May 21, 1 891] 



NA TURE 



63 



vided for him, and endeavour to solve the problems which 

 underlie weather changes and the general movements of 

 the atmosphere. 



JOSEPH LEIDY, M.D. 



THIS well-known American naturalist was born on 

 September 9, 1823. He very early in life showed 

 a fondness for collecting and observing insects, one of his 

 first contributions being a paper on the mechanism which 

 closes the membranous wings of the genus Locusta, pub- 

 lished in 1845 i" the Proceedings of the Academy of 

 Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. Having taken his 

 degree in medicine, he devoted himself more and more 

 to the study of natural history, and few men of any 

 nation have left behind them a longer list of work done 

 than this distinguished man, whose death we announced 

 in a recent number. Leidy was gifted with great powers 

 of observation, he possessed a correct eye and steady 

 hand for the delineation of whatever objects he was ob- 

 serving, he was endowed with a faculty for work ; and 

 as he had also an excellent memory, one reflects upon 

 his half-century of work with less of surprise than admira- 

 tion. To give an account of his writings would be to 

 write a volume, to give but their titles would be to fill 

 many of our columns, so that it must suffice to call to 

 mind rather the subjects about which he wrote than the 

 writings. Commencing with a study of entomology, and 

 working more at the anatomy than at the general mor- 

 phology of insects, he quickly passed on to the study of 

 the entophytic worms, his " Flora and Fauna within 

 Living Animals," pubhshed as one of the Smithsonian 

 Contributions in 1852, having made its mark at the time. 

 Then he took up the fresh- water Polyzoa, his labours on 

 which will be understood only when a monograph on 

 this group as inhabiting America comes to be published. 

 Leaving for a time the study of invertebrate forms, he 

 next entered on the field of research among the fossil 

 vertebrates, describing in quick succession a number of 

 remarkable fossil reptiles and fish, and he was the author 

 of the first volume of the quarto series of reports issued 

 by the United States Geological Survey of the Territories, 

 under the title of " Contributions to the Extinct Vertebrate 

 Fauna of the Western Territories." It was during his 

 journeys to the Western Territories, that, not content 

 with investigating the fossil vertebrates of the district, he 

 worked very diligently at the study of the microscopic 

 forms of life which inhabit the waters met with therein, 

 and these researches, so far as one group of animals is 

 concerned, were happily published by the United States 

 Geological Survey in 1879, in one large quarto volume, 

 " The Fresh-water Rhizopods of North America," which is 

 illustrated by forty-eight coloured plates after Leidy's 

 own drawings. This work on its appearance was received 

 with great enthusiasm, and is still a worthy model for a 

 monograph. During all these years, and amid so many 

 and so varied labours, Leidy still discharged his duties as 

 Professor of Anatomy to the University of Pennsylvania, 

 and also of teacher of natural history to the classes of boys 

 and girls at the Swarthmore College. No doubt many 

 of these latter pupils will now call to mind the warm 

 personal interest theirmaster always took in their labours. 

 In one of his books he tells us that since he was fourteen 

 years of age the study of natural history was to him a con- 

 stant source of happiness ; but that on this joy a shadow 

 was constantly cast when he thought how few, how very 

 few, of those around him gave any attention to intellectual 

 pursuits of any kind, and it saddened him to feel that the 

 command " that man shall not live by bread alone " re- 

 mained so unappreciated by the great mass of even so- 

 called enlightened humanity. The results of Leidy's 

 intellectual pursuits will long remain to testify to the 

 manner of man that he was. 



NO. 1125, VOL. 44] 



THE SCIENCE MUSEUM. 



THE discussion on this all-important question continues 

 in the press. The Whitsuntide holidays have pre- 

 vented any questions being asked in the House of 

 Commons, where the feeling is very strong against the 

 action of the Government. 



As before, we reprint the most important items in the 

 discussion. These consist of letters from Sir H. Roscoe 

 and Profs. Armstrong and Ayrton to the Times. We 

 commend to our readers the reference by the latter to 

 Mr. Goschen's treatment of the deputation, and also their 

 judgment as to the present position of science in this 

 country, and the teaching of it in London, as compared 

 with Gottingen and Ziirich. No one can speak with greater 

 authority than Profs. Armstrong and Ayrton on this 

 subject. 



' Our administrative system, however, is such that the 

 present question, which is acknowledged to be of such high 

 importance, is being settled exclusively by officials who 

 are quite ignorant of science. This is not said to their 

 disparagement : it is only a statement of fact. The letters 



' run as follow : — 



I One cannot but feel much sympathy for Ministers, on the one 



' hand pressed by the advocates of scientific and technical educa- 



' tion, and on the other nervous at the prospect of not securing 



i the gifts of the munificent but somewhat exlgeant art donor. 



; But the question Is so vitally important from the point of view 



of -cience that I feel sure no excuse is necessary if I urge most 



strenuously that an irrevocable step be not taken without full 



and careful consideration ; and, further, that a definite scheme 



for providing for the science collections and Science School be 



f(jrmulated before what many of us believe to be a most unwise 



interpolation of an art gallery, on land which when bought was 



universally believed to have been acquired for scientific eods, 



is finally decided on. 



At the present moment it is impossible to say under which 

 thimble the scientific pea is housed, and it was no doubt due to 

 this that the discussion which the deputation had with the 

 Chancellor of the Exchequer and Lord President of the Council 

 on Tuesday last was to some extent abortive. 



The Chancellor of the ' Exchequer, in reply to myself on 

 March 18, said : — 



" It would be possible to make adequate provision for chemical 

 and physical laboratories on the land between the Imperial 

 Institute Road and the Technical Institute. This site adjoins the 

 east galleries, and it is in these galleries, together with the west 

 and southern galleries, and a proposed cross gallery joining the 

 east and west galleries, that the science collections may ultimately 

 be housed." 



But by April 15 the impracticability of the scheme of 

 putting part of the Science School at the south end of the 

 eastern gallery seems to have been discovered. For on that day 

 Mr. W. H. Smith, in reply to Mr. Mundella, propounded 

 another scheme for the Science School, while leaving the 

 collections to be housed in the east and west and cross galleries. 

 He said : — 



"A portion of these vacant lands" (facing the Imperial 

 Institute) " can be utilized for the extension of the College of 

 Science and for future growth of the science collections. 

 Additions to the College of Science must in any case take the 

 form of a separate building, divided from the present building 

 by Exhibition Road ; and, as access to the lands mentioned above 

 from Exhibition Road will be secured by means of a corridor, 

 the interposition of the Gallery of British Art need have no 

 more serious effect than to increase by some 60 yards (which 

 will be under cover) the distance between the two portions of 

 the Science College." 



By the former plan a portion of the Science School would no 

 doubt have been in immediate contact with the splendid picture 

 galleries in which the science objects were to be housed ; but it 

 would be far removed from the other part of the school — the 

 Exhibition Road thus becoming a school of peripatetic philo- 

 sophy. By the latter scheme the two parts of the school would be 

 brought somewhat closer together — less of Exhibition Road and 

 more of covered corridor — but then both portions would be 

 entirely separated from the science collections — two roads to 

 cross, and a walk of half a mile, or thereabouts, to the further part. 



