at Stuttgart. The hairs upon it are as coarse as fine twine, and
nearly a foot long. The entire skeleton is at St. Petersburg in the
Museum, and is larger than the largest elephant. One may judge by
that what havoc such an animal must have made, if it was, as its
teeth show it to have been, carnivorous. But what I would like to
know is how this animal could wander so far north, and then in what
manner it died, to be frozen thus, and remain intact, without
decomposing, perhaps for countless ages. For it must have belonged
to a former creation, since it is nowhere to be found living, and
we have no instance of the disappearance of any kind of animal
within the historic period. There were, besides, many other kinds
of fossil animals. The collection of birds is very beautiful, but
it is a pity that many of them are wrongly named. I corrected a
number myself. . .From Stuttgart we went to Esslingen, where we
were to visit two famous botanists. One was Herr Steudel; a sombre
face, with long overhanging black hair, almost hiding the eyes,--a
very Jewish face. He knows every book on botany that appears, has
read them all, but cares little to see the plants themselves; in
short, he is a true closet student. He has a large herbarium,
composed in great part of plants purchased or received as gifts.
The other, Professor Hochstetter, is an odd little man, stepping
briskly about in his high boots, and having always a half
suppressed smile on his hips whenever he takes the pipe from
between his teeth. A very good man, however, and extremely
obliging; he offered us every civility. As we desired not only to
make their acquaintance, but to win from these botanists at least a
few grasses, we presented ourselves like true commis voyageurs,
with dried herbs to sell, each of us having a package of plants
under his arm,--mine being Swiss, gathered last summer, Braun's
from the Palatinate. We gave specimens to each, and received in