864 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The Linnaean Society celebrated its hun- 

 dredth anniversary May 24th. A eulogy of 

 Linnajus by Prof. Fries, of Upsala, was read 

 by the president, William Carruthers. Sir 

 Joseph Hooker spoke of the merits of Robert 

 Brown, " the greatest botanist of the present 

 century," and said that where others have 

 advanced beyond the goal he reached, it has 

 been by working on the foundations he laid, 

 aided by modern appliances of optics and 

 physics. Prof. Flower delivered an address 

 on Charles Darwin ; Prof. W. Thiselton Dyer 

 spoke on George Bentham, " who had stood 

 in the footsteps of Linnjeus, and, though the 

 descent was oblique, inherited the mantle of 

 the master." A Linnajan gold medal was 

 instituted, to be presented to a botanist and 

 a zoologist in alternate years, but on this 

 occasion awarded in duplicate to Sir Rich- 

 ard Owen and Sir Joseph Hooker. 



Experiments by Dr. Russell, of London, 

 show that city rain contains twice as much 

 impurity as that collected in the suburbs ; 

 that is, if the city rain were diluted with a 

 nearly equal bulk of water, we should have 

 the rain of the suburbs. On the basis of 

 Prof. Lodge's experiments in clearing a bell- 

 jar full of smoke by a discharge of elec- 

 tricity, whereby the carbon is deposited. Sir 

 Douglas Galton argues that rain may be in- 

 duced by disturbing the electrical condition 

 of the air with kites or balloons. If this 

 fails, no remedy for London smoke is left 

 except that of using gas instead of open 

 stoves, 



A NATURAL history of panaceas has been 

 suggested, the outline of which might show 

 " how they originate — generally abroad ; how 

 some one writes an account of them in Eng- 

 lish ; how every one rushes into print to 

 show that that author is not the only man 

 to go to for treatment ; how they are all 

 described as ' the greatest triumph of the 

 century,' and this the more certainly the 

 smaller they are ; how they are universally 

 adopted " ; and then, after many years, 

 " how they arc finally investigated, and are 

 often found to contain nothing." 



A DEFORMITY of the hand peculiar to 

 glass-blowers is described by M. Poncet as 

 " glass-blowers' cramp." It consists in a per- 

 manent and pronounced flexion of the fingers, 

 particularly of the third and fourth fingers 

 of the hand, which comes on after a short 

 practice in glass-Vdowing, and increases pro- 

 gressively. The glass-blowers call it mmn en 

 crochet^ or ma'ui fermee (hand in hook, or 

 shuthand). It is supposed to be induced by 

 the close and continuous application of the 

 hand to the tube with which the workman 

 manipulates his " metal." 



OBITUARY NOTES. 



M. J. C. IIouzEAU, an eminent Belgian 

 astronomer, formerly director of the obser- 

 vatory at Brussels, died early in July. He 



was one of the editors of " Ciel et Terre," of 

 Brussels, one of the most valued of our for- 

 eign scientific exchanges. As a writer, while 

 exact and thoroughly versed — and a leader, 

 too — in science, he employed a popular style, 

 which laymen could read with pleasure, and 

 students with the feeling that they were 

 learning. 



M. Henri Debrat, an eminent French 

 chemist, died, July 19th, after a short ill- 

 ness. He was born at Amiens, in 1827, 

 and became the assistant to Sainte- Claire 

 Deville, and eventually the successor to his 

 chair. 



Philip Henry Gosse, F. R. S., an eminent 

 English naturalist, died August 2'7th, in the 

 seventy-ninth year of his age. He was born 

 in England, but spent much of his youth in 

 Newfoundland and Canada, traveled in the 

 United States, studying our zoology and en- 

 tomology, and sojourned for a considerable 

 time in Alabama. He was author of the 

 "Canadian Naturahst," "The Birds of Ja- 

 maica," an " Introduction to Zoology," " The 

 Aquarium," " A Manual of Slarine Zoology," 

 " Life in the Lower, Intermediate, and Higher 

 Forms," a " History of British Sea-Anemones 

 and Corals," "Letters from Alabama on 

 Natural History," "The Romance of Natu- 

 ral History," and several other volumes, with 

 numerous memoirs. 



Prof. Rudolph J. E. Clausids, the emi- 

 nent German physicist, died August 25th, in 

 the sixty-eighth year of his age. He was 

 Professor of Physics in succession at Zurich, 

 Wurzburg, and Bonn, but was most distin- 

 guished for his share in the development of 

 the mechanical theory of heat. 



Prof. L. J. Budge, an eminent German 

 physiologist, for more than thirty years di- 

 rector of the Anatomical Institute at Greifs- 

 wald, has recently died. He was author of a 

 "Hand-Book of Physiology " and of a " Com- 

 pendium of Physiology," which is the favor- 

 ite "cram -book" of the German medical 

 students. 



The death is announced of Dr. Johann 

 Odstreil, an ■ eminent mathematician and 

 physicist of Vienna. 



Dr. Sigismund Wroblewski, Professor 

 of Experimental Physics at the University of 

 Cracow, died in May, from the results of a 

 lamp-explosion in his laboratory. He was 

 born in 1838, studied at St. Petersburg and 

 Strasburg, and was appointed to his profess- 

 orship in Cracow in 1S82. He acquired 

 great fame through his experiments and 

 those which he performed in connection with 

 Prof. Olszewski in the liquefaction and so- 

 lidification of gases. 



The death is announced, at Rochester, 

 N. Y., of Seth Green, the eminent fish-cultur- 

 ist, at the age of seventy-one years. 



