HiN - Alexander von Humboldt im Netz. Internationale Zeitschrift für Humboldt-Studien (Apr 2006)
Nachrichten aus Amerika oder wie man in Koblenz von Humboldts Reise nach Amerika erfuhr
Abstract
Article in German, Abstracts in English and German.In the almost forgotten Jacobinic newspaper “Der Bewohner des West Rheins” (i.e. The Citizen of the Western Rhine), published in Koblenz/Rhine there appeared on Brumaire 29th of the year IX (i.e. November 20th 1800) a summary of a letter dated January 24th, 1800, sent by Alexander von Humboldt from Laguaira, Venezuela to his colleague Antoine François de Fourcroy (1755-1809) in Paris. It takes Humboldt’s letter six months to reach the French capital and further four months later it arrives in the (at that time) French province of the departements on the left bank of the Rhine. This up to now unknown publication of a a letter by Humboldt in the newspaper “Der Bewohner des West Rheins”, a paper of only regional significance, vividly shows two parallel developments: on the one hand the spreading of knowledge from the centre to the perifery, from the capital to the province and on the other hand the spreading of knowledge from the already highly specialized scientific network to the general newspaper business that “generates” publicity and popularizes knowledge.
