432 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The sum required to secure the erection 

 of the monument to the chemist Scheele at 

 Koping, Sweden, has been collected. 



OBITUARY NOTES. 



Ephraim George Squier, a distinguished 

 American archaeologist and author, died in 

 Brooklyn, N. Y., April 17th. He was one 

 of the first persons, in conjunction with Dr. 

 Edward H. Davis, of Ohio, to undertake a 

 systematic exploration of the ancient mounds 

 and earthworks of the Mississippi Valley, 

 and their joint account of their explorations, 

 published by the Smithsonian Institution, is 

 still the fullest work, and a standard for 

 reference on the subject. He also published 

 a memoir on the Aboriginal Monuments of 

 the State of New York " ; accounts of re- 

 searches among the ruins of Central America 

 and Peru ; a " Monograph of Aboriginal 

 authors who have written on the Aboriginal 

 Languages of Central America " ; and " Trop- 

 ical Fibers and their Economic Extraction." 

 He was in his sixty-seventh year. The death 

 of Mr. Squier was followed, on the 15th of 

 May, by that of Dr. Davis, his coadjutor in 

 the preparation of the "Ancient Monuments 

 of the Mississippi Valley," in the seventy- 

 eighth year of his age. Dr. Davis began to 

 explore mounds while a student in Kenyon 

 College, Ohio, and presented papers on the 

 results of his work as society and college 

 exercises. He was encouraged to continue 

 his explorations by Daniel Webster. He 

 opened nearly two hundred mounds in the 

 Mississippi Valley at his own expense, and 

 gathered a large collection of relics, which 

 are now in Blackmore's Museum, at Salis- 

 bury, England. He became, in 1850, Pro- 

 fessor of Materia Medica and Therapeutics 

 in the New York Medical College. 



Dr. Emil Bessels, the physician and sci- 

 entific leader of the Polaris Expedition, died 

 in Stuttgart, Germany, March 30th, aged 

 forty years. He was a native of Heidelberg, 

 and first became known through an expedi- 

 tion into the Spitzbergen Sea. In 1871 he 

 took the scientific direction of the Polaris 

 expedition. He was afterward appointed a 

 secretary to the Smithsonian Institution. He 

 was the author of " Scientific Results of the 

 United States Arctic Expedition," " Physical 

 Observations " of the same, a German ac- 

 count of the expedition, and of contributions 

 in American and German scientific journals. 



Prof. Leone Levi, an eminent English 

 statistician, has recently died at his home in 

 London. He was born in Ancona, Italy, of 

 Hebrew parents, in 1821, and came to Eng- 

 land when twenty years old. He originated 

 the movement for the establishment of the 

 Chamber of Commerce in Liverpool, the old- 

 est of institutions of that class. Having 

 lectured for some time in King's College on 

 commerce, he was made professor of that 



branch. The London " Daily News " charac- 

 terizes as the three directions in which his 

 work has perhaps been of most public value 

 as being in his exposure of the evils of war, 

 his minute and careful investigation of ques- 

 tions bearing on the wages of the working- 

 classes, and his conclusive dealing with the 

 fair-trade folly in connection with the depres- 

 sion of trade. 



Prof. Alexander Dickson, of the Uni- 

 versity of Edinburgh, who died at the close 

 of 1887, was a botanist most distinguished 

 for his investigations of the morphology of 

 several of the conifers, and on the diplos- 

 temony of the flowers of the angiosperms ; 

 for various contributions to the study of 

 the embryology of flowering plants ; for re- 

 searches on the development of the pitcher- 

 plants ; and for various special studies. 



Dr. Gerhard von Rath, the eminent 

 German mineralogist, died in Coblentz, April 

 28d, while on his way to the East on a sci- 

 entific expedition. He was born in 1830, 

 was appointed a professor at Bonn in 1863, 

 and became recognized as the most distin- 

 guished representative of mineralogical sci- 

 ence in Germany. 



The death is reported of Surgeon-Major 

 F. S. B. FraD9ois de Chaumont, F. R. S., 

 Professor of Military Hygiene at the Army 

 Medical School, Netley, England. He was 

 fifty-five years of age. 



Vice-Admiral Thomas A. B. Spratt, of 

 the British Navy, who has recently died, 

 made many most valuable contributions to 

 geography during his thirty-six years of con- 

 tinuous service in Mediterranean stations, in 

 connection with which he made many sur- 

 veys and explorations. His chief publica- 

 tions concern these surveys ; and his deep 

 soundings and dredgings have been com- 

 mended as having been essential to the elab- 

 oration of Edward Forbes's views on the sub- 

 marine zones inhabited by different classes 

 of animals. 



Nicholas von Miklucho-Maclat, one of 

 the earliest and most industrious of the ex- 

 plorers of New Guinea, has recently died, at 

 the age of forty-two years. He was the son 

 of a Russian nobleman, and, having studied 

 medicine and natural science at St. Peters- 

 burg and the Dutch universities, visited Ma- 

 deira with Prof. Haeckel, in 1866, and after- 

 ward the Canary Islands and Morocco. He 

 spent a year in 1871-'72 in exploring the 

 northwest and southwest coasts of New 

 Guinea ; then visited Farther India, Malacca, 

 and various island groups ; and, in 1876-'78, 

 explored the northern coast of New Guinea. 

 He visited this island again in 1879, and re- 

 turned to Russia in 1882 with rich collec- 

 tions. He resided for some time in Sydney, 

 and founded a biological station there. 



