86j. 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



In his vice-presidential address at the 

 American Association on the Evolution of 

 Algebra, Prof. E. W. Hyde, in the Mathe- 

 matical Section, made a concise presentation 

 of the history of algebra from before the 

 Christian era to the present time, and even 

 projected the future of the science. After 

 tracing it through the rhetorical stage of the 

 ancients, in which the reasoning was done 

 with words, and the syncopated stage of the 

 middle ages and the revival of learning, 

 when abbreviations were introduced and used 

 instead of words, the author found it in the 

 symbolical stage of the present, or that of 

 arbitrary signs ; and " finally, in the present 

 century, we have noted the approach of mul- 

 tiple algebra from different and independent 

 sources, whose value is the glorious future." 



In a series of papers on The Unitary Sci- 

 ence, the Science of the Future, Mr. Henry 

 R. Rogers, of Dunkirk, N. Y., elucidates as 

 the basis of the unitary philosophy the four 

 cardinal principles of the unity or identity 

 of all so-called forces ; the conservation of 

 force ; the substantial character of force ; 

 and the identity of constitution of all celes- 

 tial force. 



The remains of about a hundred ele- 

 phants have been found at Mont-Dall, in 

 Brittany, where they arc gathered on a sur- 

 face of about nineteen hundred square me- 

 tres. All the bones are broken, and it is 

 thought that the animals must have been 

 eaten by prehistoric men. 



Two of the papers read at "Washington 

 before the Society for the Promotion of Ag- 

 riculture are suggestive as to the nature of 

 the agricultural character of soils. Prof. 

 E. W. Ililgard held that maps showing sim- 

 ply the chemical constituents are of little 

 value, and that a map truly to represent the 

 agricultural quality of a soil should take 

 into consideration geology, botany, climatic 

 conditions, meteorology, and chemistry. Prof. 

 Whitney, discussing the structure of soils 

 and the circulation of soil moisture, showed 

 that as much or more depends upon the 

 physical condition of the soil as on the chem- 

 ical composition. Where land is worn out, 

 it is because a physical change has taken 

 place, not because of any chemical exhaus- 

 tion, for the chemicals are always there in 

 abundance. 



In the Biological Section of the American 

 Association, Vice-President Coulter spoke 

 of the future of systematic botany. Some 

 one has said that the highest reach of the 

 human mind is a natural system of classifi- 

 cation. This simply means, he raid, that when 

 the results of all departments of botanical 

 work are well in hand, then the systematists 

 will be in a position to put on a sure founda- 

 tion the structure they have always been 

 planning. The real systematic botany, there- 

 fore, is to sum up and utilize the results of 

 all other departments, and its work is well- 



nigh all in the future. It is bound to be the 

 Isst expression of human thought with ref- 

 erence to plant-life, just as it wase the first. 



OBITUARY NOTES. 



Dr. Edpard Schonfeld, Director of the 

 Observatory and Professor of Astronomy at 

 Bonn, died May 1st, in the sixty-third year 

 of his age. His attention was especially di- 

 rected to astronomy while a student in the 

 University of Marburg. In 1852 he became 

 a pupil and assistant of Argelander, who 

 was beginning his Durchmustci'mig, or sur- 

 vey of the stars of the northern hemisphere. 

 In 1859 he was appointed Director of the 

 Observatory at Mannheim, where he pre- 

 pared two catalogues of the variable stars. 

 On Argelander's death, in 1875, he was made 

 his successor at Bonn. He extended the 

 Durcltmuslerung to stars in zones down to 

 23 of southern declination. 



M. Alexandre Edmond Becquerel, an 

 eminent French physicist, died in Paris, May 

 11th, in the seventy second year of his age. 

 He was the son of Antoine Cesar Becquerel, 

 the founder of electro-chemics, and himself 

 led a career hardly less distinguished. The 

 investigations with which his name is con- 

 nected include those on the laws of electro- 

 chemical decomposition, the disengagement 

 of heat by electricity passing in circuits, the 

 disengagement of electricity by mechanical 

 action, the properties of electrified . bodies, 

 the action of magnetism on bodies, the prop- 

 erty of diamagnetism, the magnetic quality 

 of oxygen, the constitution of the solar spec- 

 trum, the chemical action of light, phospho- 

 rescence, etc. ; respecting which he made 

 important discoveries and published valuable 

 papers in the scientific journals. He also 

 published books treatises on Terrestrial 

 Physics and Magnetism (1847) and Elec- 

 tricity and Magnetism (2 vols., 1855), and a 

 Precis d'Histoire of Electricity and Magnet- 

 ism (1858). 



Mr. Norman R. Pogson, for thirty years 

 Director of the Observatory at Madras, In- 

 dia, has recently died there. Till 1851 he 

 was connected with Mr. Bishop's Observa- 

 tory in Regent's Park, where he took part 

 in the observations for forming the ecliptic 

 charts that were published there. He then 

 became an assistant in the Radcliffe Observ- 

 atory at Oxford, and there discovered several 

 minor planets, and in his investigations of 

 variable stars fixed upon the number whose 

 logarithm is 0"4, which has been adopted to 

 express the ratio of the amount of light that 

 separates two consecutive magnitudes. He 

 left England in 1861 to take charge of the 

 Madras Observatory, from which several vol- 

 umes of observations were published under 

 his direction. 



Captain Cecilio Pujazon, Director of 

 the Marine Observatory at San Fernando, 

 near Cadiz, Spain, died April 15th, in his 

 fifty-seventh year. 



