P OP ULAR MIS CELL ANY. 



117 



Obituary. We have to record the death 

 of the astronomer Leverrier, which took 

 place at Paris on September 23d. Leverrier 

 was born in 1811. Early in life he evinced 

 great aptitude for chemical research, but 

 his natural bent lay rather in the direction 

 of the mathematical sciences. On being 

 appointed to a position in the Polytechnic 

 School, he devoted himself with great ardor 

 to the study of the great problems of specu- 

 lative astronomy, and soon earned high dis- 

 tinction by sundry memoirs. He was elected 

 member of the Paris Academy of Sciences 

 in 1846, and during the same year he made 

 the great astronomical discovery of his life 

 that of the planet Neptune. In 1849 he 

 entered political life as a deputy in the 

 Legislative Assembly ; under the Empire he 

 was a senator, and for some time Inspector- 

 General of Public Instruction. In 1853 he 

 was appointed Director of the Paris Obser- 

 vatory, and so continued till 1870, when he 

 resigned. He was reappointed in 1872, and 

 held the position till his death. That sad 

 event was no doubt hastened by the effects 

 of mental overwork in his search for an 

 intra-Mercurial planet. 



TriE death is announced of J. P. Gassiot, 

 F. R. S., in the eightieth year of his age. 

 Mr. Gassiot was a merchant of London, but 

 devoted his leisure to scientific research. 

 In 1838 he was an active member of an 

 electrical society, and for the remainder of 

 his life devoted himself specially to the 

 study of electrical phenomena. He was the 

 author of several papers contributed to the 

 "Philosophical Transactions " of the Royal 

 Society of London. He was a munificent 

 patron of science, and a helper of scientific 

 men. 



British Association Papers. In his pres- 

 idential address in Section D of the British 

 Association, Dr. J. Gwyn Jeffreys vehe- 

 mently attacked the doctrine of evolution, 

 which he declared to be simply a " product 

 of imagination. ... I cannot," he said, 

 "identify a single species of the Cretaceous 

 Mollusca as now living or recent. All of 

 them are evidently tropical forms. This 

 question of identity depends, however, on 

 the capability of hereditary persistence 

 which some species possess ; and although 



a certain degree of modification may be 

 caused by an alteration of conditions in the 

 course of incalculable ages, our knowledge 

 is not sufficient to enable us to do more 

 than vaguely speculate, and surely not to 

 take for granted the transmutation of species. 

 We have no proof of anything of the kind. 

 Devolution or succession appears to be the 

 law of Nature ; evolution (in its modern in- 

 terpretation) may be regarded as the prod- 

 uct of human imagination. I am not a be- 

 liever in the fixity of species, nor in their 

 periodical extinction and replacement by 

 other species. The notorious imperfection 

 of the geological record ought to warn us 

 against such hasty theorization. We can- 

 not conceive the extent of this imperfection. 

 Not merely are our means of geological in- 

 formation restricted to those outer layers 

 of the earth which are within our sight, 

 but nearly three-fourths of its surface is in- 

 accessible to us, so long as it is covered by 

 the sea. Were this not the case we might 

 have some chance of discovering a few of 

 the missing links which would connect the 

 former with the existing fauna and flora. 

 It is impossible even to guess what strata 

 underlie the bottom of the ocean, or where 

 the latter attained its present position rela- 

 tively to that of the land. The materials of 

 the sea-bed have been used over and over 

 again in the formation of the earth's crust, 

 and the future history of our globe will to 

 the end of time repeat the past." 



Miss A. W. Buckland, in a paper on 

 "The Stimulants of Ancient and Modern 

 Savages," said that the use of stimulants is 

 almost universal. Among the lowest races 

 the form of stimulant employed is now, 

 as in ages past, some sort of root or leaf 

 chewed for its strengthening and invigorat- 

 ing properties, such as the pitberry, recent- 

 ly discovered in use among nations in Cen- 

 tral Australia, and the coca-leaf among the 

 Indians of South America ; but no sooner 

 did the nations advance to the agricultural 

 stage than they began to make fermented 

 drinks from the roots of grains cultivated 

 for food. Hence the beer of Egypt, which 

 probably found its way with the wheat and 

 barley of that land to the Swiss lake-dwell- 

 ings, and over a great part of Europe, hav- 

 ing been evidently known in Greece and 



