370 



NA TURE 



\_March 7, 1878 



insured. Even while I was in the office insuring it a 

 stupid porter tilted it over face downwards to my great 

 grief, as I had little hope that the plaster would hold 

 with such a weight if the case were subjected to this 

 treatment on the way. I was relieved in my mind a few 

 days later by its safe arrival at home. From this time 

 patience alone was required, and by Christmas, with the 

 aid of Mr. De Wilde, the whole leaf was uncovered and 

 varnished and all the cracks filled in with modelling clay. 

 The other specimens were obtained in more or less the 

 same way. The small feather palm was extracted whole 

 with the assistance of Mr. Henry Keeping, of the Wood- 

 wardian Museum, but fell to pieces on the shutter to 

 which it was transferred for carriage, and great care was 

 needed to put them together as they now are. The Stud- 

 land fan-palm being rotted by exposure on the face of the 

 cliff and being penetrated everywhere by rootlets, fell into 

 a hundred pieces, and only the centre of the leaf could be 

 pieced together the rest being pulverised in its journey 

 from Studland to Wareham. 



J. S. Gardner 



FATHER SECCHI 



SOME little time ago we announced the serious illness 

 of Father Secchi, the well-known astronomer and 

 Director of the Observatory of the Collegio Romano, at 

 Rome ; last week we chronicled his death, which occurred 

 on the 26th ult. The illness which has thus terminated 

 fatally, has cut him off, we may say, in the prime of his 

 life, and in the midst of his work ; for, till he was taken ill, 

 there were no signs of any diminution of his energy, and 

 he was only fifty-nine years of age when he died. 



Secchi was born at Reggio, on June 29, 181 8. Educated 

 and trained from early youth as a Jesuit, we hear of him 

 first in connection with science as Professor of Physics 

 at Georgetown College, near Washington, and next 

 as holding the same chair in the Roman College at Rome. 

 It was in connection with the observatory attached to 

 this institution that almost all Secchi's work for the last 

 thirty years has been done. While the Roman College 

 was in papal bands no funds were spared to make the 

 observatory as complete as possible. Secchi had instru- 

 ments and assistants in abundance, and his various series 

 of " Memoirs " testify to his industry in many fields, while 

 his position gave him great facilities for giving the 

 widest publicity to his work. What he lacked in origin- 

 ality he made up in assiduity, and hence, although he has 

 left no great life work on any one subject behind him, 

 there is, we think, hardly any question which has turned 

 up touching observations in astronomy, magnetism or 

 meteorology on which a multitude of papers have not 

 been written by his busy pen. Many of these papers are 

 very admirable and show great penetration and power of 

 generalisation as well as a wide grasp of many subjects. 



Secchi's great interest in solar physics was doubtless 

 aroused, when in America, by assisting Prof. Henry in 

 making the first experiments on the heat radiated by 

 different portions of the sun's disc by means of the 

 thermo-electric pile. His interest in spectroscopy dates 

 from Janssen's visit to Rome, when on his scientific mis- 

 sion to Italy and Greece. In both these branches of 

 work Secchi has been an ardent observer and voluminous 

 writer. He photographed the eclipse of i860 in Spain, 

 and observed the one of 1870 in Sicily. In 1867 he was 

 in Paris exhibiting his universal meteorograph in the 

 exhibition of that year, and giving lectures, some of which 

 eventually formed the basis of his book on the Sun, a 

 second edition of which appeared last year. Besides this 

 book on the Sun, he has written others on the Unity of 

 the Physical Forces, and on the Stars, the latter of which 

 has not yet appeared. 



When the States of the Church became Italian the 

 Roman College was among the institutions whicb were 



turned to other uses by the new government. This now 

 contains two most interesting museums, one of educational 

 apparatus chiefly for primary instruction, and another for 

 antiquities. The new Government, however, were ex- 

 tremely anxious not to interfere with Secchi's scientific 

 labours and offered him the Chair of Astronomy in the 

 new Roman University, at the same time granting 

 ample funds for the prosecution of his inquiries. This 

 Secchi accepted, but soon found his occupation gone, 

 as he was commanded by the chief of the Jesuits to resign 

 it, which he did. It is doubtful whether any modus 

 Vivendi would have been found if the king, whose foster- 

 brother he was, had not stepped in between the Ministry 

 and the Vatican, and suggested a compromise which 

 would have left Secchi to continue his work under most 

 favourable conditions, if the Jesuits had not again 

 stepped in. 



One of the most recent results of Secchi's energy has 

 been the foundation of the Societd, degli Spettroscopisti 

 Italiani, a society specially constituted for recording daily 

 spectroscopic observations of the sun, chiefly at the 

 various observatories of Italy. 



There is no doubt that in the death of Father Secchi 

 observational astronomy has sustained a great loss. His 

 industry and skill were largely rewarded during his life- 

 time. In 1867 he received the great French prize of 

 100,000 francs. He was a member of most scientific 

 societies, including our own Royal Society, and it must 

 not be forgotten that if there may have been traits of 

 Secchi's character open to criticism, the exigencies of his 

 post, rather than the inclinations of the man, may have 

 been to blame. 



NOTES 

 The French expedition for the observation of the approaching 

 transit of Mercury consists of M. C. Andre and M. Angot, who 

 formed likewise part of the expedition to New Caledonia, on the 

 occasion of the transit of Venus. Ogden, in the State of Utah, 

 has been selected by the French Institute as the most favourable 

 locality for the observation, and the expedition is already under 

 way to its destination. A Parisian millionaire, well known for 

 his generosity towards scientific objects, has contributed 30,000 

 francs to defray the expenses of the observation. 



We regret to learn of the dangerous illness of the well-known 

 mineralogist, M. Delafosse Gabriel, professor at the Museum 

 d'Histoire Naturelle of Paris. He is now in his eighty- third 

 year, and has been for twenty years a member of the French 

 Academy of Sciences. 



The Royal Academy of Sciences at Berlin has elected the 

 well-known Prof. Noeldecke, of Strassburg, a corresponding 

 member. 



Arrangements are being made at Paris for the erection of a 

 fitting monument to the late Claude Bernard. The initiative has 

 been made by the Societe de Biolo^e, of which Bernard was one 

 of the founders, and over the meetings of which he has presided 

 during the past eleven years. The committee appointed for the 

 purpose contains prominent names from all the leading scientific 

 institutions of Paris. 



The death is announced of Mr. Joseph Bonomi, the distin- 

 guished Egyptologist, which occurred at Wimbledon Park on 

 Sunday last, at the age of eighty-two. For the last sixteen years 

 Mr. Bonomi has acted as Curator of the Soane Museum in 

 Lincoln's Inn Fields. Mr. Bonomi went out to Egypt as early as 

 1824, and spent eight years on the banks of the Nile, drawing 

 and studying the ancient temples and their wonderful sculptures. 

 During this time he had adopted the Arab costume and mode of 

 living, and by this means he was able to go on in the prosecu- 

 tion of his studies with his then limited resources. He returned 



