Baron Alexander von Humboldt ?The Last Renaissance Man

Alexander von Humboldt was one of the first persons to move geographical studies from the ancient into the current era. The Prussian natural scientist and geologist traveled around a great deal of South America, studying the environment, mountaineering and monitoring astronomical events. His contributions to science spanned biology, geography, climatology, geology, hydrology, among others. Charles Darwin called him ?the greatest scientific traveler who ever lived? and he is widely considered to be the last renaissance man, who could gather within himself a substantial portion of human knowledge.

Humboldt was born into a noble family in Berlin on September 14, 1769, of German and French Huguenot parentage. While he was still a boy his father, an army officer, died. The young Humboldt studied at the universities of Frankfurt an der Oder and Gottingen from 1787 and later went to the School of Mines at Freiburg in Saxony. While there he studied under the famous geologist A.G. Werner. He became wealthy enough to plan a 5-year period of exploration after his mother's death in 1796.

The household was marred by his mother's ?cold and aloof? nature. A private tutor educated Humboldt and his brother, Wilhelm, who turned out to be a distinguished economist with worldwide fame as well that lives to this day. Humboldt never married but derived great joy from friendships with colleagues and others and also from his brother's friendly household. In 1792 he joined the mining department of the Prussian Government and promotion came quickly given his brilliance and dedication.

Humboldt sailed from A Coruna, Spain on June 5, 1799, armed with powerful recommendations from the Spanish king, and headed for Caracas. At that time Spain was preoccupied with the pursuit of wealth and conquest in its American colonies. In February 1800 he left the Venezuelan coast for the purpose of exploring the course of the Orinoco River. Four months and 1725 miles of uncultivated and unoccupied country later, while traveling by foot and canoe, Humboldt established the existence of a communication between the water systems of the Amazon and Orinoco Rivers.

This bifurcation, known as the Casiquiare Canal, is the only place in the world where two river systems that flow in different directions (the Orinoco goes north and the Negro/Amazon flows southeast) have any kind of fluvial communication. The existence of this canal was a rumor dismissed as impossible by European geographers at the time. Catholic priests had originally reported it, but provided no scientific evidence to it in the early XVIII century.

It was a tremendously dangerous environment with alligators, jaguars and swarms of biting insects, aside from numerous uncontacted tribes that are today recognized as the Yanomami. At times he and his traveling companion, botanist Aime Bonpland, had no food, and conditions were almost unbearable. Still isolated, still unwelcoming, still undeveloped, this wild region is little changed today.