288 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



protection from the fierce gales that 

 sweep across the bay in the typhoon 

 season, and it is now being developed 

 as a park. It is to be hoped, however, 

 that a botanical garden and experiment 

 station will be established at a higher 

 elevation. Since the organization of the 

 Bureaus of Agriculture and Forestry 

 last year, considerable progress has 

 been made in the study of the botany 

 of the islands, herbaria containing 

 about 5,000 specimens having been 

 made. The New York Botanical Gar- 

 den has sent a special agent to the 

 islands, and it is probable that more 

 knowledge will be secured of the botany 

 of the Philippines during the next ten 

 years than during the preceding four 

 hundred years of Spanish rule. 



HENRY BARKER HILL. 



We reproduce above a portrait of 

 Henry Baker Hill, whose death was 

 a serious loss to Harvard University 

 and the science of chemistry and who 

 died at the comparatively early age 

 of fifty-four years. Hill inherited his 

 intellectual and academic interests, his 

 father being president of Harvard Uni- 

 versity, and he early selected chem- 

 istry as his special field, his com- 

 mencement oration being entitled ' The 

 New Philosophy of Chemistry.' He 

 was a student under and assistant to 

 Professor Josiah P. Cooke, who first 

 introduced laboratory methods of in- 

 struction, and when he himself be- 

 came professor and director of the 

 laboratory, he maintained its high tra- 

 ditions. Hill's research work was 

 very special in character, being al- 

 most exclusively confined to the group 

 of substances derived, from furfurol; 

 but the thoroughness and exactness of 

 these investigations take high place as 



contributions to the development of 

 organic chemistry. 



SCIENTIFIC ITEMS. 



We regret to record the deaths, dur- 

 ing the past month of Dr. H. Carring- 

 ton Bolton, of Washington, well-known 

 as a chemist and bibliographer ; of Dr. 

 Frank Russell, of Harvard University, 

 a student of anthropology; of Dr. 

 Cloudsley Rutter, of the Bureau of 

 Fisheries; of Mr. Marcus Baker, of the 

 U. S. Geological Survey and assistant 

 secretary of the Carnegie Institution; 

 of Professor Arthur Allin, head of the 

 Department of Psychology and Educa- 

 tion at the University of Colorado, and 

 of Dr. George J. Engelmann, the 

 eminent physician and gynecologist. 

 The Popular Science Monthly has 

 very recently published contributions 

 from Dr. Bolton, Dr. Engelmann and 

 Dr. Rutter. 



The following is a list of those to 

 whom the Royal Society has this year 

 awarded medals- The Copley medal to 

 Professor Eduard Suess for his emi- 

 nent geological services, and especially 

 for the original researches and con- 

 clusions published in his great work 

 ' Das Antlitz der Erde.' A royal medal 

 to Sir David Gill for his researches in 

 solar and stellar parallax, and his 

 energetic direction of the Royal Ob- 

 servatory at the Cape of Good Hope. 

 A royal medal to Mr. Horace T. Brown 

 for his work on the chemistry of the 

 carbohydrates and on the assimilation 

 of carbonic acid by green plants. The 

 Davy medal to M. Pierre and Madame 

 Curie for their researches on radium. 

 The Hughes medal to Professor Wil- 

 helm Hittorf for his long continued ex- 

 perimental researches on the electric 

 discharge in liquids and gases. 



