I was fascinated when listening to a section of "Views from lower Rhine" by Georg Forster, written in 1790, in the car radio. Now I read the full book and it is awsome concerning the power of description and high level of almost modern language. He is a generalist in terms of scientific education.
Here is a link to Georg Forster in English, worth a read.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_ForsterI would not be surprised if some of you could be more aware of him than most Germans, because he traveled around the world with James Cook and his was a member of the Royal Society.
But.......in Germany he is almost! forgotten. No one of my good educated friends knew him when asked recently. It seems he is banned over here since the time he was an advocate of revolutionary thought. But even Goethe liked his work a lot.
BTW when undertaking his travel to "lower Rhine" which actually brought him also to London and Paris later on he was accompanied by a 21y old youngster (who then learned a lot of Forsters power or writing). His name is Alexander von Humboldt.
