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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



cient examples, but bear a proportion to the 

 size of the body. At the head and feet are 

 small upright slabs about- two feet broad ; 

 long slabs are placed upright at the sides, 

 and another of sufficient length and breadth 

 to cover these four upright stones is laid on 

 the top. In some instances a separate stone 

 is placed upright at the head of the grave." 



Mr. J. R. Werner has, in his account of 

 his visit to Stanley's rear guard, some 

 pointed remarks on the healthfulness of Na- 

 ture as compared with the unsanitary condi- 

 tions induced by civilization. He says : " Na- 

 ture, when left alone, does her own scavenger- 

 ing ; but as civilization advances, the works 

 of man often interfere with the natural drain- 

 age, without providing any substitute; and 

 it is only when the population has been deci- 

 mated by disease that men's eyes are opened. 

 . . . The primitive savage living in his hut 

 has no need of dust-bin or dust-cart. The 

 ants from the large hill close by will soon 

 make short work of any meat he may have 

 left on the bones ; the sexton-beetle will 

 soon bury what remains out of sight; and 

 the wind and rain sweep all feathers and dirt 

 into the river. ... As civilization advances, 

 roads are made, the ant-hills get destroyed, 

 and hawks and carrion birds disappear be- 

 fore the death-dealing shotgun. The natives 

 congregate together in large towns, without 

 any improvement in their sanitary arrange- 

 ments, where the salutary effects of wind 

 and rain are probably neutralized by the way 

 in which the streets are built ; and so things 

 go on till disease is generated and men fall 

 by hundreds." 



A reward was offered by the French 

 Government in 1882 for killing wolves. In 

 the next year 1,316 wolves were destroyed; 

 but the number has since decreased almost 

 yearly as follows : 1,035 in 1884, 900 in 1885, 

 760 in 1886, 701 in 1887, 505 in 1888, and 

 515 in 1889. It is believed that very soon 

 no specimens of the animal will be left in 

 France except those which occasionally reach 

 it from neighboring countries. 



OBITUARY NOTES. 



Prof. Julius E. Hilgard, late Superin- 

 tendent of the United States Coast Survey, 

 died at his home in Washington, May 8th, in 

 his sixty-seventh year. He was born in Ba- 

 varia, the son of a jurist of much literary 

 cultivation, and when nine years old came 

 with his father to St. Clair County, Illinois. 

 Here the father settled on a farm and in- 

 troduced the cultivation of the vine, in con- 

 nection with which he discovered and made 

 known the merits of the native Catawba 

 grape. Young Hilgard began the study of 

 engineering in Philadelphia in 1S43, and 

 two years later entered the service of the 

 United States Coast Survey, in connection 

 with which most of the work of his life was 



done, and of which he was one of the most 

 valuable and efficient members. In 1881 

 he became Superintendent of the Coast Sur- 

 vey and so remained till 1885, when he fell 

 a victim to political operations. He was ill 

 at the time, with disorders from which he 

 never recovered. A brief sketch of his life, 

 and a portrait, were published in The Popular 

 Science Monthly for September, 1875. 



Colonel Emile Gautier, who, besides his 

 military career, was distinguished in as- 

 tronomy, died in Geneva, February 25th, of 

 heart disease. He was born in 1822; was 

 directed to astronomical study by his uncle, 

 Alfred Gautier, of the observatory ; was a 

 pupil of Leverrier's, and assisted him in his 

 calculations of the perturbations of Uranus ; 

 published an essay on the theory of the per- 

 turbations of the comets ; determined the 

 elements of the planet Metis ; observed the 

 solar eclipse of 1860 at Tarragona, Spain, 

 and published his observations ; recognized 

 the true nature of the solar prominences, 

 and defended his opinions ; became director 

 of the observatory at Geneva on the death 

 of Plantamour, and added many new in- 

 struments to the apparatus of the establish- 

 ment. 



Prof. Joseph Leidt, of the University 

 of Pennsylvania, and President of the Phila- 

 delphia Academy of Natural Sciences, died 

 April 30th, in the sixty-eighth year of his age. 

 He was distinguished in different fields 

 of science, but most eminently in biology, in 

 which he published more than eight hundred 

 papers. He was a member of the principal 

 American and numerous foreign scientific 

 societies. A sketch of his life and work, 

 by Edward J. Nolan, was published in The 

 Popular Science Monthly for September, 

 1880. 



John Le Conte, Professor of Physics in 

 the University of California, died in Berke- 

 ly, Cal., April 29th, aged seventy-two years. 

 We have recently given, in The Popular Sci- 

 ence Monthly for November, 1889, a full 

 sketch of his life and labors, by his relative 

 and co-worker in physical investigations, 

 Prof. W. Le Conte Stevens, with a full list 

 of his publications. 



The death has been announced, in the 

 latter part of March, of M. Auguste Thomas 

 Cahours, a distinguished French chemist, 

 in the seventy-eighth year of his age. He 

 was successively connected with the chemi- 

 cal departments of the Central and Poly- 

 technic Schools in Paris, and was afterward 

 assayer at the Mint. He was one of the 

 earliest to promulgate the later chemical 

 theories. He was the author of works on 

 the density of vapors, the determination of 

 the indexes of refraction of liquids, metallic 

 radicles, sulphurets, etc., and of Elementary 

 Lessons in Chemistry, a text-book highly 

 esteemed in France. 



