The German scientist, who spoke fluent Spanish, English and French, devoted himself to the study of natural sciences from an early age, which is why he went on numerous expeditions to deepen his knowledge of nature.
Only four months in Cuba
Although the character of Alejandro de Humboldt is usually closely associated with Cuba, the German scientist only stayed on the island for four months. This did not prevent him from conducting several investigations that expanded previous knowledge of geography, flora, fauna, communications, topography, climate, soils, cane cultivation and sugar production.
Alejandro de Humboldt first arrived in Cuba on December 19, 1800 and stayed until March 15, 1801. In April 1804 he returned to the island for a brief month-long visit.
During his stay in Cuba, the prominent scientist traveled to Havana and the surrounding area to Managua, Bejucal, Valle de Güines and Batabanó as well as the south of Trinidad, accompanied by the French botanist and naturalist Aimé Bonpland. He stayed in the house of the Count of O’Reilly and shared with famous figures of the time such as Don Francisco de Arango y Parreño and Doctor Tomás Romay Chacón.
As a result of his trips to Cuba, De Humboldt submitted a dissertation on the formation of the Antilles and the nature of Cuban geology, he made a map with accurate measurements of the latitudes of several ports and cities, including Havana. When he returned to Europe, he wrote down the results of his extensive and fruitful scientific production.
A national park named after him
Alejandro de Humboldt National Park is located in the Nipe-Sagua-Baracoa Mountains on the north coast of eastern Cuba. It is the largest and best preserved remnant of forested mountain ecosystems in the Caribbean and is widely considered Cuba’s most important protected area for its exceptional biodiversity.
In addition to the 66,700 hectares of land, the national park includes a marine area of 2,641 hectares, for a total area of 69,341 hectares with a terrestrial buffer zone of 34,330 hectares.
The area is embedded within the much larger Cuchillas del Toa Biosphere Reserve, which covers more than 200,000 hectares. The altitude ranges from 220 meters below sea level to 1,175 meters above sea level at Pico El Toldo.
a globetrotter
In 1799 Alejandro de Humboldt received permission to embark for the Spanish colonies in South and Central America, a voyage during which he was accompanied by the French botanist Aimé Bonpland, with whom he had already made a voyage to Spain.
Both covered almost 10,000 kilometers in three major continental stages: the first two in South America, from Caracas to the sources of the Orinoco and from Bogotá to Quito through the Andean region, and the third through the Spanish colonies in Mexico.
During these trips, Alejandro de Humboldt met some outstanding Spanish-American naturalists such as José Celestino Mutis and Francisco José de Caldas.
Among the scientific discoveries of his expeditions is the study of the ocean currents on the west coast of South America – which for a long time bore his name – a novel climatological system of representation in the form of isobars and isotherms, comparative studies between climatic conditions and ecology and, above all, his conclusions on volcanism and its connection with the development of the earth’s crust.
Advisor to King Friedrich Wilhelm III
In 1827 Alexander von Humboldt returned to Berlin. There he played a prominent role in rebuilding Germany’s academic and scientific community, which had been battered by decades of war. He became chamberlain to King Friedrich Wilhelm III. appointed by Prussia and became one of his most important advisors, conducting numerous diplomatic missions. In 1829 he undertook a journey through Asiatic Russia on behalf of Tsar Nicholas I of Russia, during which he visited Dzungaria and the Altai.
Modern science icon
Alejandro de Humboldt spent a large part of his life processing, evaluating and organizing the data collected on his travels. Even the scientific community admires how he tried to explain the workings of the forces of nature through observation and measurement. One of his discoveries were isotherms, which are the lines connecting the vertices in a cartographic plane that represent the same temperatures in the unit of time used.
In the last phase of his life, the German scientist focused mainly on the writing of Cosmos, a work he considers a monumental global vision of the structure of the universe, of which four volumes were published during his lifetime. Alejandro de Humboldt, co-founder of modern geography, is considered one of the last great Enlighteners with a vast encyclopedic culture, whose work spanned areas as diverse as natural sciences, geography, geology and physics.
Sources consulted:
- German information center for Latin America
- UNESCO
embedded