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Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859), German naturalist and geographer. From 1799 to 1804, with botanist Aime Bonpland, he explored northern Latin America. They mapped over 2700 kilometres of the Orinoco River, catalogued huge tracts of flora and fauna and discovered and measured the Peruvian Current (now called the Humboldt Current). Returning to Europe, he studied the meteorology of Russia and drew the first isotherm map. From 1845 he published the five-volume work 'Kosmos'. This artwork, after the 1859 portrait by German artist Julius Schrader (1815-1900), shows the Ecuadorian mountains Chimborazo and Cotopaxi. (KEYSTONE/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY/BRITISH LIBRARY / SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY)