Friedrich Heinrich Alexander Humboldt Baron von

Humboldt, Friedrich Heinrich Alexander, Baron von (1769–1859), German naturalist. With the botanist Aimé Jacques Alexandra Bonpland he traveled for 5 years through much of South America (1799–1804), collecting plant, animal, and rock specimens and making geomagnetic and meteorologic observations. Humboldt published their data in 30 volumes over the next 23 years. In his most important work, Kosmos (1845–62), he sought to show a fundamental unity of all natural phenomena.