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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



the youngest thirty-nine. The scientific 

 man, like others engaged in creative 

 work, is likely to have his ideas early, 

 but unlike the man of letters or the 

 artist, he needs a full life to work them 

 out. Science is long and slow, and be- 

 comes so increasingly with the accu- 

 mulated heritage of knowledge. 



Abbot Lawrence Eoteh, dead after 

 an operation for appendicitis at the 

 age of fifty, was one of the few men 

 of independent means in this country 

 who have devoted themselves to science 

 from love of the work. In 1906 he was 

 given a partly honorary professorship 

 at Harvard University, but twenty 

 years before he had founded and had 

 since directed the Blue Hill Meteor- 

 ological Observatory, from which have 

 come important explorations of the 

 upper air by kites and balloons. 

 Charles Robert Sanger, born in 1860, 

 was director of the chemical laboratory 

 of Harvard College. In spite of the 

 onerous executive and teaching duties 

 of the office, he found time to carry on 

 accurate researches on the detection of 

 minute quantities of arsenic, antimony 

 and fluorine and on the chlorine deriva- 

 tives of silicon and sulphur. 



Thomas Harrison Montgomery, who 

 died from pneumonia, barely thirty- 

 nine years old, was in charge of zool- 

 ogy at the University of Pennsylvania, 

 where there had just been completed 

 under his direction a laboratory of 

 zoology unsurpassed in the world. His 

 researches on cellular structure and its 

 relation to tlie phenomena of heredity 

 and the determination of sex; on the 

 activities, habits and development of 

 spiders and birds; on the structure and 

 development of various rotifers and 

 insects and on the analysis of racial 

 descent and of evolution, have been 

 described in more than eighty mono- 

 graphs. Henry Wilson Spangler, like 

 Montgomery, in charge of an impor- 

 tant department of the University of 

 Pennsylvania and of a large laboratory 

 of mechanical engineering recently 

 erected, died at the age of fifty-four. 

 He was at the same time a distin- 



guished engineer and a great teacher. 

 John Bernhardt Smith, born in 1858, 

 was entomologist of New Jersey and 

 of the Experiment Station as well as 

 professor in Eutgers College. He had 

 done imjiortant systematic work, but is 

 best known for his economic work, 

 especially on the suppression of the 

 mosquito. Ealph Stockman Tarr, forty- 

 eight years old at the time of his death, 

 was professor of physical geography at 

 Cornell University. He was distin- 

 guished for his work in physiography 

 and glacial geography. 



SCIENTIFIC ITEMS 



Lord Lister bequeathed nearly the 

 whole of his fortune to scientific insti- 

 tutions and hospitals, including $100,- 

 000 to the Lister Institute of Pre- 

 ventive Medicine and $50,000 to the 

 Eoyal Society. — Professor A. Lawrence 

 Eotch has by his will given the Blue 

 Hill Meteorological Observatory with 

 an endowment of $50,000 to Harvard 

 University. 



Dr. Ira Eemsen has resigned the 

 presidency of the Johns Hopkins Uni- 

 versity. It is understood, however, that 

 he will retain the chair of chemistry 

 which he has held since the opening of 

 the institution in 1876. — Dr. George T. 

 Moore has been elected director of the 

 Missouri Botanical Garden to fill the 

 vacancy caused by the resignation of 

 Dr. William Trelease. 



Sir J. J. Thomson has been ap- 

 pointed by King George V. a member 

 of the order of merit. The other scien- 

 tific men who are members of the order 

 are Lord Eayleigh, Dr. A. E. Wallace 

 and Sir William Crooks. The order has 

 recently lost through death Sir Joseph 

 Dalton Hooker and Lord Lister. — The 

 second annual award of the Willard 

 Gibbs Medal, founded by Mr. William 

 A. Converse, will be made by the Chi- 

 cago Section of the American Chemical 

 Society on May 17, to Professor Theo- 

 dore W. Eichards, of Harvard Univer- 

 sity. It may be remembered that the 

 initial award of this medal was made 

 last May to Professor Svante Arrhenius. 



