M. Cuvier, whose capacity to appreciate the labours of a scientific man can scarcely be called in question, observes, that it is seldom that very laborious men possess sufficient tranquillity of mind to conceive those root-ideas which produce a revolution in the sciences; but Pallas formed an exception to this rule. He nearly succeeded in changing the whole aspect of the science of zoology; and most certainly did operate a complete change in that of the theory of the earth. An attentive consideration of the two great chains of mountains of Siberia enabled him to discover this general rule, which has been everywhere found to hold good, that there exist three primitive orders of mountains, the granitic in the centre, the schistous next in succession, and the calcareous on the outside. It may be said that this great discovery, distinctly announced in a memoir read before the academy in 1777, gave birth to the modern science of geology: from this point the Saussures, the Delues, and the Werners proceeded to the discovery of the real structure of the earth, which is so exceedingly at variance with the fantastic ideas of preceding writers.
In addition to his scientific labours, Pallas was engaged by Catherine in drawing up comparative vocabularies of the languages spoken by all the various nations in the Russian empire; but was restrained, in the execution of this plan, to follow exactly in the track pointed out by his mistress. He was likewise chosen member of the committee employed, in 1777, in compiling a new topography of the empire; and had the honour of instructing Alexander, the late despot of Russia, and his brother Constantine, in natural history. But, notwithstanding all these marks of distinction, and many others of equal importance, our traveller experienced the truth, that happiness is incompatible with dependence of every kind. His travelling habits, too, rendered a sedentary life irksome to him; but what still further disgusted him with Petersburg, was the crowd of fashionable but absurd people who thronged his house, imagining, perhaps, they were doing him an honour by consuming his time. To escape from this species of persecution, he took advantage of the invasion of the Crimea, to visit new countries; and during the years 1793 and 1794, traversed the southern provinces of the empire at his own expense. He even skirted the frontiers of Circassia, but, with his usual prudence, avoided the dangers which would have attended a journey into that country. He then proceeded into the Crimea, through which Potemkin was leading the empress as a spectacle of contempt and scorn to all mankind; and was so captivated by a passing glance at its splendid scenery, that, on his return to Petersburg, he solicited and obtained permission to retire thither.
Solitude, however, which appeared so desirable at a distance, Pallas soon found to be an intolerable curse; the climate, also, fell infinitely short of his expectations, was inconstant and humid, and liable to be altered by every passing wind. It united, in fact, the inconveniences of the north and of the south; yet our traveller endured these evils for fifteen years; but at length, feeling the approaches of old age, he determined at once to escape from the climate of the Crimea and from Russian despotism, and selling his estates at an exceedingly low rate, returned to his native city, after an absence of forty-two years. His health, however, had been so completely undermined by the diseases he had contracted during his travels, and, more than all, by his long residence in the Crimea, that he might be said merely to have looked upon his native place, and on the face of those friends or admirers which his knowledge and fame had gathered around him, before death removed him from the enjoyment of all these things. This event took place on the 8th of September, 1811. Pallas appears to have been an able, learned, and upright man, deeply intent on promoting the interests of science, but indifferent about those great political rights without the enjoyment of which even the sciences themselves are of no more dignity or value than the tricks of a juggler.
CARSTEN NIEBUHR.
Born 1733.—Died 1815.
This traveller was born on the 17th of March, 1733, in the province of Friesland, in the kingdom of Hanover. It would be to mislead the reader to represent him, as some of his biographers have done, as the son of a peasant, in the sense in which that term is applied in England. His father and his ancestors, for several generations, had been small landed proprietors; he himself received an education, and inherited a property, which, however small, served as an incentive to ambition; and though, like many others, he found the entrance of the road to fame rugged and hard to tread, it must not be dissembled that his prudence and perseverance were singularly aided by good fortune.
Having lost his mother before he was six weeks old, the care of his infancy was intrusted to a step-mother; and he was still a lad when his father likewise died. The guardians upon whom the superintendence of his youth at first devolved, entertaining, apparently, but little respect for intellectual pursuits, interrupted his studies; and his maternal uncle, who succeeded them in this important trust, would seem to have wanted the means, if he possessed the will, to direct the course of a young man. Niebuhr was therefore left very much to his own guidance, which, to a man of vigorous intellect, I am far from regarding as a misfortune. The beginnings of life, however, like the beginnings of day, are generally accompanied by mists which obscure the view, and render it absolutely impossible to determine with precision the character of the various paths which present themselves before us; and thus it was that our traveller, who, knowing not that Providence was about to conduct him to a brilliant destiny in the East, at one time studied music, with the intention of becoming an organist, and was afterward led, through accidental circumstances, to apply himself to geometry, for the purpose of practising as a land-surveyor.
With this design he repaired, in his twenty-third year, to Bremen, where he discovered a person from whom he might have derived the necessary instruction; but finding that this individual’s domestic economy was under the superintendence of two youthful sisters, whose behaviour towards himself Niebuhr seems to have regarded as forward and indecorous, he immediately quitted this city and proceeded to Hamburgh. It will easily be conceived that the studies of a young man who voluntarily cultivated his intellect as the only means by which he could arrive at distinction, were pursued with ardent enthusiasm. Niebuhr, in fact, considered labour and toil as the only guides to genuine glory, and was content to tolerate on the way the rude fierceness of their manners.
When he had studied the mathematics, during two years, under Büsch, he removed to Göttingen, where he continued another year. At this period the Danish ministry, at the suggestion of Michaelis, had projected a scientific expedition into Arabia, which was at first designed, at least by its originator, merely to throw some light upon certain passages of the Old Testament, but which afterward embraced a much wider field. Michaelis, to whom the choice of the individuals who were to form this mission had been intrusted, betrayed the narrowness or malignity of his mind, by neglecting the celebrated Reiske, who was then well known to be struggling with starvation, in order to thrust forward Von Haven, a pupil of his own, who, but for this partial choice, would probably have lived and died in obscurity. Niebuhr himself was recommended to Michaelis by Kästner, whose pupil he had for some time been. The proposal was abruptly made, and as suddenly accepted. “Have you a mind,” said Kästner, “to go into Arabia?”—“Why not?” replied Niebuhr, “if anybody will pay my expenses.”—“The King of Denmark,” said Kästner, “will pay your expenses.” He then entered into the history of the Danish ministry’s project, and Niebuhr, whose genuine ambition was most ardent, and who, though in manners modest and unassuming, could not but entertain a favourable opinion of his own capacity, at once engaged to form a member of the mission. It was agreed, on the part of his Danish majesty, that he should be allowed a year and a half for preparation, with a salary sufficient for his maintenance.
Niebuhr had now a definite object. The East, with all its barbaric pomp and historical glory, which in preceding and succeeding days have kindled enthusiasm in so many bosoms, appeared to court his examination; and, like a lover who appreciates at their highest value the accomplishments of his mistress, and is bent on rendering himself worthy of her, he thenceforward studied, with vehement earnestness, all those branches of knowledge which he regarded as necessary to a traveller in the East; and Latin, Arabic, the mathematics, drawing, practical mechanics, together with the history of the countries he was about to visit, amply occupied his hours. An additional half-year being granted him, it was not until the Michaelmas of 1760 that he quitted Göttingen for Copenhagen.