576 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



some fifteen oi' twenty seconds to the right 

 of his spider-line. It was really, of course, 

 his telescope that moved under the force of 

 a sharp earth-tremor which was duly re- 

 corded on the curves of the magnetometer. 



The French have formed a society called 

 Scicntia, for the cultivation of the social 

 qualities among scientific men. Its first 

 banquet was held on the 11th of December, 

 in honor of the ninety-ninth birthday of M. 

 Chevreuil, when M. Jamin, presiding, de- 

 livered an appropriate address to the hero 

 of the hour, and M. Chevreuil replied. 



Correction. — For Diiring read Dusing 

 in the article entitled " Influences deter- 

 mining Sex," published in the January 

 " Monthly." 



OBITUARY NOTES. 



Arthur Henninger, a French chemist 

 of German birth, died October 4th, in the 

 thirty-fifth year of his age. He studied and 

 labored with Wurtz, and was distinguished 

 for his experiments in the reduction of the 

 polyatomic alcohols, and particularly of ery- 

 thrite, by formic acid. One of the i-esults 

 of these experiments was the definition of a 

 general method for the reduction of one al- 

 cohol to another of less atomicity. He was 

 one of the editors of " Science et Nature." 



Dr. Alfred Brehm, author of the 

 " Thierleben," whose death was recently an- 

 nounced, was the son of a Thuringian or- 

 nithologist, and devoted his life to the study 

 of all animal nature, but particularly of 

 birds. He spent several years in the north- 

 eastern districts of Africa during his young- 

 er days, and later made scientific tours in 

 distant lands, including Siberia, Turkis- 

 tan, and Abyssinia. He was for some years 

 Director of the Zoological Gardens at Ham- 

 burg. 



Mr. R. a. C. Godwtn-Austen, F. R. S., 

 an English geological author of well-earned 

 fame, died November 25th. His first geo- 

 logical paper was published in 1835. His 

 favorite tojiic of study was the changes go- 

 ing on in the present day, especially along 

 the coast. His best-known paper was " On 

 the Possible Extension of the Coal-Measures 

 beneath the Southeastern Part of England." 

 The Geological Society gave him its WoUas- 

 ton medal in 1862. 



The death is announced of Mr. J. Buck- 

 man, formerly Professor of Geology and 

 Botany at the Cirencester College, England. 



Dr. Bodinus, Director of the Zoological 

 Gardens in Berlin, recently died suddenly. 

 He was distinguished, previous to going to 

 Berlin in 1869, in connection with the gar- 

 den at Cologne. 



Dr. Thomas Wright, F. G. S., an Eng- 

 lish paleontologist, died November l'7th. His 

 specialty was fossil echinoderms, concern- 

 ing the classification and structure of which, 

 and their distribution in the secondary rocks, 

 he contributed much that is important. He 

 was President of the Geological Section of 

 the British Association in 1875. 



The death is announced of Henri Lar- 

 tigue, a French practical electrician. He was 

 born in 1830; served for several years as 

 Professor of Physics, Chemistry, and Natu- 

 ral History in the lycee at Auch, south of 

 France ; joined Leverrier at Paris in 1855 

 to assist him in meteorological observations ; 

 and after 1859 was associated with the rail- 

 road, telegraphic, and telephonic service, in 

 connection with which he made some valu- 

 able inventions. In his youth he made a 

 botanical and entomological exploration of 

 the Pyrenees. 



Dr. Augustus Yoelcker, the distin- 

 guished agricultural chemist, died at Ken- 

 sington, England, December 5th. He was 

 born at Frankfort-on-the-Main, Germany, 

 in 1823, studied at Gottingen, and became 

 assistant to Professor Johnson, of Edin- 

 burgh, in 1849. He was Professor of Chem- 

 istry in the Royal Agricultural College at 

 Cirencester from 1852 to 1862, when he be- 

 came consulting chemist and professor in 

 the Royal Agricultural Society of England. 

 He contributed much to the Agricultural So- 

 ciety's " Journal " and ninety papers to the 

 Royal Society, and he published books on 

 the chemistry of food and the chemistry of 

 manures, and lectures on agricultural chem- 

 istry. 



Professor Kolbe, author of the " Lehr- 

 buch der orgauischen Chemie," died Novem- 

 ber 26th. He was born in Gottingen in 

 1818, assumed a chair in the London Mu- 

 seum of Economic Geology in 184.'^, suc- 

 ceeded Bunsen at Marburg in 1851, and 

 accepted a call to Leipsic in 1865. He ed- 

 ited the "Zeitschrift fiir praktische Chemie" 

 from 1869. He was, shortly before his 

 death, awarded the Davy medal of the Roy- 

 al Society for his researches in the isomer- 

 ism of alcohols. 



Professor Eugenio Balbi, Professor of 

 Geography at the University of Pavia, died 

 on the 18th of October. He was a son of 

 the celebrated geographer Adriano Balbi, 

 and was born in Florence in 1812. 



The death is announced of Mr. Robert 

 Sabine, C. E., an English electrician -who 

 has done good work in connection with the 

 applications of electricity. He was a son-in- 

 law of Sir Charles Wheatstone. 



Russian science has recently lost by 

 death A. G. Fischer von Waldheim, President 

 of the Moscow Natural History Society. 



