Georg Heinrich von Langdorff's life encompassed a period in which new ideas and discoveries were quickening the pace of intellectual life in Europe and laying the foundations of modern scientific disciplines. At the same time, revolutions and economically motivated exploration and competition for territory and markets at the farthest corners of the globe were beginning to change the political face of the earth. Langsdorff was a son of his age: restless, curious, thirsting for new knowledge, eager to leave his mark on the world in the form of natural historical collections and new scientific information. He was highly educated and widely traveled. He shared with his contemporaries a passion for investigating and collecting the new and the unknown and shipping it back to Europe. This book contains the detailed translations of his adventures and explorations.