18 LOUIS AGASSIZ 



"My room was our meeting-place, 

 bedroom, study, museum, library, lect- 

 ure-room, fencing-room, all in one. 

 Students and professors alike used to 

 call it the Little Academy. Here 

 Schimper and Braun for the first time 

 discussed the laws of phyllotaxis, that 

 marvellous rhythmical arrangement of 

 the leaves in plants. Among their lis- 

 teners were Professors Martius and Zuc- 

 carini ; and even Eobert Brown, while 

 in Munich, during a journey through 

 Germany, sought the acquaintance of 

 these young botanists. It was in our 

 Little Academy that Dollinger, the 

 great master in physiology and embry- 

 ology, . . . taught us the use of the 

 microscope in embryological investiga- 

 tion." Other students not of the 

 Cloverleaf were prominent in the Little 

 Academy ; and as for the subjects dis- 

 cussed, they ranged from the Anatomy 

 of the Lamper-eel to the Structure of the 

 Bavarian Alps ; and from the Natural 



