October 29, 1891] 



NATURE 



629 



penter, C.B., F.R.S. He was found dead in his dressing- 

 room at Eton College, on Wednesday, October 21. At the 

 inquest it was found that he had killed himself by the adminis- 

 tration of chloroform during temporary insanity. Dr. Car- 

 penter was in his fortieth year, and had been a science master 

 in Eton since 1877. The following summary of his scientific 

 work in given by the Times. He was a member of the scientific 

 staff of the deep-sea exploring expeditions of Her Majesty's 

 steamships Lightning {\%(>%) and Porcupine {iSSg-jo) ; and in 

 1875 he was appointed assistant naturalist to Her Majesty's ship 

 Valorous, which accompanied Sir G. Nares's Arctic expedition 

 to Disco Island, and spent the summer sounding and dredging 

 in Davis Strait and the North Atlantic. Dr. Carpenter devoted 

 himself continuously from 1875 to studying the morphology of 

 the Echinoderms, more particularly of the Crinoids, both recent 

 and fossil. In 1883 he was awarded the Lyell Fund by the 

 Geological Society of London in recognition of the value of his 

 work, and in 1885 was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. 

 His chief memoirs and papers were as follows: — "Notes on 

 Echinoderm Morphology," i.-xi., 1878-87 ; " On the Genus 

 Actinometra," 1877 ; "Report upon the Crinoidea dredged by 

 H.M.S. Challenger," Va^xi I. "The Stalked Crinoids," 1S85, 

 Part II. "The Comatulse," 1888; "Report upon the Coma- 

 tulte dredged by the U.S. Coast Survey in the Caribbean Sea," 

 1890. In conjunction with Mr. R. Etheridge, Jun., he prepared 

 the "Catalogue of the Blastoidea in the Geological Depart- 

 ment of the British Museum," 1886 ; and he also wrote nume- 

 rous papers published in the Proceedings or Transactions of the 

 Royal, Linnean, and Geological Societies. ' 



Mr. George Sibley, who was for many years well known 

 as an engineer in India, and had also a considerable reputation 

 as a traveller, died at his residence at Catherham on Sunday 

 last at the age of ixty-seven. It is understood that Mr. Sibley 

 has left a legacy for the purpose of founding engineering scholar- 

 ships in the University of Calcutta. 



Dr. J. Eduard Polak, who died at Vienna on October 8, 

 at the age of seventy-one, was one of the most eminent Persian 

 cholarsof his time. He went in 1851 to Teheran, where he lec- 

 tured at the medical school, and became physician to the Shah. 

 During his nine years' residence in Persia he visited most parts 

 of the country ; and on his return to Vienna he wrote his well- 

 known work, " Persien : das Land und seine Bewohner," in 

 which he presented an excellent summary of the knowledge he 

 had acquired. In response to an invitation from the Shah, he 

 again visited Teheran. He read before the Geographical and 

 Anthropological Societies of Vienna many valuable papers on 

 Persia and its antiquities. 



The International Geological excursion in America, which 

 started on September 2 last, ended on October 9 after a most 

 successful and interesting trip. In all there were ninety geo- 

 logists, and the arrangements as regards trains, &c., left 

 nothing to be desired. The route chosen lay through the 

 petroleum districts of Pennsylvania, the prairies of Wisconsin, 

 Minnesota, and Dakotah, the corn-lands of North America, 

 and the twin centres St. Paul and Minneapolis. From the 

 Yellowstone River the party journeyed to the beautiful geyser 

 region of the National Park, where they made a stay of seven 

 days, then to the rising mountain district of Butte, as well as to 

 the Mormon town situated in the middle of the salt wastes of 

 the Great Salt Lake. They then skirted the table-lands in 

 South Utah, and turned towards the Rocky Mountains, where 

 they visited the chief places of geological interest, including 

 Pike's Peak, the Garden of the Gods, &c. At this point many 

 of the party returned home, going by way of Chicago, Niagara 

 Falls, and New York. The smaller number that remained 

 undertook a laborious and exhausting expedition through the 

 NO. I 148, VOL. 44] 



deserts of New Mexico and Arizona to the San Francisco 



mountains and to the Grand Caiion of Colorado ; they visited 

 a g>"oup of 165 volcanoes and craters, and also a deep valley 

 the sides of which, with their many and various-coloured stones, 

 fall 58CO to 6000 feet to the great Colorado River below. From 

 this standpoint they had an excellent view of the materials com- 

 posing the upper surfaces of the earth's crust, and they could 

 not but be struck by the magnitude and grandeur of the work 

 accomplished by Nature in digging out this enormous river 

 canon. The following are some of the places visited on the 

 return journey: La Junta, Kansas City, Chicago, Niagara Falls, 

 Albany, and Boston. Altogether the excursion was a thorough 

 success, and the Americans deserve much credit for having 

 arranged so good a programme for their visitors. 



Prof. Russell and his party have returned from the 

 Alaskan wilds, which they penetrated to a distance of forty 

 miles inland, from Icy Bay to the base of Mount St. Elias. 

 They constructed a camp, and remaine.l there two months, 

 making geological surveys and taking observations. Prof 

 Russell says :— " We began the ascent of Mount St. Elias on 

 June 3. Our progress was not obstructed until we reached an 

 altitude of nearly 10,000 feet. Then we found glaciers. After 

 many perilous adventures we attained the height of 14,500 feet. 

 This has been the estimated height of the mountain, but we 

 found it nearly 5000 feet higher. It was impossible for us to 

 proceed any further, as we were suffering too much from the 

 hardships already endured. Many of the men were exhausted 

 and very weak. The Alaskan Indians were most hospitable 

 to us." 



The report by Mr. James Dredge and Sir Henry Trueman 

 Wood on their recent visit to Chicago is printed in the Journal 

 of the Society of Arts (October 23). This report was presented 

 last week to the Royal Commission which has been appointed 

 to organize the English Section at the Chicago " World's Fair." 

 The Commission have decided to appoint the following Com- 

 mittees : Finance, Fine Arts, Indian, Colonial, Engineering, 

 General Manufactures, Electricity, Agriculture, Mines and 

 Metallurgy, Textile Industries, Science and Education, Trans- 

 portation ; also a Committee of Ladies to correspond with 

 the Ladies' Committee at Chicago. They propose to invite the 

 assistance of Chambers of Commerce as Local Committees. A 

 prospectus relating to the Chicago Exhibition has been issued 

 by the Royal Commission 



The Council of the Institution of Civil Engineers have issued 

 for general circulation their regulations as to the admission of 

 students. This is followed by an excellent account of the 

 various educational institutions in the British dominions where 

 instruction is given bearing on the profession of civil engineers. 



In his report on the working of the Central Museum, Madras, 

 during 1890-91, Mr. Edgar Thurston, the Superintendent, 

 notes that he made two official tours in company with his taxi- 

 dermists. During the first of these, as in several previous years, 

 he stayed on Ramesvaram Island, where he was mainly engaged 

 in the collection and preservation of marine worms and mol- 

 luscan shells, which have since been sent to England and Ger- 

 many to be worked up. Many specimens of the brightly 

 coloured " coral-fishes," which abound over the fringing coral- 

 reefs, were also preserved by the glycerine process introduced 

 by Mr. A. Haly, of the Colombo Museum, for the preservation 

 of colours. His stay on Ramesvaram Island completed, he paid 

 a short visit to Tuticorin, to work out some doubtful points in 

 connection with the anatomy of the pearl oyster. In his second 

 tour he made large collections illustrative of the arts, industries, 

 manufactures, and natural history of the places visited in the 

 Bangalore, Hassan, Shimoga, and Mysore districts. These col- 

 lections include Sravanbelgola brass-ware, Sorab and Sagar 



