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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



University. Here his abilities seemed for 

 the first time to have free scope, and his 

 career was brilliant He established the 

 American Journal of Mathematics, through 

 which and by his personal teaching and in- 

 fluence he gave a great vitality to mathemat- 

 ical study in this country which still pervades 

 it. In 1883 he was elected Savillian Pro- 

 fessor of Mathematics in the University of 

 Oxford, where he repeated the success he had 

 achieved at Johns Hopkins and exerted as 

 potent an influence. 



PROF. HENRY DRUMMOND, who died in 

 March, 1897, was best known to scientific 

 and the religious circles by his book on Nat- 

 ural Law in the Spiritual World, which 

 touched upon points in which both were in- 

 terested. His later volume, a collection of 

 Lowell Lectures, on the Ascent of Man, also 

 went into both fields. These books, how- 

 ever, well intentioned and readable as they 

 were, were subjected to adverse criticism 

 from both sides. In 1879 he accompanied 

 Sir Archibald Geikie in a geological tour in 

 the Rocky Mountains, and afterward visited 

 the Scotch mission stations in East South 

 Africa. A result of this visit was a very 

 interesting book on Tropical Africa. 



MR. SIDNEY WALKER, fellow of the Royal 

 Astronomical Society since 1873, whose death 

 was recently announced, read several papers 

 on nebulae before the society, and contributed 

 an article on the distribution of the stars in 

 the southern hemisphere to the Monthly No- 

 tices for 1878. He made two very fine maps 

 showing the distribution of the nebulae and 

 clusters in Dr. Dreyer's catalogue. 



M. ANTOINE T. D'ABBADIE, a member of 

 the French Academy of Science since 1867, 

 in the Section of Geography and Navigation, 

 died in Paris, after a long illness, March 20th, 

 in his eighty-seventh year. His scientific 

 work included exploration, astronomy, geod- 

 esy, physics, and numismatics. In 1893 he 

 bequeathed to the Academy, reserving a life 

 interest to his wife, the chateau of Abbadie, 

 in the Pyrenees, which yields an annual 

 revenue of 20,000 francs, and bank shares 

 yielding 15,000 francs. He was one of the 

 earlier explorers of Abyssinia, observed the 

 eclipse of the sun of 1 882 in Santo Domingo, 

 and published important works on geograph- 

 ical exploration and geodesy. 



PROF. CHARLES TOMLINSON, who died Feb- 

 ruary 14th, in his eighty-ninth year, was on 

 the Council of the British Association for 

 the Advancement of Science, a fellow of the 

 Royal Society, a fellow of the Chemical So- 

 ciety, and one of the founders of the Physical 

 Society. For a number of years he was lec- 

 turer on Experimental Science at King's Col- 

 lege, and was examiner in physics to the 

 Birkbeck Institution. He held the Dante 

 lectureship at University College, 1878-'80. 

 He wrote many handy text-books on natural 



philosophy, meteorology, and natural history, 

 and contributed largely to the Transactions 

 of the Royal and Chemical Societies. In 

 1854 he edited Tomlinson's Cyclopaedia of 

 Useful Arts, Mechanical and Chemical, Manu- 

 factures, Mining, and Engineering. He com- 

 piled the lives of Smeeton, Cuvier, and Lin- 

 naeus, and the notices of scientific men in 

 The English Cyclopaedia of Biography. 



AMONG the men of science abroad who 

 have died are Dr. Nikolai Zdekaner, St. 

 Petersburg, member of the Imperial Acad- 

 emy of Sciences, and known for his work in 

 behalf of hygiene and knowledge of epidem- 

 ics ; Herr Alois Rogenhofer, formerly Curator 

 of the Imperial Natural History Museum in 

 Vienna ; Dr. Hermann von Noerdlinger, for- 

 merly Professor of Forestry in Tubingen Uni- 

 versity ; Dr. Luigi Calori, Professor of Anat- 

 omy in the University of Bologna ; Dr. J. 

 D. E. Weyer, Professor of Mathematics and 

 Astronomy in the University of Kiel ; and 

 M. Vivien de St. Martin, famous for his re- 

 searches in ancient geography. 



THE death is announced of Mr. Henry 

 Boswell, a noted bryologist. Beginning his 

 botanical studies with flowering plants, he 

 later on turned his attention to the study of 

 mosses, both British and foreign, and made 

 a fine collection. 



IT seems certain that eels, while not ex- 

 actly amphibious, venture to spend consider- 

 able intervals of time on the land, away from 

 water. A German zoologist, Herr Frenzel, 

 as well as several other persons, recently ob- 

 served a young eel, about five inches long, 

 concealed in the network of the superficial 

 roots of a bush. It had come from a pond 

 about fourteen feet away, and six feet lower 

 down, and must have exerted vigorous ef- 

 forts to climb the bank. 



A CONSIGNMENT of the American craw- 

 fish ( Cambarus qffinis) has been received at 

 the French agricultural station Fecamp, for 

 acclimatation and propagation. These crus- 

 taceans are said to have been taken from the 

 waters of the Potomac. They are sought 

 because they appear not to be subject to the 

 disease which has carried away most of the 

 crawfish in the rivers of France, and are in- 

 tended to make up for the loss occasioned 

 thereby. 



ONE of the latest papers of the late Sir 

 Benjamin Ward Richardson set forth the 

 qualities of organic membranes as insulators. 

 Experiments were cited by the author going 

 to show that various membranes of the ani- 

 mal body, in addition to performing the 

 functions usually ascribed to them, are also 

 electrical insulators, and by their presence 

 confine and render useful the vital force 

 that is developed in the organs they sur- 

 round. 



