The Enquirer

Baron Humboldt.--A Paris paper of October 15, says, M. de Humboldt, correspondent of the Institute had read, at the last sitting of the class of physics and mathematics, a third memoir, on the journey he had performed with M. Bompland in the interior of middle America and Mexico. In the first he had traced the observations made in the Atlantic ocean, at the summit of the Peak of Teneriffe, and in the province of New Andalusia. In the second he had remarked his operations in the province of Venezuela, and the plains of Calabozo, where he had made some curious experiments on the Gymnotus electricus. In the third memoir he has presented an abridged summary of his navigation on the Oronoko, the Rio-Negro, and the Casiquiare, a dangerous navigation performed to determine astronomically the communication of the Orinoco with the river Amazon. These memoirs, which comprise every thing interesting in these countries, that relates to geography, botany, mineralogy, and the moral history of man, will be shortly printed. An artist has already commenced the engraving of several designs of M. de Humboldt.

BANKS OF THE MAIN, NOV. 2.

The celebrated traveller Von Humboldt, wrote a letter to his Prussian majesty, immediately on his arrival at Paris. The following is the flattering answer he received from that monarch:

"I have seen, with the most lively interest, by your letter of the 3d of this month, that you have safely returned to Europe, after a voyage of such importance to the study of nature and the knowledge of foreign nations; and that, after settling your literary affairs at Paris, and visiting your brother at Rome, you propose to return to your native country, to live at Berlin, and to employ yourself with the publication of your manuscripts and drawings relative to the countries on the American continent.--I have no difficulty in granting you the permission you request, to continue in France and Italy till the next summer; and, notwithstanding my desire to become acquainted with a man, who, out of the love to the sciences, has supported for years with unparalleled constancy, the greatest fatigues, and braved dangers, in unknown regions, and who has thereby shed new lustre on his country; yet I cannot forbear doing justice to the motives which have led you to this determination. This permission I accompany with the assurance, that on your return to your country, you shall enjoy, not only all the consideration due to merit, so distinguished as yours, but that a pension shall likewise be assigned you, that you may be enabled to devote yourself entirely to the sciences.--The present which you propose to make of your collection to my cabinet of mineralogy, demands my highest acknowledgements, not only on account of their real value, but because you thereby afford a manifest proof of your love to your country. I expect it with impatience, as well as the extraordinary piece of platina, with which you intend to enrich my cabinet. I am not less obliged to you for having thought of embellishing my botanic garden by means of the seeds of unknown plants."

I am, with particular esteem,

Your king.

(Signed)
FREDERICK WILLIAM.

Potsdam, September 24, 1804.