HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



233 



long that we do not remember who first discovered 

 and applied it. Mr. Brown is right concerning the 

 disagreeableness of ' F. B.'s' lotion; but we must 

 remember, after all, that the bite of a mosquito may 

 mean the injection into the system of the poison of 

 yellow fever or of malaria." 



Dr. J. E. Taylor, editor of SciENCE-Gossir, 

 commenced his season for popular science lectures at 

 the Colchester Students' Association on September 

 26th, with a discourse on " Flowers and Fruit ; 

 their History and Origin." 



The annual exhibition of the South London Ento- 

 mological and Natural History Society will be held on 

 the 17th and 18th of October, at the Bridge House 

 Hotel, London Bridge, S.E. Many complaints 

 having been made, owing to the difficulty of seeing 

 the exhibits through the crowded state of the rooms, 

 it has been decided to call the evening of the 17th of 

 October a "private view," for which complimentary 

 tickets will be issued to the exhibitors and the press, 

 and a limited number will also be issued at a fee of 

 one shilling each on the 18th of October. 



The International Geological Congress, which 

 assembles every three years, met this year in London, 

 on September 17th, under the presidency of Pro- 

 fessor Prestwich. The last time it met was in Paris. 

 Excursions were arranged on the 24th of September, 

 to the Isle of Wight, North Wales, Norfolk and 

 Suffolk, the Jurassic rocks of Central England, and 

 West Yorkshire, for the purpose of examining the 

 special geological features of those districts. These 

 were under the direction of Messrs. Whitaker, J. S. 

 Gardner, Professor Keeping, Professor Blake, Dr. 

 Hicks, Dr. J. E. Taylor, Messrs. G. Morton, Wood- 

 hall, Lamplugh, F. W. Harmer, Clement Reid, Marr, 

 Tidderman, A. H. Green, H. B. Woodward, &c. 



We have much pleasure in drawing attention to 

 the capital portrait of the well-known Rev. Dr. 

 Dallinger (with short biography) in the last number 

 of the recently issued but vigorously edited monthly 

 scientific journal, " Research." We are genuinely 

 sorry to hear that Dr. Dallinger has at length retired 

 from his useful (if not fitful) post of Governor of 

 Wesley College, Sheffield. No man has ever clone 

 more to polarise Wesleyan Methodism witli a love of 

 God's works than he has. 



At the recent meeting of the American Associa- 

 tion for the advancement of science, the chief 

 feature was a paper by Professor Hall on the " New 

 Psychology," in which he stated that hypnotism 

 was one of the most promising areas of modern 

 psychic research. 



Germany has lost perhaps her greatest physicist, 

 by the death of the distinguished Dr. Clausius, at the 

 age of sixty-six. He will probably be best known to 

 students by his researches and publications on heat. 



Death has been very busy with our scientific men 

 the last few weeks. Among the chief and best 

 known is a man who has done more than a regi- 

 ment of ordinary scientific men to make science 

 understanded of the people, Mr. R. A. Proctor, the 

 distinguished astronomer, astronomical writer, and 

 lecturer, and editor of "Knowledge," at the com- 

 paratively early age of fifty-three. Poor Proctor ! 



Another valued old contributor to Science- 

 Gossir, has joined the majority ; Mr. Philip Henry 

 Gosse, F.R.S., the zoologist, died at his residence, 

 Torquay, at the age of seventy-eight. He was the 

 author of works on the Natural History of Canada 

 and Jamaica, the result of his personal investigations, 

 besides others on British Zoology. He devoted 

 himself in his later years to the microscopic study of 

 the British Rotifera. The last scientific communi- 

 cation he penned was the short paper on the " Boar- 

 fish," which appeared in the September number of 

 Science-Gossip. 



Another old and valued friend is also gone — Mr. 

 Henry Stevenson, F.L.S., the author of the two 

 raciest volumes in all ornithological literature, "The 

 Birds of Norfolk." He was only fifty-seven. 



Is there anything more painful than to be the 

 brief biographer of friends with whom are associated, 

 in the past, happy days and sunshiny hours ? Poor 

 W. H. Baily, the author of " Characteristic British 

 Fossils," acting palaeontologist to the Geological ,Sur- 

 vey]of Ireland, professor at the Royal Dublin College 

 of Science, contributor of many articles to SciENCE- 

 Gossip, is also dead. He was a contemporary of 

 Edward Forbes, and De la Beche, and John Philips. 



How electrical science has grown is best proved 

 by the fact, that five millions of people are now 

 dependent on the electric current for their daily 

 bread ! 



Accounts of the marvels revealed by the great 

 Lick telescope come to us from California. The 

 ring nebula in the constellation of Lyra has been 

 specially under examination by the aid of the thirty- 

 six-inch refractor. The refractor in the Washington 

 Observatory, in 1874, revealed thirteen stars outside 

 and one inside the ring. But the Lick telescope 

 shows twelve stars inside, and reveals " a corner of 

 the universe where the great work of creation is now 

 actually in progress." " Here," writes an observer, 

 " in this cosmic workshop of Lyra are scattered raw 

 materials and finished solar bodies ; rows of suns 

 ablaze with pristine light, and masses of unformed 

 vapour, in whose bosom the carbon atoms may be 

 floating which in the ripeness of time shall assume 

 forms of beauty and life." 



Professor Piazzi Smyth has resigned the office 

 of Astronomer-Royal for Scotland, which he has 

 held for forty-three years. 



