---
title: "Alexander von Humboldt"
chunk: 18/18
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_von_Humboldt"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:06:32.417759+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

=== Ships ===
Alexander von Humboldt is also a German ship named after the scientist, originally built in 1906 by the German shipyard AG Weser at Bremen as Reserve Sonderburg. She was operated throughout the North and Baltic Seas until being retired in 1986. Subsequently, she was converted into a three-masted barque by the German shipyard Motorwerke Bremerhaven, and was re-launched in 1988 as Alexander von Humboldt.
The Jan De Nul Group operates a hopper dredger built in 1998 also named Alexander von Humboldt.

=== Recognitions by contemporaries ===
Simón Bolívar wrote that "The real discoverer of South America was Humboldt, since his work was more useful for our people than the work of all conquerors". Charles Darwin expressed his debt to Humboldt, and admiration for his work, writing to Joseph Dalton Hooker that Humboldt was the "greatest scientific traveller who ever lived".  Wilhelm von Humboldt wrote that "Alexander is destined to combine ideas and follow chains of thoughts which would otherwise have remained unknown for ages. His depth, his sharp mind and his incredible speed are a rare combination." Johann Wolfgang Goethe observed that "Humboldt showers us with true treasures". Friedrich Schiller wrote that "Alexander impresses many, particularly when compared to his brother—because he shows off more!" José de la Luz y Caballero wrote that "Columbus gave Europe a New World; Humboldt made it known in its physical, material, intellectual, and moral aspects".
Napoléon Bonaparte remarked "You have been studying Botanics? Just like my wife!" Claude Louis Berthollet said "This man is as knowledgeable as a whole academy". Thomas Jefferson remarked "I consider him the most important scientist whom I have met". Emil du Bois-Reymond wrote that "Every assiduous scholar ... is Humboldt's son; we are all his family." Robert G. Ingersoll wrote that "He was to science what Shakespeare was to the drama".
Hermann von Helmholtz wrote that "During the first half of the present century we had an Alexander von Humboldt, who was able to scan the scientific knowledge of his time in its details, and to bring it within one vast generalization. At the present juncture, it is obviously very doubtful whether this task could be accomplished in a similar way, even by a mind with gifts so peculiarly suited for the purpose as Humboldt's was, and if all his time and work were devoted to the purpose."

=== Sculptures ===

== Works ==

=== Scientific works ===

=== Other works ===
Letters of Alexander von Humboldt to Varnhagen von Ense. From 1827 to 1858. With extracts from Varnhagen's diaries, and letters of Varnhagen and others to Humboldt. Tr. from the 2d German by Friedrich Kapp (ed.), biodiversitylibrary.org
Letters of Alexander von Humboldt written between the years 1827 and 1858 to Varnhagen von Ense together with extracts from Varnhagen's diaries, and letters of Varnhagen and others to Humboldt/ authorized translation from the German (with explanatory notes and a full index of names), biodiversitylibrary.org
Nova genera et species plantarum (7 vols. folio, 1815–1825), contains descriptions of above 4500 species of plants collected by Humboldt and Bonpland, was mainly compiled by Carl Sigismund Kunth; J. Oltmanns assisted in preparing the Recueil d'observations astronomiques (1808); Cuvier, Latreille, Valenciennes and Gay-Lussac cooperated in the Recueil d'observations de zoologie et d'anatomie comparée (1805–1833).

== See also ==
History of biology
History of geography
Humboldtian science
Lejeune Dirichlet, Peter Gustav (1805–1859)
List of explorers
List of people from Berlin
Rengger, Johann Rudolph (1795–1832)
Romanticism in science
Cartopology

== Notes ==

== References ==

== Works cited ==

== Further reading ==

=== Literary works ===

=== Portrayals in film ===

== External links ==

=== Portals ===
"The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation". Archived from the original on 2 December 2003.
"The Alexander von Humboldt Digital Library". Archived from the original on 25 November 2020. A virtual research environment on the works of Alexander von Humboldt. A project by the University of Applied Sciences Offenburg and the University of Kansas.
"Humboldt Informationen online". avhumboldt.de. A large collection of data, texts and visuals concerning Alexander von Humboldt in German, English, Spanish and French. A project by the Chair of Romance Literatures, University of Potsdam (Germany).
"Web site of the Humboldt Lecture series in Nijmegen, the Netherlands".{{cite web}}:  CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)
"Alexander von Humboldt". Polymath Virtual Library, Fundación Ignacio Larramendi (in Spanish).
"Virtual exhibition on Paris Observatory digital library" (in French).

=== Online sources ===
Works by Alexander von Humboldt at the Biodiversity Heritage Library 
Works by Alexander von Humboldt at Project Gutenberg
Works by Alexander von Humboldt at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks) 
Works by or about Alexander von Humboldt at the Internet Archive

=== Miscellaneous ===
"Alexander von Humboldt". In Our Time. 28 September 2006. BBC Radio 4.
"Alexander von Humboldt featured on the East German 5 Marks banknote from 1964". Banknotes featuring Scientists and Mathematicians.
Alexander von Humboldt and the United States: Art, Nature, and Culture 2020-2021 exhibition at the Smithsonian American Art Museum
Raat, A.J.P. (1976). "Alexander von Humboldt and Coenraad Jacob Temminck". Zoologische Bijdragen. 21 (1): 19–38. ISSN 0459-1801.
Bois-Reymond, Emil du (December 1883). "Alexander von Humboldt" . Popular Science Monthly. Vol. 24. pp. 145–160.
"Humboldt, Friedrich Heinrich Alexander von" . Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. 1900.
Kellner, L. (1960). "Alexander Von Humboldt and the history of international scientific collaboration". Scientia (95): 252–256. ISSN 0036-8687.