1807-27.] UNIVERSITY OF HEIDELBERG. 17 



naturalists, but also for the inmates of the house of 

 Postmaster-general Braun. Besides a family of four 

 children, two sons and two daughters, there was living 

 in the family a young Swiss student, Arnold Guyot of 

 Neuchatel, then learning the German language, and 

 preparing for the ministry. Postmaster-general Braun 

 was very scientific in his tastes, and possessed one of 

 the best collections of minerals then existing in Ger- 

 many. His house, near one of the city gates, was large 

 enough to admit and lodge comfortably all this com- 

 pany of young people, who rambled through the forests 

 and fields, ransacking every corner where plants and 

 animals were to be found. They had special rooms 

 devoted to dissections, true laboratories ; and here they 

 brought their specimens, and for hours together dis- 

 cussed and theorized on all kinds of natural-history 

 subjects. 



I shall, farther on, speak at length of Alexander 

 Braun and his younger brother Max, and also of Karl 

 Schimper ; but for the present I need only say that the 

 two daughters, Emmy and Cecilia, were both very 

 attractive, and soon received marked attentions, which 

 afterward changed into courtship, from two of the visit- 

 ors, Louis Agassiz and Karl Schimper. The younger, 

 Miss Cecilia, or " Cily," as she was familiarly called, 

 possessed a remarkable talent for drawing, and would 

 have become an artist of repute if she had devoted 

 her life to the fine arts. She was very sensible, affec- 

 tionate, and unaffected, and soon felt the influence of 

 Agassiz's attractive personality. Her talent for drawing 

 was constantly brought into demand by the specimens 



