3 5 o NATURAL SCIENCE. May, 



an ordinary school education ; but his progress was interrupted by 

 financial trouble in the family. He became a student at the Academy 

 of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia under the Jessup Fund endow- 

 ment in 1874, an d the fund was renewed to him from time to time in 

 recognition of his " extraordinary singleness of purpose, and his 

 ability as an investigator." Indeed, he held the fund until March, 

 1880, when he entered the service of the United States Fish Com- 

 mission at the instance of Professor Spencer Baird. From 1880 to 

 1883 he investigated the development, habits, and breeding-grounds 

 of the mollusca and fishes, and his results have been published in a 

 long series of papers in the Bulletins of the Commission. He was a 

 particular authority on oyster culture, and the artificial propagation 

 of the salmon and the sturgeon. In 1886 he became Professor of 

 Comparative Embryology at the University of Pennsylvania, and, 

 though actively engaged in teaching, was never idle with his pen. 

 The great majority of his writings, outside the work done for the 

 Fishery Board, were published in the Proceedings of the Academy of 

 Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, of which he became a member in 

 1878; but the American Philosophical Society, the American Naturalist, 

 and numerous European journals were enriched by his communica- 

 tions. Ryder was a great opponent of Weismannism, believing that 

 all phenomena of living organisms could be explained by mechanical 

 laws. He possessed a wonderful memory, and had a strong inventive 

 genius, as witness his microtome, now so extensively used. His last 

 two papers on " An arrangement of the retinal cells in the eyes of 

 fishes, partially simulating compound eyes," and on " The true nature 

 of the so-called ' nettle-threads ' " are in the hands of the Philadelphia 

 Academy. 



TOYOKITSI HARADA. 



WE regret to learn of the death of the eminent Vice-Director of the 

 Geological Survey of Japan. Dr. Harada was well-known in 

 Germany, where he spent a great part of his youth, studying at 

 Harburg, Freiburg i/S., Heidelberg, Munich, and Vienna. In the 

 summer of 1880 he joined the Austrian Geological Survey as a 

 volunteer, and in 1881 began his independent researches with a 

 study of the eruptive rocks near Lake Lugano, which formed his 

 doctoral thesis at the University of Munich. During the summer of 

 .1882 he mapped a part of Comelico and Western Carnia, in the 

 Venetian Alps, and published an account of the geology (Verh. and 

 Jahrb. k. k. Geol. Reichs.). In 1883, after an extended journey through 

 middle and south Europe, he returned to his native land, where he 

 soon succeeded Dr. E. Naumann as inspector of the geological and 

 topographical surveys. His more important works in Japanese 

 geology are " Versuch einer tektonischen Gliederung der Japanischen 

 Inseln" (Tohio, 1888), and " Die Japanischen Inseln " {Berlin, 1890), 

 a work which is still unfinished. Of the official work which he so 



