The Botanical Institute at Munich. 
83 
On the ground floor is the leeture room, holding about 300> 
while beyond it are the museum and herbarium, as well as various 
professors’ and assistants’ rooms. Along the corridor is a door 
leading directly into the big palm house, which is exceedingly con¬ 
venient for students who are working with living plants, 
On the next floor are the Professor’s suite of rooms and small 
Conservatory, the Library, Professor Gicsenhagen’s room, and the 
Arbeit Saal or Research Laboratory, which is large and well 
lighted. Here the arrangements are quite simple but very efficient; 
each student has a table with electric lamp, gas, and such reagent 
bottles and material as he may require, with a cupboard on the wall 
beside him. In the middle of the room are two large tables used 
for the microtomes, and along the walls without windows are—a 
work table for paraffin embedding, paraffin ovens, two water taps, a 
table with large reserve bottles of absolute alcohol, etc., a fume 
cupboard for chemical work and a cupboard of re-agents. Opening 
out of the big laboratory is a dark room, which, with the camera 
are used by the students. The beautiful brown parquet floors 
afford me much delight, and form a striking contrast to the bare 
ink-stained boards common in England. The still larger general 
laboratory and attendants’ room are on the second floor, and are 
very similar to those below. 
In the surrounding gardens, which are unfortunately quite 
small, are several greenhouses with most of the plants usually to be 
found in Botanic Gardens. One house is particularly striking, being 
is entirely devoted to a grove of tree ferns, arranged in as natural a 
manner as possible ; these were brought back by Professor Goebel 
from his travels and are a particularly charming and unusual addi¬ 
tion to the houses. 
The Professor lectures every day on Allgemeiiie Botanik ; these 
are the only lectures he gives this term and are attended by about 
300 students. The lectures are perforce somewhat elementary, 
but they are interestingly and broadly treated, and are splendidly 
illustrated with a wealth of experiments, diagrams, lantern slides, 
dried and spirit specimens, and numerous plants from the houses. 
The immense advantage of having the contents of museums and 
houses available for the lectures is borne in on one. 
In the “Arbeit Saal ” the students engaged in research for the 
Doctorate in Botany, and foreign research students’ work. Here 
the true greatness of the Professor comes out best. He encourages 
each to work out his own ideas, for he prefers a laboratory with a 
