288 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Dr. E. Pagf.t Thurston believes that 

 while it is theoretically right to omit farina- 

 ceous food in feeding infants that have to be 

 brought up by hand, a little is needed when 

 cow's milk is used, to retard curdling. These' 

 solids, as well as the preparations of barley, 

 Isinglass, and linseed, act mechanically by 

 adding something to thicken the milk, and 

 entangle the curds as they are formed. In 

 the shape of bread-crust, Brighton biscuit, or 

 other " infant's foods," they may be added in 

 very small quantities, so that the milk can 

 still be sucked through the tube of a feed- 

 ing-bottle. 



Cases of lead-poisoning among the Jac- 

 quard weavers in a Swiss factory were traced 

 by F. Schiiler to the dust from leaden weights 

 which are used by the weavers to carry the 

 thread of their warp. After the varnish has 

 been rubbed off from the weights, the lead 

 begins to wear away, and falls in fine parti- 

 cles among the dust on the floor. In some, 

 cases this dust is as much as 56*86 per cent 

 lead, and even when the utmost care was 

 taken, nine or ten per cent of lead was 

 found in it. 



According to Mr. Ilansen-Blansted, the 

 beech is overcoming all other trees in the 

 struggle for existence in the Danish forests. 

 It is driving out the birch, except in marshy 

 places ; it is taking the place of the firs ; and 

 there are signs that it is gradually gaining 

 the advantage over the oaks. 



OBITUARY NOTES. 



Sir Robert Kane, a distinguished Irish 

 chemist and author, died in Dublin, Febru- 

 ary 16th. He was born in Dublin in Sep- 

 tember, 1810. His father was the proprietor 

 of sulphuric-acid and alkali works near the 

 city, and he developed a taste for chemical 

 knowledge very early in life, publishing his 

 first paper— On the' Existence of Chlorine 

 in the Native Peroxide of Manganese— in 

 1828. This was followed by other contribu- 

 tions. He was appointed Professor of Nat- 

 ural Philosophy to the Dublin Society in 

 1834, and devoted himself to original re- 

 search in chemistry. He was afterward 

 head of the Museum of Irish Industry, and 

 first President of Queen's College, Cork. He 

 was author of a large and important work 

 on the Industrial Resources of Ireland. He 

 received many honors, in reco£mition of his 

 scientific labors, from the Government and 

 from learned societies. 



M. Edmond Hebert, an eminent French 

 geologist, died April 4th, in the seventy- 

 eighth year of his age. He was made Pro- 

 fessor of Geology at the Sorbonne in 1857, 

 and in the same year was chosen to succeed 

 Charles Sainte-Claire Deville in the Section 

 of Mineralogy in the Academy of Sciences. 

 He was author of many important geological 



memoirs. His principal works were on the 

 Oscillations of the Crust of the Earth, and 

 the Ancient Seas and their Shores in the 

 Paris Basin. He was an exponent of the 

 doctrine of the adequacy of existing causes 

 to explain geological phenomena. 



Prof, von Quenstedt, of Tubingen, one 

 of the most famous of German paleontolo- 

 gists, and a mineralogist, too, died December 

 21st. He was author of works on the Jura, 

 and one on petrifactions or fossils. He 

 was distinguished for his profound knowl- 

 edge of the Lias of Wiirtemberg and its 

 fossils. 



Dr. Paul Niemeyer, Sanitarv Counselor, 

 and author of works relating to hygiene, 

 died in Berlin, on the 25th of February, in 

 the fifty-sixth year of his age. Several of 

 his books, including his Doctrine of Health, 

 Advice to Mothers, and Sunday Rest, had 

 wide circulation, and were translated into 

 other languages. He assisted Miss Nightin- 

 gale in the revision of her Notes on Nursing. 



M. Charles M. V. Montigny, a Belgian 

 astronomer and meteorologist, died near 

 Brussels, March 16th, aged about seventy 

 years. He was honorary professor in the 

 Royal Athenaeum of Brussels, and a member 

 of the Belgian Academy of Science ; and 

 had been connected with the observatory as 

 a correspondent since 1879. His most im- 

 portant researches were on the scintillation 

 of the stars, for which he invented an instru- 

 ment called the scintillometer, which he ob- 

 served industriously for several years, and 

 which led him to new views concerning re- 

 fraction ; the relation of the height of the 

 barometrical column and the pressure of the 

 wind ; the velocity of the wind, and its in- 

 clination. In the last research he is believed 

 to have been the first who occupied himself 

 with the subject. 



Dr. George Thurber, an eminent bota- 

 nist and writer on horticultural subjects, 

 died in Passaic, N. J., April 2d, in the sev- 

 entieth year of his age. He was born in 

 Providence, R. I., in 1821. Studying phar- 

 macy, he became interested in botany. In 

 1850, in connection with the United States 

 and Mexico Boundary Survey, he explored 

 the botany of the country between the Gulf 

 of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean. The re- 

 sults of this, study were published by Asa 

 Gray in Plantae Novas Thurberianae. He was 

 from 1859 to 1863 Professor of Botany and 

 Horticulture in the Agricultural College of 

 Michigan. As editor of the American Agri- 

 culturist, from 1863 till 1885, he made it the 

 ablest and most influential journal of its 

 class. He published, in 1859, American 

 Weeds and Useful Plants — an enlargement 

 of Darlington's Agricultural Botany; con- 

 tributed on botanical subjects to Appletons' 

 Cyclopaedia ; and made a thorough, systematic 

 study of grasses. 



