FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



719 



bunnion, wbich is described as "a remark- 

 able production in respect of its date and 

 the subsequent development of geology." 

 In 1833 he was appointed surgeon and ge- 

 ologist to the Euphrates Expedition under 

 Chesney ; and, after returning from this was 

 placed in charge of another expedition, sent 

 out by the Royal Geographical and the Prop- 

 agation of Christian Knowledge Societies, to 

 the Christians in Chaldea. Two books made 

 known the scientific and other observations 

 he made in these expeditions, to be followed, 

 in 1844, by a geographical and descriptive 

 account of the expedition of Cyrus and the 



retreat of the Ten Thousand with which 

 Xenophon made the world acquainted. He 

 returned to England in 1841 ; conducted the 

 SyroEgyptian Society; labored for the adop- 

 tion of the route to India via the Euphrates 

 and Tigris Valleys ; was founder and honorary 

 treasurer of the West London Hospital ; and 

 published new geographical books. A bibli- 

 ography of his contributions to knowledge, 

 the AthentEum says, " would itself fill a 

 volume." He was a corresponding member 

 of the Geographical Society of Paris, the 

 German Oriental Society, and the Moldavian 

 Natural History Society. 



MINOR PARAGRAPHS. 



General Francis A. Walker, President 

 of the Massachusetts Institute of Technol- 

 ogy, died very suddenly of apoplexy, January 

 5th. He was a man of great versatility, filled 

 many important public positions, and con- 

 tributed much to knowledge through the re- 

 sults of his economical studies. He was born 

 in 1840 ; was graduated from Amherst Col- 

 lege in 1860 ; adopted the profession of law ; 

 went into the war and rose to be a brigadier- 

 general ; after the war began to teach ; did 

 editorial work on the Springfield Republican ; 

 was appointed chief of the National Bureau 

 of Statistics in 1869. As superintendent of 

 the ninth and tenth censuses he made great 

 improvements in methods. From 18T3 to 

 1881 he was Professor of Political Economy 

 and History in the Sheffield Scientific School, 

 while he also lectured at Johns Hopkins and 

 Harvard Universities. In 1881 he became 

 President of the Massachusetts Institute of 

 Technology. He was also chief of the Bu- 

 reau of Awards at the Centennial Exhibition ; 

 a United States Commissioner to the Inter- 

 national Monetary Conference at Paris in 

 1878 ; President of the American Statistical 

 Association in 1882 ; and President of the 

 American Economic Association in 1886. 

 He was author of a large number of books 

 and papers, chiefly on economical subjects, 

 which are much consulted. 



The Tsimpshian Indians, living around 

 Port Simpson, British Columbia, were de- 

 scribed by Prof. B. Adler in the British 

 Association as being the most intelligent, 

 progressive, and best-built natives he had 



seen in any country. Of the various customs 

 of these and the other tribes of the region, 

 the author described the potlatch as a solemn 

 ceremony whereby on a chieftain's death his 

 successor, who curiously is the late chief's 

 eldest sister's eldest son, is invested with the 

 chieftaincy in the presence of the whole tribe, 

 taking the late chief's flute as a sacred sym- 

 bol of office. The Indians were represented 

 as having a marvelous adaptability to song, 

 eloquent speaking, and building. The Tsimp- 

 shians were the most wonderful linguists the 

 author had ever met, and their facility for 

 acquiring other languages than their own 

 was almost an instinct. Their own language 

 is very complete, well inflected, and aided 

 by auxiliaries. 



The Royal Society medals for 1896 were 

 distributed as follows : The Copley medal to 

 Carl Gegenbauer, Professor of Anatomy in 

 Heidelberg, in recognition of his pi-e-emi- 

 nence in the science of comparative anatomy 

 or animal morphology; the Royal medals, 

 one to Sir Archibald Geikie as the most dis- 

 tinguished British geologist, the other to 

 Prof. C. V. Boys, who has given to phys- 

 ical research a method of measuring minute 

 forces far exceeding in exactness any hith- 

 erto used ; the Rumford medal to Prof. 

 Philipp Leonard and Prof. W. C. Rontgen ; 

 the Davy medal to Prof. Henri Moissan ; and 

 the Darwin medal to Prof. Giovanni Battista 

 Grassi. 



The first indications of gold in Nova 

 Scotia were observed, according to Sir James 

 Grant's paper in the British Association, in 



