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Like fire and water

The honourable Abraham Gottlob Werner believed that water produced all types of minerals and rocks and was tha main factor in shaping the surface of the earth; he was the first neptunist. His student, Alexander von Humboldt suspects that an enormous fiery force within the earth has shaped its surface with the high mountain ranges and was a follower of the plutonists. It is the dispute with the neptunists that even makes it into Goethe’s Faust Part two.
Humboldt climbes Mount Chimborazo – in his times believed to be the highest mountain on earth – on 23rd June 1802. Although the ill-equipped explorers who in addition suffered from altitude sickness had to give up shortly before reaching the summit, Humboldt had discovered evidence for his fire theory.
Humboldt lived in 2, Weingasse; on 14th June 1791 he is registered as student no. 357 at the mining academy.