The Invention of Nature

It was probably the news of Russia’s victory against the Ottomans that encouraged Humboldt to change his plans. Cancrin had kept Humboldt up to date throughout by express courier. Over the past months, Russian soldiers had marched towards Constantinople from both sides of the Black Sea, defeating the Ottoman army time and again. As more Turkish strongholds fell, Sultan Mahmud II had realized that victory was on Russia’s side. On 14 September the Treaty of Adrianople was signed and the war ended – an enormous region that had been inaccessible and too dangerous for Humboldt opened up. Only ten days later Humboldt informed his brother that they would now travel to Astrakhan on the banks of the Volga, where the great river discharged into the northern end of the Caspian Sea. The ‘peace outside the gates of Constantinople’, Humboldt wrote to Cancrin, was ‘glorious’ news.

In mid-October, they reached Astrakhan and boarded a steamer to explore the Caspian Sea and the Volga. The Caspian Sea was known for its fluctuating water levels – a fact that fascinated Humboldt much as he had been intrigued three decades previously by Lake Valencia in Venezuela. He was convinced, he later told scientists in St Petersburg, that measuring stations should be set up around the lake to record the water’s rise and fall methodically but also to investigate a possible movement of the ground; volcanoes and other subterraneous forces might be the reason for the changes, he suggested. Later he speculated that the Caspian Depression – the region around the northern part of the Caspian Sea, which lay more than ninety feet below sea level – might have sunk in tandem with the rising of the high plateaux in Central Asia and the Himalaya.

Today we know that there are multiple reasons for the changing water levels. One factor is the amount of water coming in from the Volga which is tied to the rainfall of a huge catchment region – all of which in turn relates to the atmospheric conditions of the North Atlantic. Many scientists now believe that these fluctuations reflect climatic changes in the northern hemisphere, making the Caspian Sea an important field of study for climate change investigations. Other theories claim that the water levels are affected by tectonic forces. These are exactly the kinds of global connections that interested Humboldt. To see the Caspian Sea, Humboldt wrote to Wilhelm, was one of the ‘highlights of my life’.

It was now the end of October and the Russian winter was almost upon them. Humboldt was expected first in Moscow and then in St Petersburg to report on his expedition. He was happy. He had seen deep mines and snow-capped mountains as well as the largest dry steppe in the world and the Caspian Sea. He had drunk tea with the Chinese commanders at the Mongolian border as well as fermented mare’s milk with the Kyrgyz. Between Astrakhan and Volgograd, the learned khan of the Kalmyk people had organized a concert in Humboldt’s honour during which a Kalmyk choir sang Mozart overtures. Humboldt had watched Saiga antelopes chasing across the Kazakh Steppe, snakes sunbathing on a Volga island and a naked Indian fakir in Astrakhan. He had correctly predicted the presence of diamonds in Siberia, had against his instructions talked to political exiles and had even met a Polish man who had been deported to Orenburg and who proudly showed Humboldt his copy of Political Essay of New Spain. During the previous months Humboldt had survived an anthrax epidemic and had lost weight because he found the Siberian food indigestible. He had plunged his thermometer into deep wells, carried his instruments across the Russian Empire and taken thousands of measurements. He and his team returned with rocks, pressed plants, fish in vials and stuffed animals as well as ancient manuscripts and books for Wilhelm.

As before, Humboldt was not just interested in botany, zoology or geology but also in agriculture and forestry. Noting the rapid disappearance of the forests around the mining centres, he had written to Cancrin about the ‘lack of timber’ and advised him against using steam engines to drain flooded mines because doing so would consume too many trees. In the Baraba Steppe, where the anthrax epidemic had raged, Humboldt had noted the environmental impact of intense husbandry. The region was (and is) an important agricultural centre of Siberia, and the farmers there had drained swamps and lakes to turn the land into fields and pastures. This had caused a considerable desiccation of the marshy plains which would continue to increase, Humboldt concluded.