which MM. Frederic Schlegel and Vater have made use; the former in
his Considerations on the Hindoos, the latter in his Continuation
of the Mithridates of Adelung, in the Ethnographical Magazine, and
in his Inquiries into the Population of the New Continent. These
materials are now in the hands of my brother, William von Humboldt,
who, during his travels in Spain, and a long abode at Rome, formed
the richest collection of American vocabularies in existence. His
extensive knowledge of the ancient and modern languages has enabled
him to trace some curious analogies in relation to this subject, so
important to the philosophical study of the history of man. A part
of his labours will find a place in this narrative.

Of the different works which I have here enumerated, the second and
third were composed by M. Bonpland, from the observations which he
made in a botanical journal. This journal contains more than four
thousand methodical descriptions of equinoctial plants, a ninth
part only of which have been made by me. They appear in a separate
publication, under the title of Nova Genera et Species Plantariem.
In this work will be found, not only the new species we collected,
which, after a careful examination by one of the first botanists of
the age, Professor Willdenouw, are computed to amount to fourteen
or fifteen hundred, but also the interesting observations made by
M. Bonpland on plants hitherto imperfectly described. The plates of
this work are all engraved according to the method followed by M.
Labillardiere, in the Specimen Planterum Novae Hollandiae, a work
remarkable for profound research and clearness of arrangement.

After having distributed into separate works all that belongs to
astronomy, botany, zoology, the political description of New Spain,
and the history of the ancient civilization of certain nations of