Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 26.djvu/592

576 some fifteen or twenty seconds to the right of his spider-line. It was really, of course, his telescope that moved under the force of a sharp earth-tremor which was duly recorded on the curves of the magnetometer.

French have formed a society called Scientia, for the cultivation of the social qualities among scientific men. Its first banquet was held on the 11th of December, in honor of the ninety-ninth birthday of M. Chevreuil, when M. Jamin, presiding, delivered an appropriate address to the hero of the hour, and M. Chevreuil replied.

—For Düring read Düsing m the article entitled "Influences determining Sex," published in the January "Monthly."

a French chemist of German birth, died October 4th, in the thirty-fifth year of his age. He studied and labored with Wurtz, and was distinguished for his experiments in the reduction of the polyatomic alcohols, and particularly of erythrite, by formic acid. One of the results of these experiments was the definition of a general method for the reduction of one alcohol to another of less atomicity. He was one of the editors of "Science et Nature."

author of the "Thierleben," whose death was recently announced, was the son of a Thuringian ornithologist, and devoted his life to the study of all animal nature, but particularly of birds. He spent several years in the northeastern districts of Africa during his younger days, and later made scientific tours in distant lands, including Siberia, Turkistan, and Abyssinia. He was for some years Director of the Zoölogical Gardens at Hamburg.

F. R. S., an English geological author of well-earned fame, died November 25th. His first geological paper was published in 1835. His favorite topic of study was the changes going on in the present day, especially along the coast. His best-known paper was "On the Possible Extension of the Coal-Measures beneath the Southeastern Part of England." The Geological Society gave him its Wollaston medal in 1862.

death is announced of Mr. J. Buckman, formerly Professor of Geology and Botany at the Cirencester College, England.

Director of the Zoölogical Gardens in Berlin, recently died suddenly. He was distinguished, previous to going to Berlin in 1809, in connection with the garden at Cologne.

F. G. S., an English paleontologist, died November 17th. His specialty was fossil echinoderms, concerning the classification and structure of which, and their distribution in the secondary rocks, he contributed much that is important. He was President of the Geological Section of the British Association in 1875.

death is announced of Henri Lartigue, a French practical electrician. He was born in 1830; served for several years as Professor of Physics, Chemistry, and Natural History in the lycée at Auch, south of France; joined Leverrier at Paris in 1855 to assist him in meteorological observations; and after 1859 was associated with the railroad, telegraphic, and telephonic service, in connection with which he made some valuable inventions. In his youth he made a botanical and entomological exploration of the Pyrenees.

the distinguished agricultural chemist, died at Kensington, England, December 5th. He was born at Frankfort-on-the-Main, Germany, in 1823, studied at Göttingen, and became assistant to Professor Johnson, of Edinburgh, in 1849. He was Professor of Chemistry in the Royal Agricultural College at Cirencester from 1852 to 1862, when he became consulting chemist and professor in the Royal Agricultural Society of England. He contributed much to the Agricultural Society's "Journal" and ninety papers to the Royal Society, and he published books on the chemistry of food and the chemistry of manures, and lectures on agricultural chemistry.

author of the "Lehrbuch der organischen Chemie," died November 26th. He was born in Göttingen in 1818, assumed a chair in the London Museum of Economic Geology in 1845, succeeded Bunsen at Marburg in 1851, and accepted a call to Leipsic in 1865. He edited the "Zeitschrift für praktische Chemie" from 1869. He was, shortly before his death, awarded the Davy medal of the Royal Society for his researches in the isomerism of alcohols.

Professor of Geography at the University of Pavia, died on the 18th of October. He was a son of the celebrated geographer Adriano Balbi, and was born in Florence in 1812.

death is announced of Mr. Robert Sabine, C. E., an English electrician who has done good work in connection with the applications of electricity. He was a son-in law of Sir Charles Wheatstone.

science has recently lost by death A. G. Fischer von Waldheim, President of the Moscow Natural History Society.