1827-31-] CARLSRUHE TO MUNICH. 21 



On their way on foot to Munich they stopped first 

 at Stuttgart, where the Royal Museum, already quite 

 prominent, attracted much of the attention and even 

 admiration of Agassiz. A splendid North American 

 buffalo, and a piece of the hide of a Siberian mammoth, 

 with hairs still attached, excited his wonder and his 

 imagination ; for he thought that the mammoth's 

 teeth showed that it was a carnivorous animal ; but the 

 question that interested him most was, how this ani- 

 mal could have wandered so far north, and in what 

 manner he died, to be frozen thus, and remain intact, 

 perhaps for countless ages. He little realized that it 

 was reserved for him some day to give the explanation, 

 and that he was to be the god-father of the " Ice-age." 



At Esslingen, Agassiz and Braun stopped to visit two 

 botanists, and make exchanges of specimens. As Agas- 

 siz had a good collection of dried plants from the Jura 

 Vaudois, and Braun of the Palatinate, they presented 

 themselves, each with a package of dried plants under 

 his arm, and were well received ; more especially by 

 Professor von Hochstetter, the father of the afterward 

 celebrated naturalist, Ferdinand von Hochstetter of the 

 " Novara " expedition round the world, and first director 

 of the great Natural History Museum of Vienna. 



On the fourth of November, 1827, Agassiz and Braun 

 alighted at Munich ; and a few days afterward they 

 were joined by the other member of the trio of friends, 

 Karl Schimper, Until then Agassiz had remained a true 

 Swiss ; his stay at Heidelberg had not been long enough 

 nor successful enough, on account of his health, to make 

 any change in him. But as soon as he was settled at 



