July 12, 1900 J 



NA TURE 



257 



he gave expression to the satisfaction this recognition afforded 

 him. 



Beyond this magnificent work and those papers more or less 

 immediately associated with il, wholly taxonomic, Sladen pro- 

 duced others of a physiological and developmental order, as 

 for example his Naples Station paper, on the structure and 

 functions of the pedicellarire, and that announcing his discovery 

 of the "cribriform organ," and his papers on the apical plates of 

 the Astrophiuroids, in which he was obviously in agreement 

 with his friend, the late Dr. Herbert Carpenter, in the belief in a 

 stalked ancestry of these. It has been said of his taxonomic 

 work that his descriptions are protracted, and that he deals with 

 i specimens as species. There is, however, no reason to believe 

 that he was using the term species in any but a purely conven- 

 tional sense, without necessarily implying any fixed inter-relation- 

 ships ; and his painstaking accuracy of description was the out- 

 come of an excessive honesty of purpose and desire for thorough- 

 ness, in which he was altogether exemplary. There never lived 

 a man with a truer sense of honour. 



Some ten years ago Sladen had a bad attack of influenza, 

 followed at intervals by several similar visitations, which unfitted 

 him for serious scientific work, but he always hoped to get better 

 and to take it up again. The last winter was passed in Devon- 

 shire with very beneficial results, and he might be said to have 

 been in his usual healtti when two months ago he started with 

 his wife for Rome. But the wish to return to work was not to 

 be fulfilled ; after spending six weeks in Rome he journeyed to 

 Florence, and there after a week of rather active sightseeing, on 

 June 1 1, he was taken with a fainting fit, and though he quickly 

 recovered consciousness and declared his intention of going to 

 Como that very night, within half an hour he passed away by 

 failure of the heart's action. 



He was a Fellow of the Linnean, Zoological, and Geological 

 Societies ; for ten years Zoologic Secretary, and later a Vice- 

 President of the former. In his secretarial capacity his genial 

 nature found full sway, and his encouraging attitude to the 

 younger men with whom he came in contact will ever be 

 remembered. As a boy at school he was the captain wrestler. 

 He was a good shot, though never a sportsman or member of 

 a rifle corps, but he belonged to a private Guerilla Club in 

 Yorkshire, of which he was sometime secretary. 



In 1890 Sladen married Constance, elder daughter of the 

 late Dr. W. C. Anderson, of York ; and about two years ago 

 he inherited from an uncle the estate of Northbrook, near 

 Exeter, and there he has been laid to rest. It will be remem- 

 bered that he recently gave the sum of 2000/. to insure the 

 lives of the Yeomanry and Volunteers of his county going to 

 the front in the Boer campaign ; and this is but one among 

 many of his generous acts, the majority of which are known 

 only to the recipients. A loving husband, a trustworthy frierid, 

 whose advice was always sound, a keen sympathiser wiih 

 suffering humanity, he has passed from us ; but his memory 

 and tender-loving influence for good will endure. 



Among his scientific effects are a large library and some 

 zoological collections of great value. Sladen had always a 

 taste for old books, and one of his last expeditions was to a 

 monastery at Subiaco, to examine some ninth century MSS. 

 there preserved, and he had collected a goodly number of 

 ancient MSS. and examples of early printing. His collection 

 ofEchinoderm literature is very complete ; while, as to material, 

 he leaves the collections of his friend, the late Herbert Car- 

 penter, rich in Crinoids and other rare animal forms, which 

 include, as a separate historic possession, the materials which 

 formed the basis of the elder Carpenter's book on the micro- 

 scope. These he purchased. There were also in his posses- 

 sion at the time of death a large series of Cretaceous Echino- 

 derms, upon which he was contemplating a renewal of his 

 Palaeontographical Society's work ; and the collection of Astro- 

 phiuroids of the Albatross, entrusted to his hands by Prof. A. 

 Agassiz. There accompanied these a series of superb coloured 

 j drawings from the life, like those already published 

 I for the Holothuroidea of the expedition ; and the very day 

 1 ofhisdealh there reached him a letter from the same distinguished 

 I explorer, offering him the materials of his recent Australian 

 cruise. It was Sladen's intention to have returned to these rich 

 possessions ; and we could desire no more fitting memorial to his 

 work than that it might be possible to find and trainacompeteni 

 zoologist to continue that which he has left thus unfinished, on 

 the lines on which he would have laboured, and to hand it down 

 •sterity a completed record in his name. G. B. H. 



NO. 1602, VOL. 62 1 



JEREMIAH HORROCKS AND THE TRANSIT 



OF VENUS. 

 \^E are indebted to the Joiirna' of the Leeds Astronomical 

 Society for 1899, which contains an interesting paper by 

 Mr. A. Dodgson, on the life and work of the illustrious young 

 astronomer, Jeremiah Horrocks. This worthy was born in 

 1619, 281 years ago, in the reign of James I., at Toxteth, three 

 miles from Liverpool. He received his early education there, 

 but on reaching the age of fourteen, he entered as "sizar" at 

 Emmanuel College. Cambridge. At seventeen he was enabled 

 to become tutor at To-cteth, and two years later, i.e. in his nine- 

 teenth year, he was appointed curate at Hoole, near Preston. 

 Soon after this he made his memorable astronomical observa- 

 tion of Venus, and only two years later was dead. The life of 

 the young man at Cambridge, as traced by Mr. Dodgson, was 

 one of persistent industry. Imbued at an early age with a love 

 of studying natural phenomena, he was hampered at the outset 



IN MKMORY OK 

 .IKUKMIAH IIOKROX, ONE OF THK 



a.-:tuunumkks this kingdom f^vK 



BOilN IN TOXTETH PAHK !>• 

 DIED IN 1041, Af'TVn '' 



-i KVATIO.N'S WEKE AM: 

 Ul'.ill MILE8 fEOM PBESXO.N, AVJiEHl. ;; ' 

 fltEUlCTED, AND WAS THE FiRST PUUS' 

 WHO SAW, THE TBANSIT OF VEVUS 

 OVER THE 6UN. 



THIS MONUMENT WAS EKECTEl* flY 

 U. HOLDBN, ASTRONOMEK- 



by the absence of instruction in mathematics and the scarcity of 

 books. This difficulty of getting philosophical and scientific 

 works is clearly shown by the fact that of the thirty-two 

 volumes he possessed later, not one was published in England or 

 written by an Englishman. Lansberg's works he could not make 

 agree with his own observations, and later, having obtained 

 those of Kepler through the advice of his friend Crabtree, of 

 Manchester, he found that even they needed many corrections. 

 His first results in astronomical research were in elucidation of 

 the lunar theory. Sir Isaac Newton confirms that he was the 

 first to state the ellipticity of the moon's orbit ; he also stated 

 the causes of " evection " and " annual equation." The experi- 

 ment of the circular pendulum for illustrating the action of a 

 central force is also due to him. Most interesting, however, is 

 his successful prediction of the transit of Venus in November, 

 1639. Kepler had stated that the two next transits would occur 

 in 1631 and 1761, but Horrocks found, during his revision of the 

 tables he had in use, that another would take place, the slight 



