Until 1815, the year when Christian Leopold von Buch and Christen Smith visited the Canary Islands, naturalists’ stays on the islands used to be brief, urged, as they were, to set off for more distant lands. However, the aim of these two prestigious scientists was to settle here and carry out an in-depth study of the island’s geography. This stay, absolutely private, also a novelty, produced the first great book about the Canary Islands’ geology.
Leopold von Buch was born into an aristocratic Prussian family on 26th April 1774 in Stolpe Castle, Uckermark. From his early youth, he showed an interest for geology, botany, geography and paleontology. In 1791, he entered the Mining Academy of Freiberg, Saxony, where he was taught by the geology professor Abraham G. Wemer and met Alexander von Humboldt, with whom he established a friendship that continued in 1797, after his further training in Salzburg. That friendship, and Humboldt’s trip to the Canary Islands in 1799, encouraged Leopold von Buch to visit the archipelago. With all probability, in 1805, when both climbed Mount Vesuvius, Humboldt told him about the similarities between that volcano and Teide. But what really triggered his visit was the influence of a person he did not even know at the time, the Norwegian Christen Smith.
Leopold von Buch
Christen was born in Skoger, Drammen, in the south of Norway, in 1785, studied medicine in Copenhagen and, immediately, became interested in Botany. In spite of that, he finished his studies and started to work in a hospital. When his father died, he inherited a small fortune that allowed him to travel round Europe and devote himself to his real vocation. In 1814, his efforts in the study of botany awarded him the honour to be appointed professor of that subject at the University of Christiania. In a specialization trip to London he got in touch with the city’s vibrant scientific atmosphere.
His life really changed when he met Joseph Banks, the director of the Royal Society of London and sponsor of many travellers and explorers. In that city, he also met Leopold von Buch, with whom he would maintain a friendship for the rest of his short life.
In a letter written in 1815 to his friend the Norwegian doctor and botanist, Jens Wilken Homemann, he explains how he planned his trip to the islands:
ISLA DE TENERIFE. ATLAS DES ILES CANARIES. LEOPOLD VON BUCH, 1836
My first plan was to leave England in March, travel to France and spend some time in Paris and the south of the country; the rest of the summer in Switzerland and the north of Italy; the following winter in Germany and then back to old Copenhagen again. But recently, and even before the war spread again all over the continent, I changed my mind and my plans, which you might judge as eccentric when I tell you that I am on the verge of leaving behind the European sceneries, filled with blood again, to travel to the peaceful gardens of the high Hesperides, the Canary Islands.
The famous Baron von Buch, on hearing how interested I was in this trip, offered to accompany me, and so my shy wishes turned into a firm resolution. Tomorrow we are going to Portsmouth, where a ship is ready to sail with the first winds. On the way we will stop over in Madera for a couple of days. It has always been one of my wishes to be able to see nature in its maximum tropical splendor. Although the vegetation of the Canary Islands has been researched in depth, I believe there must still be much to be done with regard to the cryptogams and general considerations.
In March 1815, a forty-year old Buch and a thirty-year old Christian Smith travelled to the port city of Portsmouth. Leopold von Buch, who was said to be extremely diffident and unsociable, became very fond of the young Smith, whom he describes as:
… Cuando mi inteligente y afable amigo, el distinguido botánico Christian Smith de Drummen en Noruega y yo estuvimos en Londres en el invierno de 1814, la similitud de nuestros propósitos produjo inmediatamente una cercana intimidad entre nosotros. Todo lo que vimos y escuchamos…
… when my intelligent and amiable friend, the distinguished botanist Christian Smith of Drammen in Norway, and I were detained in London in the winter of 1814, the similarity of our aims in life soon produced a close intimacy between us. Everything we saw and heard…
On the 31st March, they went aboard the William and Mary in the port of Spithead, near Portsmouth, but there was some delay because the press had not confirmed whether peace between England and France had been signed and, a little later, opposing winds forced them to stop for a few more days in Yarmouth, Isle of Wight. Finally, on 8th April, the William and Mary left the English Channel behind and sailed into the Atlantic Ocean. On 20th April, they came in sight of the Island of Madera and, on 21st, they entered the port of Funchal, where the hyperactive Smith, according to Buch’s words, would not stand still.
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CHRISTEN SMITH
¡Cómo podría describirlo!, dijo Smith, en una carta a sus amigos en Noruega, “¡cómo podría expresar lo que he visto y he sentido – cómo puedo transmitirles una idea de la variedad y la singularidad de las formas, de la belleza y el brillo de los colores, y el glorioso aspecto general de la naturaleza de la que estoy rodeado!... un gran número de pájaros canarios entre las ramas llena el aire con sus trinos; y la nieve, que se vislumbra a ratos entre las nubes que envuelven la cima de las montañas, es lo único que puede hacerme recordar mi tierra natal.
How shall I relate to you! said Smith, in a letter to his friends in Norway, “how shall I express what I have seen and felt- how can I convey to you an idea of the variety and singularity of these forms, of the beauty and brilliancy of these colours, and the general glorious aspect of nature with which I am surrounded!”… the vast number of Canary birds among the branches is filling the air with their warbling; and the snow, sometimes appearing through the clouds that wrap the summits of the mountains, is the only object that can recall my native land.
After twelve days in Madera Island, they sailed to the port of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, where they anchored on 2nd May. From there, they travelled on horseback to Puerto de la Cruz with the intention of climbing Mount Teide as soon as possible. They stayed at an inn owned by an Englishman called Jackson in 23 Zamora Street, known as Casa del Sol. However, the persistent bad weather prevented them from climbing the peak, so they decided to spend the time visiting natural landscapes in the north of the island instead. In spite of the rain they admired the exuberance of the northern region of the island, the green landscapes sprinkled with little towns like, La Orotava, Los Realejos, Santa Úrsula and La Rambla. The spring was in full swing: with pine-trees, araucarias, chestnut-trees, prickly-pear cacti and wild flowers everywhere. After long tiring excursions on foot, helped by mules, along little frequented paths they finally managed to climb Teide on 18thof the same month, and they did it along hitherto unknown routes, even for the islanders themselves.
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EL TEIDE. ATLAS DES ILES CANARIES. LEOPOLD VON BUCH, 1836
… the crater is but a solfatara of sulphurous vapors, which are released almost everywhere, either through the summit or the external area. These vapors transform the rocks into white clay, and sulfur deposits itself inside the hollows forming beautiful crystals. From the points that mark the end of the little perpendicular rocks forming the circus, above Adeje, the slope of Las Cañadas is totally covered with volcanic lava forming considerable masses that spread over an area of several leagues in the shape of little black uneven currents. A large number of cones rising at a short-distance and a little above that sea of lava, and other volcanic craters that can be seen farther away in the direction of Chahorra Mountain, a volcano close to Teide, clearly mark the sources from which those impressive masses of materials have emanated from. All the matter that forms those currents has the same origins. They contain a lot of feldspar, very thin parallel pieces of crystal.
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EL TEIDE. ATLAS DES ILES CANARIES. LEOPOLD VON BUCH, 1836
After intense scientific excursions, they visited La Laguna and Santa Cruz, where they met the French draftsman Louis Le Gros and the economist Francisco Escolar Serrano, who was working on the general statistics of the islands. They also established a relationship with numerous illustrious characters from the island such as Alonso de Nava y Grimón and members of the Cólogan and Barry families, in whose company they spent several days.
From Tenerife they travelled to the other islands. In Gran Canaria they stayed from 28th June to 12th Agust and, from there, they moved to La Palma, staying there from 20thSeptember to 1st October. On the Isla Bonita, as La Palma is known, they stayed in the capital and spent the night in the homes of Felipe Massieu Monteverde and the Fierro family. From the capital they ascended to the area of Taburiente where they walked for days. Their work on the island was of great importance, for they coined the word caldera that has been used in volcanic terminology since then.
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ISLA DE LA PALMA. ATLAS DES ILES CANARIES. LEOPOLD VON BUCH, 1836
Once back in Tenerife, they returned to their inn in Puerto de la Cruz and climbed to Mount Teide once again to continue with their observations. The trip was coming to an end and they had to move back to Santa Cruz where another boat, the Albion, awaited to take them back to England. The captain of the ship informed them that he would sail to Lanzarote first to load a cargo of barilla, a coastal plant used in the manufacture of caustic soda. They arrived at the port of Arrecife on 12th October and were fascinated by the harsh and barren landscapes, softened by an extraordinary mixture of colours. Smith writes in his diary:
In the morning of 19th, we went past La Corona and turned down to the salt-mines along a rocky path; in the rocks there was a natural well, but the water there was also salty. The vegetation was not promising, it was scarce. The oppressing heat forced us to get back. We had lunch in Haría. We went our separate ways: I crossed valleys surrounded with prickly-pear cacti and went past a middle-sized village; Buch, much more tired than in any previous trip, chose the shortest way to the Villa (Teguise) and the Port…
On 3rd November 1815, they left Lanzarote for Stockesbay, near Portsmouth, where they arrived on 8th December. There, Buch made valuable contributions to tectonic geography, a budding discipline. The result of his visit to the Canary Islands is reflected in the book Physicalische Beschreibung der Canarischen Inseln (A physical description of the Canary Islands) published in 1825. Once in London, the young Christen Smith visited Joseph Banks, his mentor in England and offered the diary of his visit to the Royal Society. This little document, barely a notebook, contained just thirty seven pages tightly written, with messy impressions of which a fresh copy had to be made. Banks, whose dynamism was permanent, proposed a new expedition to the Congo and he agreed. On 28thFebruary 1816, he left England for the black continent where he arrived in July never to come back.
The Congo expedition went badly from the start. The original plan was to sail along the river aboard the expedition ship HMS Congo. That boat had originally been built as a steamer, a technology that was in its infancy, but it was eventually equipped with conventional sails. The heavy construction made it sit deep in the water, so that they had to stop and make use of a little launch they had on board, which was stopped by rapids 160 kilometers away. After this new setback, the expedition went on along Congo River crossing swamps infested with mosquitoes. The expedition advanced 450 kilometers on foot up the river, but the lack of food, the hostile tribes and the ravaging tropical fevers made them turn round. The return got more and more complicated since they could not find their way back. Downhearted and sad, Smith suffered a bout of tropical fever and died, as did eighteen out of the fifty-six members of the team, among them, all the scientists and the captain.
Unfortunately, his death, one year after they left the Canary Islands, prevented him from publishing what would have probably been an excellent botanical study. After his death, Joseph Banks, sent the manuscript to his family and, in 1889, the botanist F. C. Kiaer made the first transcription of the complicated document that he entitled Professor Christen Smiths Dagbog paa Reisen til de Canariske Øer i 1815. The manuscript is kept in the Library of Oslo University.