720 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



that vain boastings against the white men 

 should stop. Other enactments relate to the 

 prohibition of the slave trade and of seizure 

 of strangers for debt. 



A PICTURE reproducing two photographs 

 of the little bittern, in the attitudes it as- 

 sumes to favor concealment, shows, in one of 

 the figures, the bird standing in a reed bed 

 erect, with neck stretched out and beak 

 pointed upward, and looking very much like 

 one of the reeds; the other picture repre- 

 senting the bird crouching against a tree 

 stump at the riverside, in an attitude equally 

 deceptive. W. H. Hudson remarks that the 

 South American little heron, in the reed 

 beds of the pampas, can not, when lost sight 

 of, be found without the aid of dogs, even 

 when the spot where it had lighted is marked. 



OBITUARY NOTES. 



The science of astronomy lost three of 

 its most devoted servants during December, 

 1894. The first was Dr. Carl Friedrich Wil- 

 helm Peters, Director of the Konigsberg Ob- 

 servatory, who died December 2d. He was 

 a son of Prof. C. A. Peters, and was born in 

 1844 at the Pulkowa Observatory. Having 

 studied at Berlin, Kiel, Munich, and Gottin- 

 gen, he was made a member of the staff 

 of the Hamburg, then of the Altona, and 

 then of the Kiel Observatories, and finally, 

 in 1883, Director of the Konigsberg Observ- 

 atory and Professor of Astronomy in the 

 university. His name is associated with 

 valuable work in pendulum observations ; 

 chronometer tests for the determination of 

 the influence of magnetism and atmospheric 

 moisture on the daily rate ; and calculations 

 of the orbits of the planet Sylvia, of several 

 comets, and of the double star 61 Cygni. 

 His labors in astronomical literature were 

 considerable, and included the publication 

 of numerous popular papers and the editing 

 of important books. 



Father Francesco Denza, who died in 

 Rome, December 14th, was Director of the 

 Vatican Observatory: He was bom in 1834, 

 entered the order of Reformed Franciscans 

 and afterward of Barnabites ; showed him- 

 self very proficient in mathematics at col- 

 lege ; and, combining his favorite studies 

 with his theological course at Rome, became 

 a i)u[)il of Father Secchi in astronomy and 

 meteorology. He was active in promoting 

 the study of meteorology in Italy ; invented 

 several meteorological instruments ; deter- 

 mined the magnetic elements at various 

 places in Italy, Dalmatia, and Africa ; ob- 

 serving meteors, he furnislied the materials 

 from which Prof. Schiaparelli deduced his 

 theory of those bodies ; adapted the Vati- 

 can Observatory to the requirements of mod- 

 ern astionomy, and took part there in the 

 international work of charting the heavens ; 

 and wrote a volume entitled The Harmony 



of the Heavens, besides many papers on 

 meteorology and physics. 



Arthur Cowper Ranyard, editor of Knowl- 

 edge, died at his home in Bloomsbury, Lon- 

 don, on the same day with Father Denza, De- 

 cember 14th. He was born in 1845, and 

 was a pupil of Prof. De Morgan. He was 

 trained to the law, but his strong attach- 

 ment to mathematics and astronomy pre- 

 vailed. He was elected a Fellow of the 

 Royal Astronomical Society when only eight- 

 een years old. He co-operated with George 

 De Morgan in founding the London Mathe- 

 matical Society, and became one of the 

 honorary secretaries of it. He was a mem- 

 ber of the Council of the Royal Astronom- 

 ical Society and honorary secretary for six 

 years. He was predominantly interested in 

 solar physics and astronomical photography ; 

 undertook three different expeditions at his 

 own expense to observe the solar corona 

 during eclipses ; was also diligent in the 

 study of the structure of the stellar uni- 

 verse. Results of his devotion to these fields 

 of research are seen in the Old and New As- 

 tronomy, which he completed after Mr. Proc- 

 tor's death, and in the pages of Knowledge, 

 where he struck out a line for himself and 

 which fairly shone with its repi'oductions of 

 solar photographs. 



Dr. F. B. Hawkins, one of the oldest 

 members of the medical profession in Eng- 

 land, and a member of the Royal Society of 

 sixty years' standing, died December 7th, at 

 the age of ninety-eight years. 



Prof. Lewis R. Gibbs, of the College of 

 Charleston, S. C, died November 21, 1894, 

 aged eighty-four years, he having been born 

 in August, 1810. He had been a professor 

 in the College of Charleston from 1838 to 

 1892, or about fifty-four years first, of 

 mathematics, afterward of astronomy, chem- 

 istry, and physios. Previous to 1838 he had 

 been tutor in mathematics in South Carolina 

 College, and had afterward studied in Europe. 

 From 1848 to 1853 he was engaged by the 

 United States Coast Survey to make obser- 

 vations for determining the difference of lon- 

 gitude between Charleston and Washington, 

 D. C, Charleston and Savannah, Ga., and 

 Charleston and Raleigh, N. C. Beginning 

 with 1858, he wrote articles en subjects con- 

 nected with astronomy, natural history, etc., 

 for various pubHcations, among which were 

 the Charleston Mercury, the Boston Journal 

 of Natural History, the Proceedings of the 

 American Association, the Charleston Cou 

 rier, the Proceedings of the Elliott Society 

 of Natural History of Charleston, and the 

 Canadian Entomologist. An article on the 

 Occultator, published in the American Jour- 

 nal of Science, March, 1869, was reprinted 

 in journals in England and France. While 

 his favorite study was astronomy, he was at 

 home in almost every branch of modern 

 science. 



