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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



The Desert Botanical Laboratory. 



SIR EGBERT STRACHEY 



Sir Richard Strachey, who died on 

 February 12 at the age of ninety-one 

 years, represented the best British 

 traditions. It will be well for us if 

 in the twentieth century we can pro- 

 duce in a democracy men of the type 

 who came from the dominant families 

 of England in the nineteenth century, 

 men having the instinct to rule, ade- 

 quate to each event as it occurred, 

 uniting scientific research with admin- 

 istrative duties. Sir Richard's brother 

 is also an eminent Anglo-Indian'. 

 Lady Strachey, with five sons and five 

 daughters, is an authoress of distinc- 

 tion. 



While the scientific work of Sir 

 Richard Strachey does not give him 

 place among the great leaders, it is 

 of wide range and of real importance. 

 His contributions are summarized in 

 the award to him of a Royal medal 

 by the Royal Society in 1897 as fol- 

 lows : " Two of the most recent of 

 these, are recorded in his report, pub- 

 lished in 1888, on the barometrical dis- 

 turbances and sounds produced by the 

 eruption of Krakatoa and in his paper 

 in the Philosophical Transactions of 

 1893, entitled ' Harmonic Analysis of 

 Hourly Observations of the Tempera- 

 ture and Pressure at British Observ- 



atories.' These, while important in 

 themselves, are but the last of a long 

 series of valuable memoirs. He was the 

 first to treat scientifically of the physi- 

 cal and botanical geography, geology, 

 and meteorology of the western Hima- 

 laya and Tibet. He also first observed 

 the occurrence of a regular series of 

 fossiliferous rocks, from the Silurian 

 upwards to the north of the great 

 snowy axis of the Himalaya. His 

 numerous papers on these subjects, 

 dating from the year 1847, are pub- 

 lished in the journals of the Royal 

 Asiatic, Geological, and Royal Geo- 

 graphical Societies' Proceedings, and in 

 the reports of the British Association." 



THE POPULARIZATION OF 

 SCIENCE 



Discovery, a monthly magazine de- 

 voted to the popularization of science, 

 initiated a year ago by Mr. John W. 

 Harding, has been merged with The 

 Popular Science Monthly. It is to 

 be regretted that the financial condi- 

 tions last year proved to be unfavor- 

 able to the support of a new journal 

 of this character, planned to be both 

 accurate and interesting. Xo one 

 would suppose it possible to maintain 

 a museum by the admission fees, but 

 it is regarded as a matter of course 



