miss the evenings with you and Schimper at Heidelberg, and wish I
were with you once more. I am afraid when that happy time does
come, it will be only too short. . .

BRAUN TO AGASSIZ.

HEIDELBERG, May, 1827.

. . .On Thursday evening, the 10th, I reached Heidelberg. The
medical lectures did not begin till the second week of May, so that
I have missed little, and almost regret having returned so soon. . .
I passed the last afternoon in Basel very pleasantly with Herr
Roepper, to whom I must soon write. He gave me a variety of
specimens, showed me many beautiful things, and told me much that
was instructive. He is a genuine and excellent botanist, and no
mere collector like the majority. Neither is he purely an observer
like Dr. Bischoff, but a man who thinks. . .Dr. Leuckart is in
raptures about the eggs of the "Hebammen Krote," and will raise
them. . .Schweiz takes your place in our erudite evening meetings.
I have been lecturing lately on the metamorphosis of plants, and
Schimper has propounded an entirely new and very interesting
theory, which will, no doubt, find favor with you hereafter, about
the significance of the circular and longitudinal fibres in
organisms. Schimper is fruitful as ever in poetical and
philosophical ideas, and has just now ventured upon a natural
history of the mind. We have introduced mathematics also, and he
has advanced a new hypothesis about comets and their long tails. . .
Our chief botanical occupation this summer is the careful
observation of all our plants, even the commonest, and the
explanation of whatever is unusual or enigmatical in their