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ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT
Name: Roberto Zanconato, Subject:: In Our Time too
Just read Melvyn's Newsletter in which he says that he "longed for the programme to have gone on a few more minutes". Just a suggestion, but the Podcast could include the extra few minutes, and would be a good way of attracting listeneres to the web site.
Humboldt
Brilliant.Inspiring. Nice mind-expanding use of visual metaphor - iso-maps, the tangled bank..surely the way to go is to compress the opaque and wordy into the clear and visual.
Humboldt
What an extraordinary man. Here's an extract from Humboldt's Personal Narrative of a Journey to the Equinoctial Regions of the New Continent. His description of studying electric eels, for example, (on the Amazon) is almost cinematic in its intensity: "Fishing eels with nets is very difficult because of the extreme agility with which they dive into the mud, like snakes. [Our guides] decided to fish with horses, 'embarbascar con caballos'. There were about thirty [wild horses] and they forced them into the water. The extraordinary noise made by the stamping of the horses made the fish jump out of the mud and attack. These livid, yellow eels, like great water snakes, swim on the water's surface and squeeze under the bellies of the horses...[and] dazed by the noise, defended themselves with their electrical shocks. For a while it seemed they might win. Several horses collapsed from the shocks received on their most vital organs, and drowned under the water. Others, panting, their manes erect, their eyes anguished, stood up and tried to escape the storm surprising them in the water... a few managed to escape to the bank, stumbling at each step, falling on to the sand exhausted and numbed from the electric shocks. We were sure that the fishing would end with the deaths of all the animals, but gradually the violence of the unequal combat died down, and the tired eels dispersed. The eels timidly approached the shore of the marshy pond where we fished them out with harpoons tied to long strings." After this, Humboldt calmly notes the temperature of the water, the lengths and weights of the fish caught, and detailed anatomical descriptions.
Edward Ian Taylor ----Von Humbolt
Excellent programme as usual. Surely however it is "Simon Boleevar". Someone got it right once.
Tony B. Oye - Alexander von Humboldt
Smashing start to the series. I wasn't familiar with Humboldt but as is so often the case with In Our Time, I'm constantly being exposed to new lives, information and ideas. Can't wait for the rest of the season.
Chaz York Humboldt - Chimborazo and Current
One of the experts said that the well accepted - in books and online references - statement that Humboldt had acheived the summit of Mount Chimborazo was in fact false and that this was not done until seventy years later. Clearly he is himself an 'expert source' but given the widespread nature of this 'mistake' it would be nice to know his source. Could he provide it? Eddie - Unfortunately the Humboldt Current is named after him and was not discovered by him and is massively constant for the whole western coast of South America (albeit with seasonal fluctuations in Chile due to seasonal sub-tropical high pressure). El Nino is only a periodic disruption of this otherwise beneficial upwelling marine ecosystem which provides 20% of the worlds fish catch.
David Matthews: Alexander von Humbolt
The recent novel by Daniel Kehlmann "Die Vermessung der Welt" is amusing and enlightening on him - I don't know if it has appeared in English...
Alexander von Humbolt
The one and only 'thing' that Humbolt is famous for and remembered today, is his discovery? of the sea current off the west coast of South America which is named after him; also called El Nino. Thinks, it deserved a mention on your programme! Keep up your good work, much appreciated. Eddie Budd (Research Agronomist)
Humboldt
Somebody mentioned the Humboldt Universität in Berlin. But this was founded by Alexander's brother Wilhelm - another interesting subject for discussion.
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