720 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



on the Industrial College farm that yielded 

 over fifteen per cent of sugar, when, in the 

 spring of 18S8, the people around Grand 

 Island undertook to demonstrate that beets 

 could be raised there rich enough in sugar to 

 warrant investment in a sugar plant. The 

 result was satisfactory, and the experiment 

 was extended through the whole State for 

 the season of 1889. The results are de- 

 tailed in the Bulletin. 



The natural result has followed the offer 

 by the Government of India of rewards for 

 the heads of snakes. The Chief Commis- 

 sioner of the Central Provinces reports that 

 the natives there are beginning to breed and 

 raise poisonous snakes for the sake of get- 

 ting the head-money offered. 



A monument to M. J. C. Houzeau was to 

 be unveiled at Mons on the 2d of June. 



OBITUARY NOTES. 



Sir Edwin Chadwick, whom an English 

 paper styles the " father of modern san- 

 itary science," died in London, July 5th, 

 ninety years old. He was born in 1 800, near 

 Rochdale, of an old family, famous for the 

 long lives attained by some of its members, 

 lie was admitted as a barrister in 1830, and 

 also engaged in literary work ; and, from 

 the appearance of an article on Life Assur- 

 ance in the Westminster Review, his life is 

 most largely a record of efforts to improve 

 the conditions of health. Among the direct 

 or indirect fruits of his activity were the 

 establishment of industrial schools for des- 

 titute children; provisions for the care of 

 aged poor and infirm ; reforms in workhouse 

 systems; the ten-hour law; the half-time 

 system for children ; the first sanitary com- 

 mission ; and the establishment of the Regis- 

 trar-General's office. He was a permanent 

 Commissioner on the Local Government 

 Board ; did good service in Crimean and In- 

 dian questions ; and was President at differ- 

 ent times of Sanitary Congresses, of the 

 Society of Sanitary Inspectors, and of the 

 Economical Section at meetings of the Brit- 

 ish Association. On the 2d of March, 1889, 

 his ninetieth birthday, he was given a dinner 

 by the Association of Sanitary Inspectors. 

 A little before this time he was made a 

 Knight of the Bath. 



General John Charles Fremont died in 

 New York, July 13th, in his seventy-eighth 

 year. The political and military incidents 

 of his later life have somewhat obscured the 

 recollection of what he did for the advance- 

 ment of knowledge in the earlier period of 

 his career. The region of the Rocky Mount- 

 ains was then practically unknown. He un- 

 dertook in 1842 to explore it and open an 

 overland route to the Pacific. In 1843 he 

 led an expedition up the vallev of the Platte, 

 explored the Great Salt Lake, etc., to Fort 

 Vancouver, near the mouth of the Columbia 



River. On the return journey he came back 

 through the Great Basin and the South Pass. 

 .In 1845 he conducted an expedition to ex- 

 plore the Sierra Nevada, in California, in 

 connection with which he became engaged 

 in military and political complications. In 

 1853 he led a party at his own expense to 

 the Pacific, by a new route, near latitude 

 38° north. Full accounts of his discoveries 

 were published in his reports to the Gov- 

 ernment and in other books; and though 

 the regions he visited are familiar enough 

 now, the works had then all the freshness of 

 novelty. For his services as an explorer he 

 received gold medals from the King of Prus- 

 sia and the Royal Geographical Society. 



Sir Warington Smyth, Professor of 

 Mining at the Royal School of Mines, Jer- 

 myn Street, London, died June 19th, in the 

 seventy-third year of his age. He was born 

 in Naples ; spent his early boyhood in Italy ; 

 was sent to the English schools and was 

 graduated from Cambridge ; took a prominent 

 position as a scientific authority on mining ; 

 was appointed in 1851, on the nomination 

 of Sir Henry De la Beche, lecturer on min- 

 eralogy and mining ; was made mineral sur- 

 veyor to the Duchy of Cornwall and in- 

 spector of crown mines ; and was invariably 

 consulted by the Government on mining 

 matters. His contributions to geological 

 journals, reports, etc., were numerous, but 

 have not been collected. He was the author 

 of a Rudimentary Treatise on Coal and Coal- 

 Mining, and of a Book of Travels. 



Mr. W. Kitchen, for fifteen years Hun- 

 terian Professor of Comparative Anatomy in 

 the Royal College of Surgeons, and Presi- 

 dent of the Royal Microscopical Society in 

 1871 and 1872, died early in July. He was 

 distinguished by his investigations on the 

 minute foraminifera and the morphology of 

 the vertebrate skull. 



Patrick Barrt, one of the most dis- 

 tinguished American horticulturists, died at 

 his home in Rochester, N. Y., in June. He 

 was born in Belfast, Ireland, in 1816, and 

 came to America when twenty years old. 

 He was especially interested and efficient in 

 pomology, and his Fruit Garden has long 

 been one of the most valuable standard 

 works on that subject. He was for more 

 than thirty years President of the Western 

 New York Horticultural Society, and was a 

 member of the Board of Control of the 

 State Agricultural Experiment Station. He 

 was for several years editor of The Horti- 

 culturist, when it was the leading periodical 

 in that branch, and afterward horticultural 

 editor of the Genesee Farmer. "As an au- 

 thor and editor," says Garden and Forest, 

 " he always had some instructive message, 

 and he always delivered it in a way that com- 

 pelled attention " ; and " it might be said that 

 his influence has reached every orchard and 

 garden of the country." 



