HUMBOLDT, ALEXANDER VON

HUMBOLDT, ALEXANDER VON 

Autograph manuscript signed twice ("F. A. de Humboldt" and "Humboldt"), in French, titled Memoire raisonné sur la Saline de Zipaquirá, 47 pages (including autograph title), Zipaquirá, Cundinamarca, Columbia, September 1801; title and final leaf with some soiling, scattered minor soiling. Bound in gilt-lettered calf; worn, covers detached. 

Alexander von Humboldt's detailed study of the salt mines of Zipaquirá.

In 1799, Humboldt received authorization from the Spanish monarchy to undertake a lengthy and wide-ranging scientific expedition to Spanish America. He was accompanied by Aimé Bonpland. In July 1801, after three months in Cuba, he arrived in Columbia. In September, he visited the vast salt mines of Zipaquirá in the Cundinamarca Department, thirty miles north of Bogotá. These salt deposits were formed 250 million years ago and had been exploited by the pre-Columbian Muisca people since the fifth century B.C. In his description Humboldt described the traditional halite mining at the site and recommended a switch to drift mining for future excavations. He noted that the mine was bigger than those found in Spain, Switzerland, Poland, and the Tyrol, with a calculated resource estimation of one million cubic meters.

Humboldt's description, written in French in his diminutive hand, covers 46 tightly-packed pages. After three pages of introductory remarks, he divides his work into sections titled "Vues géologique. Explotation de la mine," "Sources salées et leur Concentration," and "Cuite de Sel et Transport du Produit."

A fine example of the observational and analytical skills that marked Humboldt's work on his celebrated expedition to Spanish America.