Pebkuary 1, 1899.] 



KNOWLEDGE. 



S? 



animal killed. This offer remained in force until 1891, 

 when it was cancelled owing to a special appeal. The 

 naturalists who are interesting themselves to secure 

 the preservation of the beaver abroad from the fate which 

 has overtaken it in this country, are wise enough to bring 

 forward the commercial as well as the scientific side of the 

 question. They point out that the work might be extended 

 and careful culture on a large scale be inaugurated, seeing 

 that not only valuable fur but castoreum is obtained from 

 the beaver. The success of the experiments in the National 

 Park in New York, and here in England in private grounds, 

 might be cited as an additional inducement to carrying out 

 similar ones on the Continent. 



— — • — 



We regret to record the death of the eminent physician, 

 Sir William Jenner, which took place on the 1 1 th December, 

 1898, at Greenwood, Bishop's Waltham, at the age of 

 eighty-three years. The son of an innkeeper at Chatham, 

 he was educated at University College, and his first public 

 appointment was as one of the district medical officers of 

 the Eoyal Maternity Charity. In 1844 he graduated 

 M.D., and four years later became a member of the Royal 

 College of Physicians ; in 1861 he was selected by Sir 

 James Clarke as Physician Extraordinary to Her Majesty, 

 and in 1862 Physician in Ordinary to Her Majesty. In 

 1863, he was appointed Physician in Ordinary to the 

 Prince of Wales, and in 1864 was elected a Fellow of the 

 Royal Society. He was created a baronet in 1868, K.C.B. 

 in 1872, and G.C.B. in 1889, when he finally retired from 

 practice to his country seat near Bishop's Waltham. The 

 establishment of the essential difference between two 

 diseases which ofifer many points of superficial resemblance, 

 typhus and the so-called typhoid fever, constitutes his 

 greatest scientific achievement. Sir William was a devoted 

 servant to her Majesty upwards of thirty years. It may 

 interest some to know that, on his own statement, his 

 professional fees had amounted to ^S 13, 000 in a year. 



Sir William Anderson, k.c.b., Director-General of 

 Ordnance Factories, died on the 11th December, 1898. 

 Born at St. Petersburg in 1835, he received his early 

 education there, and then studied the applied sciences at 

 King's College, London. From 1851 to 1854 he was a 

 pupU of Sir William Fairbairn at Manchester, after which, 

 till the year 1864, he was chiefly engaged in the construction 

 of bridges, cranes, signals, and other appliances for railways, 

 particularly so-caUed latticed girders, then but little under- 

 stood. In 1889 he was appointed Director-General of 

 Ordnance Factories, which comprise the Laboratory, 

 Carriage Departments, and the Gun Factory at the Royal 

 Arsenal, Woolwich, the R lyal Gun Factory at Waltham 

 Abbey, and the Small-arms Factories at Enfield and 

 Birmingham, at a salary of £2500 a year. Sir William was 

 the author of many works on engineering and allied 

 subjects, his " Lectures on Hydraulics and on Hydro- 

 Pneumatic Gun Carriages " and " The Conversion of Heat 

 into Work " being among the best known of his publications. 

 In 1889 he received the degree of d c.l. of Durham 

 University ; was made a c.b. in 1895 ; and a Knighthood 

 was conferred on him as a Diamond Jubilee honour. 



By the death of Sir John Fowler, in November last, a 

 conspicuous representative of modem engineering achieve- 

 mentis_ removed from our midst. Born in 1817, he became, 

 at the age of seventeen, pupil to Mr. Leather, a hydraulic 

 engineer, and was associated with schemes for water supply 



in Yorkshire. After acquiring experience of an unusually 

 varied and practical kind, he started on his own account 

 as chief engineer to a number of railways, notably the 

 Sheffield and Lincolnshire and the Great Grimsby Rail- 

 ways. When the fall fury of the railway mania broke 

 forth, his services were eagerly sought by railway promoters. 

 Sir John Fowler's connection with the Metropolitan Rail- 

 way — a scheme discouraged by prognostications of failure 

 from many of the most eminent engineers — has paved the 

 way to the possible construction of those cheaper tunnelled 

 lines which now promise to relieve the congestion which 

 has overtaken the street traffic — for instance, the City and 

 South London, the Waterloo and City, and the Central 

 London Railways, with which Sir John's name has been 

 associated. The crowning effort of Sir John's engineering 

 skill was devoted to the construction of the Forth Bridge, 

 which occupied six to seven years in building. On the day 

 when the ends of the ponderous cantilever arms, stretching 

 one thousand seven hundred feet across the waters, were 

 to be rivetted together in the centre of the span, it was found 

 that a gap, only an inch or two out of that vast length, was 

 left between the severed sections of the girder, and this 

 staggering problem was settled by kindling great fires on 

 the bridge, the increase of temperature causing expansion, 

 and enabled the rivets to be driven home. 



IL cttcr g. 



[The Editors do not hold them^eiveij responsible for the opinions or 

 statements of correspondents.] 



THK PLANET DQ. 

 To tJw Editors of Knowledge. 



Sirs, — It may be of interest to supplement the article 

 in the November number of Knowledge by giving some 

 additional particulars which have been obtained since then. 

 In the first place the provisional designation DQ has been 

 replaced by the permanent number 433 and the name 

 " Eros" (the only masculine title in the whole family of 

 minor planets). 



In the next place, the zeal of Prof. Chandler in com- 

 puting accurate ephemerides, and the patience and per- 

 severance of Prof. Pickering and Mrs. Fleming in sub- 

 mitting the immense storehouse of photographs obtained 

 at Harvard and Arequipa to a searching examination, have 

 been rewarded by the detection of the planet on twelve 

 plates taken in 1893-94, and on four plates taken in 1896. 

 This fortunate circumstance gives us at once the means of 

 immensely improving our knowledge of the orbit. Pertur- 

 bations will have to be computed before this can be done 

 with strict accuracy, but, in the meantime, the following 

 orbit deduced by Prof. Chandler may be accepted with 

 confidence as being certainly very near the truth: — 



Aphelion Passage, 1898, June 18' 19, Greenwich Mean Time. 



Longitude of perihelion 

 Longitude of ascending node.. 

 Inelinaiion to ecliptic... 

 Eccentricity 

 Mean distance from sun 

 Least I, » 

 Greatest „ „ 

 Average daily motion ... 

 Period 



121° 9' 53 1" 

 303° 31' 571 ' 

 10^ 50' 11-8" 

 n-222729 



1'45810^ The earth's mean 

 1-1333 1 ^ distance from the 

 1'782863 sun being unitv. 

 2015-2326" 

 643-10 davs 



It will be seen at once that these elements are very close 

 to the original ones found by Dr. Berberich, and the differ- 

 ence would not be appreciable on the scale of the diagram 

 given on p. 251, so that a new diagram is not required. It 

 should be pointed out that there is a misprint on p. 250 ; 

 Dr. Berberich's value of the period is 644-734 days, not 

 664-734 as printed there. 



