Prof. Cotta’s Eulogy on Von Buch. 7 
of land and water in this part of the world at that time. He also 
subsequently showed, that the depositions at the period of the 
chalk—at least its organisms—are limited to a determinate zone 
of the earth’s surface, extending, neither in the old world nor 
the new, beyond 60° of north or south latitude, which, if con- 
firmed, will be the oldest proof of a division of zones upon our 
anet. 
Last of all, the deposition and distribution of the brown coal 
formation in Germany as well also as that of the chalk of North 
America engaged his attention. With the investigation of the 
former were connected peculiar studies of a botanic nature which 
had also occupied him for many years, but which he had now so 
far perfected as to bring their result to bear ypon the subject in 
question. The fossil impression of dicotyledonous leaves, whose 
exact determination is often extremely difficult, led him to the 
study of the living forms of leaves. He rested seldom under 
the shadow of a tree without accurately observing the structure 
of its leaves and numbering their nerves. He collected hundreds 
in a small herbarium and by continued comparison succeeded in 
discovering a determinate law in the arrangement of their nerves, 
according to which all leaves arrange themselves under the four 
divisions of “ Randlaufer, Bogeulaufer, Spitzlaufer, and Saum- 
Here permit me to leave the succession of weightier and in 
part more brilliant discoveries, for which the physical sciences, and 
especially geology, whose reformer he was, are indebted to him 
to return once more to the personal, where I may not and cannot 
avoid a more subjective representation, inasmuch as I have had 
the fortune of not being a stranger to him, and in many ways 
know his high manly worth. 
You all may have heard doubtless of many a peculiarity of L. 
Vv. Buch, who at times under a stern exterior, always, however, 
bore a deeply sensitive and noble heart. Great men are seldom 
without sharply defined and deeply stamped peculiarities, and 
these then belong obviously to the full completion of the portrait. 
The custom of performing all his journeys as far as possible on 
foot, without guide, without knapsack, in black dress coat, and 
tound hat, in shoes and (formerly silk) stockings, all of which ar- 
ticles of dress being often from the hardships of the journey far 
more jaded than their bearer, brought him many a time in pecu- 
liar couflict with travellers, police authorities and landlords, from 
Which, of course, by intellectual superiority and a good passport, 
he ever came off at last victorious. Hundreds of original anec- 
dotes which have happened to him on his journeys are known. 
He himself appeared not unwilling even to relate them, and much 
as he was accustomed also to’ be importuned by such misunder- 
standings, still one can scarcely believe that he always shunned 
em. 
