Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 46.djvu/446

432 in English cryostace. This is the first substance known having the properties described; for, although albumen solidifies at a high temperature, it can never again be restored to the liquid condition.

Board of Regents of the University of California have decided to establish a course of anthropology at that institution.

from various authorities are quoted in a paper by H. H. Clayton to show that there has been a gradual evolution in the definitions of clouds since Howard. Thus a distinction has been established between high and low cirro-stratus and high and low cirro-cumulus. The stratus has been separated into fog and low sheet clouds, and two distinct forms of rain cloud have been recognized. The author agrees that ten terms, all compounded of Howard's four fundamental types, would fully meet the requirements of practical meteorology.

and Dr. Cahnheim in their journey across Iceland (1893), visited the lava cavern Surtshellir. They explored this cavern and photographed by means of magnesium light the wonderful ice cave which exists in its farthest recess. On their return journey they made a second descent, with a view of searching for the coins deposited there by previous travelers. Successful in their efforts, they took two of the oldest coins, after leaving new ones in their places. It was their intention to restore the old coins to their former resting place on the occasion of their next visit.

important work now in hand, under the auspices of the Anthropological Section of the British Association, is the organization of an ethnographical survey of the United Kingdom, based upon scientific principles. It is proposed to record in a systematic and uniform character for certain typical villages and the neighboring districts: 1, The physical types of the inhabitants; 2, their current traditions and beliefs; 3, peculiarities of dialect; 4, monumental and other remains of ancient culture; and, 5, historical evidence as to continuity of race.

 

of the United States Army, retired, an esteemed contributor to The Popular Science Monthly, died in Washington, October 24th, aged sixty-three years. He was born at Wilkesbarre, Pa., and was educated at Yale. In 1861 he entered the volunteer service, and for gallantry in action was promoted four times, finally rising to the rank of lieutenant-colonel. He was one of the Libby prisoners. He was in charge of the Signal-Service Bureau from 1870 to 1876, and then was ordered to Dakota. His investigations into Indian sign and gesture language, concerning which he published valuable papers in the Smithsonian series and in scientific journals, gave him a high scientific reputation. He was President of the Cosmos Club of Washington.

at one time Professor of the Comparative Philology of Southeastern Asia at University College, died in Fulham, England, October 11th. To him belongs the credit of having determined the origin of the Chinese writing and early civilization. He was of Norman descent and began life as a merchant, but was drawn away to science and particularly to comparative philology. Having studied the early writing of China, he compared it with the cuneiform characters of Babylonia, and found evidence that some of the characters had been borrowed from the ancient Akkadian. Tracing out other affinities, he found a like correspondence between the civilization of the Chinese and those of Elam and Chaldea. He discovered the key to the puzzling Yihking, or Book of Changes, of the Chinese, determining that it consists of old fragments of early times in China, mostly of a lexical character. He was author of the books: The Early History of Chinese Civilization, The Languages of China before the Chinese, A Catalogue of Chinese Coins from the Seventh Century to  621, and The Western Origin of the Early Chinese Civilization, from 2300  to 200

an industrious English working geologist, died in Croydon, September 30th, of gastritis contracted during a geological visit to Algeria. He was a special student of the geology of the Weald, on various aspects of which he contributed several papers, and of the bearings of geology on other branches of knowledge. One of his papers treated of the relation of parish boundaries to great physical features. His most important work was The Geological Survey Memoir of the Weald. He was Secretary of the Geological Section of the British Association for fifteen years, was Secretary of the Committee on Coast Erosion, and was President of the Geologists' Association from 1885 to 1887. He took part in most of the international geological congresses, and was for a time a sub-editor, and afterward editor, on the Geological Record.

an eminent German botanist, died October 6th, in the seventy-second year of his age. He wrote especially on the processes of fructification and germination in the Algæ. He was Professor of Botany at Jena from 1864 to 1868, and founded there the first Institute for Vegetable Physiology. He returned to Berlin in the latter year, and established a private laboratory, in which he carried out valuable investigations on the sexual life of the lowest vegetable organisms. 