to the little-known districts of Central Asia. He was then excited to it by his favourite project of travelling to these unknown territories, over Kashgar or Persia. He freely ac- kno wledges, that this has always "been a favourite idea of his, and if he speaks of it now, he declares that he regrets nothing so much in his old age, than that h^ did not then carry out that cherished project. But the preparatory studies for that plan were not lost to science, for they gush forth amply in this work on Central Asia, and give it a serious characteristic of profoundness and great erudition. After the * publi- cation of the Asiatic fragments, in 1831, twelve years elapsed, during which he collected a multitude of fresh materials, especially the communications received from his correspondents in Russia, entrusted with the comparative observations, and from the physical obser- vatory of St. Petersburg. The entire surface of the Russian tei^ritories had been, lying open before his mental perceptions for twelve years, and it is, therefore, very natural that Humboldt preferred, instead of preparing* the required second edition of his Asiatic fragments, to write an entirely new work, which might include the considerably increased facts of his geolo- gical experience. Only he was able to conceive, and to realize such a work, for, Whatever he, as a single individual, was not able to master, was gladly prepared for him oil all sides by the disinterested and voluntary assistance of the most profound scholars and oriental linguists of the Chinese, Arabic, and old Indian Zend dialects, and by celebrated naturalists, such as Klap- roth,* Stanislaus Julien,-f and Eug&xe BumoufJ ** Klaproth prepared new notes from Chinese sources. 4* Member of the Institute of France. He gave special physi- cal andorographical (of mountains) explanations; and Humboldt publicly declares that he feels himself honoured by Ms iH&radship, | Ho made ethnographical and geological investigations on pas- Rages in the 55end books for Humboldt's work, and Humboldt himself calls his labours moat surprising.