March 23, 1876] 



NA TURE 



409 



thermometers, drawing, and mathematical instruments of 

 all kinds were rigorously inspected, compared, and verified 

 under CoL Strange's personal superintendence, and the 

 improved forms of instruments now supplied to the ser- 

 vices in India, are in a ver>' large measure due to his 

 efforts, and it must have been a source of gratification to 

 him to find that they were received with almost universal 

 approbation. He devoted much anxious time and thought 

 to the laborious task of testing the magnificent series of 

 instruments above alluded to. 



The telescope has an aperture of 3J inches, with a 

 focal length of 36 inches. The instrument is constructed 

 upon what is known as "the flying micrometer plan," 

 and possesses a great number of peculiarities which 

 are quite unique. It will be found fully described in a 

 paper read by him before the Royal Society in 1872. 

 This is undoubtedly the finest instrument of its kind ever 

 constructed, and will be an enduring monument to his 

 unremitting energy and constructive genius. The zenith 

 sectors were designed for the accurate determination of 

 latitude, and in design are tmlike any of their prede- 

 cessors ; being intended for portable instnunents the 

 problem was to get the r«aximum of power out of the 

 minimum of weight, and in this he was eminently suc- 

 cessful, for on comparing one of these with the weight of 

 the zenith sector designed by the present Astronomer 

 Royal for the Ordnance Survey of Great Britain it was found 

 to be only about one-half. With regard to the perform- 

 ance of these instruments, Capt. J. Herschel, R.E., F.RS., 

 who has been employed in determining latitudes in 

 Southern India, in comparing the facility of working the 

 zenith sector and the former astronomical circles of the 

 Great Trigonometrical Survey, states that "' the sectors are 

 competent to turn out at least double the amount of work 

 of the same order," adding, " at this rate two or three 

 years' work, would equal in amount the whole results up 

 to the date of the arrival of the sectors, and ten years (a 

 comparatively short period for which to arrange a system 

 of observation on a matter of this magnitude) will see us 

 in a position to look back on the arrival of the sectors as 

 en the commencement of a new era," All the other in- 

 struments present evidences of Col. Strange's construc- 

 -ive genius. 



Such is the amount of skill and forethought brought to 

 bear upon the design of these exquisite instruments that 

 an observer may select a series of stars differing only five 

 minutes of time in Right Ascension. Each star is observed 

 twice in reversed positions of the telescope at the same 

 culmination, and each of the two reversed observations 

 involves two settings of the telescope in altitude, four 

 ...icroscope, two level and one micrometer reading. To 

 :.dmit of all these operations being performed within five 

 minutes of time, with the deliberation requisite for obser- 

 vations aiming at fractions of a second, demands the 

 highest conveniences of instrumental construction. 



After their completion and final testing, they were seve- 

 rally despatched to India, where they have for some years 

 been employed in the Sur\'ey Department, unapproachable 

 for manipulative facilities and giving results unsurpassed 

 in accuracy. Indeed, it is not too much to say that these 

 instruments, in the construction of which CoL Strange had 

 the advantage of being so ably seconded by the late Mr. 

 Cooke, of York, and the well-known firm of Troughton 

 and Simms, are the most perfect and powerful geodetical 

 instruments which have ever been constructed or are likely 

 to be constructed for some years to come. 



Among his publications which appear in the Memoirs 

 of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol. xxxi., are the 

 following : " On Testing the Vertical Axes of Altazimuth 

 Instruments," "On a Direct Method of Testing and 

 -idjusting the Equipoise of Altazimuth Instnmaents," 

 '■ On a Proposed Isolated Flange for Conical Axes." 

 In the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomicjil 

 Society, vol, xxiii. : '* On Aluminium Bronze as a 



Material for the Constructio:i of Astronomical and 

 other Philosophical Instruments ; " and in the Journal 

 of the Royjd United Service Institution, vol. si., 

 " Geodesy, especially relating to the Great Trigono- 

 metrical Survey of India." He contributed papers on 

 various subjects to the Royal Society, the British Associa- 

 tion, the Society of Arts, the Meteorological and other 

 scientific and learned societies. 



His scientific activity, however, was by no means con- 

 fined to these questions, which came before him in his 

 official capacity. In ccmphance \\-ith a request made 

 by her Majesty's Commissioners for the International 

 Exhibition of 1862, Col. Strange ser\-ed the office of 

 juror. He also performed the same functions at Paris in 

 1867. " While in the Royal Society," to quote from the 

 memoir in the Times, " he insisted upon the accuracy 

 of the measurements used in physical inquiries, in the 

 British Association, and was the clear-sighted and 

 constant advocate of increased instruction in science and 

 the increased utilisation of it in our public departments ; 

 and he was among the first to insist upon the national 

 importance of fostering the pursuit of knowledge in those 

 fields which, though unremunerative to the cultivator, are 

 eventually of the highest importance to the nation. To 

 him belongs the whole credit of having initiated in 1868 

 the movement which resulted in the appointment by her 

 Majesty of the ' Royal Commission on Scientific Instruc- 

 tion and the Advancement of Science,' of which his 

 Grace the Duke of Devonshire was chairman, and the 

 five years' laboiu-s of which have but recently terminated. 

 Before he died he had the satisfaction of knowing that the 

 proposals contained in the scheme which he originally 

 propounded to the Commission, and on which nearly the 

 whole of the witnesses were examined, were adopted in 

 the main by the Commission, and reconmiended for the 

 consideration of the Government. Thus the breadth of 

 his views, and the clearsightedness which he possessed 

 not only combined to render his services to the Indian 

 Government and to the various scientific " societies, 

 Coimcils, and Committees on which he served of the 

 utmost value, but they have left a memorial in the recom- 

 mendations of this Commission, some day, we hope, to be 

 rendered more lasting by their adoption. He died on the 

 9th inst. at the comparatively early age of fifty-seven, and 

 the void his death has created in the scientific world will 

 be one very difficult to filL"' 



PROF. FLOWER'S HUNTERIAN LECTURES 

 ON THE RELA TION OF EXTINCT TO EXIST- 

 ING MAMMALIA 



V. 



ORDER Sirenia. The purely aquatic habits and fish- 

 like form of the animals of this order formerly caused 

 them to be confounded with the Cetacea, but a more inti- 

 mate knowledge of their structure has shown that they 

 really belong to a widely different type of the class. Their 

 skeleton is remarkable for the massiveness and density of 

 most of the bones of which it is composed, especially 

 the skull and ribs, and the bodies of their vertebrae want 

 the disc-like epiphyses so well marked in the Cetacea. The 

 existing members of the order pass their whole life in the 

 water, being denizens of shallow bays, estuaries, and large 

 rivers, but unlike the Cetacea they are never foimd in the 

 high seas away fi-om shore. Their food consists entirely of 

 aquatic plants, either marine algse or fresh-water grasses, 

 on which they browse under water, as the terrestrial 

 Ungxilates do on the green pastures on land. They are 

 generally gregarious, slow and inoffensive, and apparently 

 stupid in disposition. Though occasionally found stranded 



I Abstract of a course of lectures delirered at the Royal College of Snr- 



feoQS " On the Relation of Extinct to Existing M amm a l ia, with Special 

 Reference to the DerivatiTe Hypothesis," in condusion of the course of 1873. 

 (See Reports in NATtTKX for tlat year.) Coutinued firom p. 388. , 



