294 Miscellaneous Intelligence. 



10. British Museum^ (Athen., No. 1130.) — The total amount ex- 

 pended on the new building and fittings of the British Museum, and for 

 ornamental sculpture, from the commencement of the re-building in 

 1823 up to the 31st of March, 1849, amounts, as shown by a Parlia- 

 mentary return, to 696,995/. The total amount of expenditure that 

 will be required for further buildings and fittings is estimated at 56,500/. 



11. Platinum and Diamonds in California, — The existence of Pla- 

 tinum in the gold sands of California has of late been often announced. 

 Specimens from the region have recently been seen by the editors of 

 this Journal. — We also learn from a reliable source that the diamond 



occurs at the placers. The writer — Rev. Mr. Lyman — describes a 

 crystal seen by him, of a straw-yellow color, having the usual convex 

 faces, and about the size of a small pea. He saw the crystal but for 

 a few moments, and had no opportunity for close examination : but the 

 appearance and form left little doubt that it was a true diamond. 



12. W. Lasse/L — The Royal Society of London has presented to 

 Mr. Lassell a medal for the discovery of the planet Metis, of one at 

 least of the Satellites of Herschel, of a Satellite of Neptune, and of an 

 eighth Satellite of Saturn. 



OBITUARY. 



13. Geohge W. Whistler. — We had hardly received the announce- 

 ment of the decease of our old friend, commemorated in the last num- 

 ber of this Journal ; — ere we were called to grieve for the loss of an- 



other; who, a man of science applied in a different walk, has been the 

 means of extending in another hemisphere the reputation of not only 

 his own but of the American name. We sorrowfully pay the due 

 tribute to worth like his, thus cut off in the midst of usefulness and 

 before attaining the zenith of fame to which he might justly have 

 looked, by furnishing the following notice of the principal epochs of 

 his life and works; prepared by one, who at an earlier period served 

 with and under him. 



George Washington Whistler was born in May, 1800, at Fort 

 Wayne in the present State of Indiana, but then part of the Northwest 

 Territory. This post was commanded by his father, Major Whistler; 

 then and till after the war of 1812, an officer of artillery. He was one 

 of the younger of a numerous family of children ; of whom none now 

 survive, except Col. William Whistler, of the 4th regiment of infantry. 



Upon the reduction of the army after the war, Major Whistler, the 

 father, was among those not retained ; from the circumstance of his 

 having already two sons in the service. But he accepted the post of 

 military storekeeper at Newport, Kentucky ; whence he was transferred 

 to St. Louis, and died in a good old age. The family had indeed been 

 removed to Newport, while W T histler was still in childhood ; and he 

 received there his early education. But still earlier education and con- 

 tinual association had inspired him with a taste for military life, to 

 which other circumstances were not adverse, and accordingly we find 

 him entered as a cadet at West Point in 1814. 



A change in the regulation of the Academy after his entrance, gave 

 him the advantage of a longer course there than is now required. He 

 remained five years as a cadet; and graduated in 1819. He did not 



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