432 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



in English cryodace. This is the first sub- 

 stance known having the properties de- 

 scribed ; for, although albumen solidifies at 

 a high temperature, it can never again be re- 

 stored to the liquid condition. 



The Board of Regents of the University 

 of California have decided to establish a 

 course of anthropology at that institution. 



Extracts from various authorities are 

 quoted in a paper by H. H. Clayton to show 

 that there has been a gradual evolution in 

 the definitions of clouds since Howard. Thus 

 a distinction has been established between 

 high and low cirro-stratus and high and low 

 cirro-cumulus. The stratus has been sepa- 

 rated into fog and low sheet clouds, and two 

 distinct forms of rain cloud have been rec- 

 ognized. The author agrees that ten terms, 

 all compounded of Howard's four funda- 

 mental types, would fully meet the require- 

 ments of practical meteorology. 



Dr. Karl Grossman and Dr. Cahnheim in 

 their journey across Iceland (1893), visited 

 the lava cavern Surtshellir. They explored 

 this cavern and photographed by means of 

 magnesium light the wonderful ice cave 

 which exists in its farthest recess. On their 

 return journey they made a second descent, 

 with a view of searching for the coins de- 

 posited there by previous travelers. Suc- 

 cessful in their efforts, they took two of the 

 oldest coins, after leaving new ones in their 

 places. It was their intention to restore the 

 old coins to their former resting place on the 

 occasion of their next visit. 



An important work now in hand, under 

 the auspices of the Anthropological Section 

 of the British Association, is the organiza- 

 tion of an ethnogi-aphical survey of the 

 United Kingdom, based upon scientific prin- 

 ciples. It is proposed to record in a sys- 

 tematic and uniform character for certain 

 typical villages and the neighboring districts : 

 1, Tlie physical types of the inhabitants ; 2, 

 their ciu'rent traditions and beliefs ; 3, pe- 

 culiarities of dialect; 4, monumental and 

 other remains of ancient culture ; and, 5, 

 historical evidence as to continuity of race. 



OBITUARY NOTES. 



Colonel Gaerick Mallery, of the United 

 States Army, retired, an esteemed contribu- 

 tor to The Popular Science Monthly, died in 

 Washington, October 24th, aged sixty-three 

 years. He was born at Wilkesbarre, Pa., 

 and was educated at Yale. In 1861 he en- 

 tered the volunteer service, and for gallant- 

 ry in action was promoted four times, final- 

 ly rising to the rank of lieutenant-colonel. 

 He was one of the Libby prisoners. He was 

 in charge of the Signal-Service Bureau from 

 1870 to 1876, and then was ordered to Da- 

 kota. His investigations into Indian sign 



and gesture language, concerning which he 

 published valuable papers in the Smithsonian 

 series and in scientific journals, gave him a 

 high scientific reputation. He was President 

 of the Cosmos Club of Washington. 



Dr. Terrien de Lacouperie, at one time 

 Professor of the Comparative Philology of 

 Southeastern Asia at University College, died 

 in Fulham, England, October 11th. To him 

 belongs the credit of having determined the 

 origin of the Chinese writing and early civili- 

 zation. He was of Norman descent and be- 

 gan life as a merchant, but was drawn away 

 to science and particularly to comparative 

 philology. Having studied the early writ- 

 ing of China, he compared it with the cunei- 

 form characters of Babylonia, and found 

 evidence that some of the charactei-s had 

 been borrowed from the ancient Akkadian. 

 Tracing out other affinities, he found a like 

 correspondence between the civilization of 

 the Chinese and those of Elam and Chaldea. 

 He discovered the key to the puzzling Yih- 

 king, or Book of Changes, of the Chinese, 

 determining that it consists of old fragments 

 of early times in China, mostly of a lexical 

 character. He was author of the books : The 

 Early History of Chinese Civilization, The 

 Languages of China before the Chinese, A 

 Catalogue of Chinese Coins from the Seventh 

 Century b. c. to a. d. 621, and The Western 

 Origin of the Early Chinese Civilization, from 

 2300 B. c. to 200 a. d. 



William Topley, F. R. S., an industrious 

 English working geologist, died in Croydon, 

 September 30th, of gastritis contracted dur- 

 ing a geological visit to Algeria. He was a 

 special student of the geology of the Weald, 

 on various aspects of which he contributed 

 several papers, and of the bearings of geology 

 on other branches of knowledge. One of his 

 papers treated of the relation of parish bound- 

 aries to great physical features. His most 

 important work was The Geological Survey 

 Memoir of the Weald. He was Secretary of 

 the Geological Section of the British Asso- 

 ciation for fifteen years, was Secretary of tfce 

 Committee on Coast Erosion, and was Pres- 

 ident of the Geologists' Association from 

 1885 to 1887. He took part in most of the 

 international geological congresses, and was 

 for a time a sub-editor, and afterward editor, 

 on the Geological Record. 



Prof. N. Pringsheim, an eminent German 

 botanist, died October 6th, in the seventy- 

 second year of his age. He wrote especially 

 on the processes of fructification and germi- 

 nation in the Algte. He was Professor of 

 Botany at Jena from 1864 to 1868, and 

 founded there the first Institute for Vege- 

 table Physiology. He returned to Berlin in 

 the latter year, and established a private 

 laboratory, in which he carried out valuable 

 investigations on the sexual life of the low- 

 est vegetable organisms. 



