The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-09-10

every way, with walls OF burnt porphyry, three
feet thick and the stones as regularly wrouSnt
as in Roman buildings. The doors were similar
to those of the ancient Egyptian temples They
saw, also, the remains OF the
Great Roads of the IncRs.
which were as fine as any of the old Roman
roads. They all met in Cuzco, the centre OF t tae
Government, and extended to the limits OF the
kingdom, but the Spanish conquerors permltted
them to fall into disrepar, even where they dld
not wilfuly destroy them.
Approaching the basin OF the Amazon the
travellers were refreshed by the sight OF a luXu-
rance such as they had nowhere seen surpassed
They afterwards visited the Baths oil Pqlta-
marca, and the palace and prison OF the inca
Atahuallpa. The treasures collected by tne
Spanish conquerors, from the temples and
palaces of this prince, were estimated at fifteen
millions of dollars. Humboldt was shown the
slab on which tradition said he was beheaded,
still marked with stains of blood.
While travelling through these districts the
explorers felt keen longing once more to be-
hold the sea, and on reaching the Alto de Guam
zamarca, the great Pacific Ocean, for the first
time, lay beneath their eyes. AT the end of the
year they
Sailed for Mexico.
Touching at Acapulco on the voyage, they
heard CotopaXi, one hundred and fifty miles
away, dischaTging its terrible artillery
Arriving in Mexico during the following
March, they proceeded to the capital, where
they found school of Mines a botanic garden,
and an academy of painting and sculpture. The
city OF Mexico is founded on the ruins of an an
clent capital, and Humboldt saw certain Aztec
idols which had been unbaried there some years
before; besides these, the stone of sacrifice was
exhibited to him, and he examined some Aztec
manuscripts, written on stag skin, some of them
seventy feet in length But uncouth idols. and
manuscripts of hieroglyphics which he could
not read, were much less attractive to him than
the book of natures and in the beginning of May
he set out for the mines of Moran, where he re-
mained for months, inspecting the operations;
hp Il tNfl s.
the richest in the kingdom. The quantity of
silver at this period extracted from the Mexican
mines was greater than that furnished by all the
mines in Europe, and there scarcely a silver
mine that did not contain also gold; in some were
found, as well, Opals of the rarCst beauty, and
muriated silver abOunded in the veins of CatOrce
and Cerro San Pedro.
But the wonder of Mexico was the
Volcano of JOruIIo.
which rose from the earth by one of the most
remarkable physical commissions on record. In
June, 1859 frequent earthquakes and horrible
subterraneOus noises commenced and continued
for fifty days; they then subsidized, to break forth
towards the end of September more terribly
than before. The Indians fled to the mountains,
while level tract, which they had abandoned,
for more than three miles square. sweed up in
the shape of n bladder which in the centre rose
to an elevation of five hundred and twenty feet.
Those who witnessed this conyulsion from the
mountains, asserted that flames burst from the
ground, and that through the cloud of ashes
and volcanic fire, the surface of the earth rose
and fell like stormy sea. Thousands of small
cones, called by the Indians the ovens of Jorullo
issued from the Malpays, and six large masses,
from 1900 to 100 feet each sprang from great
chasm; the most elevated is the volcano of
Jorullo, which was constantly burning and
throwing out immense masses of lava, containing
fragments of rock. The plains in its neighbor-
hood had been abandoned on account of the
excessive heat Two rivers, whose course was
interrupted by the great cOnvusion in which the
volcano was formed, reappeared 5000 feet farther
west, bursting through the vaults OF the ovens.
The Indians attributed these great natural phe-
nOmena to the monks.
After this excursion the travellers returned to
the capital, where they remained until January
1904, arranging their botanical and geological
collections. They afterwards visited Vera Cruz,
where there are remarkable ruins of the ancient
Mexican pyramids, and in March they sailed to
Havana. They afterwards went to Washington
and Philadelphia, and on June they quilted
the New World to return to Europe.
The great journey OF five years long
planned and so often delayed, was accomplished.
The Evening of His Lite.
There is Mt Tegel portrait of Alexander Won
Humboldt at this date. 1t represents him as of
less than middle STATURE firmly and symmetr-
caly built, with an ardent countenance, firm
lips, keen blue eyes, square brow, and thic k
chesnut hair.
When he returned to Paris he was warmly wei
coined by all the French Sd0ans. His collections
were the natural history of aicontinent, more ex-
tensive than any in Europe.
With his great journey, his active life ceased
for almost twenty years; he did, indeed, make a
tour through Central Asia, in 1929, but after his
return from America he migrated chiefly be-
tween Paris and Berlin, and the history of his
books is the history of his life. During these
twenty years he wrote all his great works, except
his "Kosmos, and amongst his friends he counted
Cuver, Laplace Arago, and Berthollet. His
companion in his translantic explorations, Aime
Bonpland returned to America in 1915, and,
after suffering many vicissitudes, died there at
the age of eighty.
In 1927 Humboldt settled permanently at Ber-
lin. Here he designed his "Kosmos, which was
only begun in 1843, though the conception of it
had been in his mind for fifty years. The last
volume was finished in 1855 and he worked at