June 9, 1898] 



NATURE 



129 



was ever known to return to the land of cakes not plum 

 — but oats. , , 



As Davy's greatest discovery was Faraday, so it may 

 be said that Playfair's was Dewar, who acted for some 

 time as his assistant. The five months' duties of the 

 Edinburgh chair did not by any means exhaust his 

 energies. On the occasion of the second great exhibition 

 of 1862, his services were again called for, and in 1868 

 he was returned to Parliament in the Liberal interest as 

 representing the Universities of Edinburgh and St. 

 •Andrews, a seat which he held for seventeen years. His 

 Parliamentary labours were arduous and important, and 

 his name will go down as representing the reorganisation 

 of the Civil Service. He also presided over many im- 

 portant Committees and Royal Commissions ; indeed, it 

 may be said that for many years no official inquiry was con- 

 sidered satisfactory without the advice of Playfair, whose 

 clear head and common sense were always readily placed 

 at the service of the nation. He was Postmaster-General 

 in Gladstone's ministry of 1873, and on the return of the 

 Liberals to power in 1880 he was elected Chairman of 

 Ways and Means, a post which in those stormy days 

 was no sinecure. At the election of 1885, finding his 

 Liberal views did not coincide with those of the University 

 constituencies, he offered himself as a candidate for 

 South Leeds, and was returned also in 1886 and 1892. 

 He was Vice-President of the Council during Mr. Glad- 

 stone's short administration of 1886, but was not offered 

 office in 1892, but received the honour of a peerage, 

 which was given him more for his political than his 

 scientific eminence. Playfair was the last remaining 

 original member of the Chemical Society. The banquet 

 which was to have been given in his honour and in that 

 of the other past presidents of fifty years' standing has 

 had to be postponed owing to his somewhat sudden death. 



It is to him that we owe the first movement with 

 regard to technical instruction, and his name will go 

 down to posterity as one " who loved his fellow men." 



He was laid to rest at St. Andrews, the city from 

 which his family sprang. His merit was recognised by 

 representatives of the Queen and of the Prince of Wales, 

 and numerous friends and admirers, both scientific and 

 political, as well as by the citizens of St. Andrews. 



H. E. R. 



OSBERT SALVIN, F.R.S. 



ORNITHOLOGY and entomology have sustained a 

 great loss by the death of Mr. Osbert Salvin, which 

 occurred on the 1st inst. at his beautiful residence 

 Hawksfold, near Haslemere. The second and only 

 surviving son of the late Mr. Anthony Salvin, the well- 

 known architect, he was born in 1835, and received his 

 education at Westminster and Trinity Hall, Cambridge, 

 where he graduated as a Senior Optime in the Natural 

 Science Tripos of 1857. Immediately after taking his 

 degree he, together with Mr. W. H. Hudleston (then 

 Simpson), joined Mr. (now Canon) Tristram in his 

 natural history exploration of Tunis and Eastern Algeria, 

 where they passed five months. In the autumn of the 

 same year Mr. Salvin proceeded to Guatemala, where, 

 chiefly in company with the late Mr. G. U. Skinner, the 

 celebrated collector of orchids, he stayed till the middle 

 of 1858, returning to Central America (henceforth always 

 to be associated with his name) about twelve months 

 later. He again went out in 1861, accompanied by Mr. 

 Frederick Godman, and continued the explorations he 

 had already begun, but was home again in 1863. In 

 1865 he married Caroline, the daughter of W. W. Mait- 

 land, Esq., of Loughton in Essex, and with her subse- 

 quently undertook another voyage to Central America. 

 In 1874, on the foundation of the Strickland Curatorship 

 in the University of Cambridge, he accepted that office, 

 which he filled until 1883, when, on his father's death, 



NO. 1493, VOL. 58] 



he succeeded to the property at Hawksfold, and removed 

 thither, though there was scarcely a week in which he 

 did not pass some days in London ; for with Mr. Godman. 

 he had conceived the idea of bringing out a " Biologia 

 Centrali Americana," being a complete natural history 

 of the countries lying between Mexico and the Isthmus- 

 of Panama. This gigantic task, by far the greatest work 

 of the kind ever attempted, taxed all their united efforts,, 

 and those of the many contributors they enlisted, and 

 is still in progress. Before beginning this, Mr. Salvin 

 had edited the third series of the Idis, of which he was 

 one of the founders, and had brought out a " Catalogue 

 of the Strickland Collection " in the Cambridge Museum. 

 He contributed also the Trochilidce (Humming-birds) 

 and ProcellariidcE (Petrels) — on which he was the ac- 

 knowledged authority -to the British Museum " Cata- 

 logue of Birds," and almost his latest labour was that 

 of completing and arranging the late Lord Lilford's 

 " Coloured Figures of British Birds " ; while the Royal 

 Society's "Catalogue of Scientific Papers" enumerates 

 forty-seven published by Mr. Salvin alone, twenty-three 

 by him and Mr. Godman jointly, and fifty-four by him 

 and Mr. Sclater— all before 1884. 



Mr. Salvin was a Fellow of the Royal, Linnean, 

 Zoological and Entomological Societies, on the Councils 

 of each of which he frequently served ; and it may be 

 truly said that there were few naturalists whose opinion 

 was more often sought, for his advice was generally- 

 sound. His figure was well known at the Athenasunx 

 Club, and last year he was elected an Honorary Fellow 

 of his old College. He will be greatly missed by a large 

 circle of friends, to whom his quiet and unassuming 

 manners greatly endeared him. N. 



NOTES. 



The freedom of the city of Edinburgh is to be conferred or* 

 Lord Lister on June 15. 



The annual ladies' conversazione of the Royal Society was^ 

 held yesterday, as we went to press. 



The Prince of Wales will open the new buildings of the 

 University Extension College, Reading, on Saturday next, 

 June II. 



A FLORAL fete and children's floral parade will be held in the 

 gardens of the Royal Botanic Society, Regent's Park, from 2 to 

 7 o'clock to-morrow (Friday). 



The city of Como, the birthplace of Alexander Volta, is pre- 

 paring to worthily celebrate in 1899 the hundredth anniversary 

 of the invention of the Voltaic or Electric Pile. To com- 

 memorate this important event, which has led to some of the 

 greatest discoveries of the present century, there will be held at 

 Como, from May 15 to October 15, an International Electrical 

 Exhibition, to which will be annexed a national exhibition of 

 the manufacture of silk — a branch of trade much developed in 

 Como — and an international exhibition of the machinery, pre* 

 paration, and process of working the same. Italian and foreign 

 electricians are invited to a Congress, which will ., be held for the 

 purpose of discussing the progress and applications of electricity. 

 Como is a flourishing city on the main line of St. Gothard, and 

 forty kilometres from Milan. It is pleasantly situated at the 

 foot of the Rhaetian Alps, and on the shores of the most beau- 

 tiful lake of Lombardy, to which it gives its name. An 

 electrical exhibition ought to succeed in Italy, where the 

 abundant hydraulic power greatly facilitates electric works. 

 The application of electricity to the manufacture of silk must be 

 of interest in Como, where the silk-works are of ancient date, 

 and rapid progress is being made, though the industry is indebted 

 to foreign countries for the machinery and implements. We are 

 informed that foreign inventions will be greatly valued at the 



