J^^/y?. i88i] 



NATURE 



219 



is a frightful seething whirlpool, whence the creamy channel before alluded to, and go hissing away through 

 waters rush, after the mad conflict, into the narrow rocky I the capricious zigzag chasm." 



Fig. 4.— Moji-Oa-Tunia (the Vicuna Falls).— The West Falls. 



In the appendices and throughout the work Major Pinto I one of the most attractive and instructive of recent 

 gives many astronomical and meteorological observations narratives of African travel, 

 which are of real scientific value. Altogether his work is ' 



t. TIENNE HENR Y SAINTE-CLAIRE DE VILLE. 



■X \ rE regret to record a serious loss to French chemistry 

 ' • in the death of the celebrated professor, Sainte- 

 Claire Deville, which occurred July I, at Boulogne-sur- 

 Seine. Etienne Henry Sainte- Claire Deville was born 

 March II, 1818, on the island of St. Thomis, in the 

 Antilles, and was of Creole origin. Like most of the 

 youth in the French colonies, he was sent to Paris to 

 undertake a course of study. Of his two brothers who 

 also proceeded to France to enter upon active careers, one, 

 the late Charles Sainte-Claire Deviile, devoted himself 

 likewise to science, and we have had occasion more than 

 once to refer to his remarkable geological investigations 

 in these pages. While the Creole element has rarely 

 lacked in the artistic and literary circles of the French 

 capital, we believe that the two brothers in question 

 furnish the only notable instance in which science 

 has profited from the highly imaginative and versatile 

 Creole temperament. It is related of the young Heary 

 that on completing his collegiate studies, he hesitated for 

 a long time in making his choice between music and 

 science. His decision was due in a great measure to the 

 enthusiasm awakened at the time by the brilliant lectures 

 and no less brilliant investigations of Jean Baptiste 

 Dumas. Guided by the counsels of the latter, he equipped 

 a laboratory, and commenced a series of investigations 

 so fertile of results that in a short time he was ranked 

 among the most promising of the younger school of 



chemists. In 1844 he entered upon professorial duties in 

 accepting the Chairof Chemistry in the Scientific Faculty of 

 Besangon, where, notwithstanding his comparative youth, 

 he was appointed dean of his faculty. In 1S51 he was 

 called upon to succeed Balard as Professor of Chemistry 

 at the Ecole Normale of Paris. Gladly e.xchanging the 

 comparative obscurity of a provincial university town 

 for the manifold advantages of a Parisian professorship, 

 he devoted himself with such ardour to the duties of his 

 new position that, after a short lapse of time, the labora- 

 tory of the Ecolc Norinak became one of the central 

 points of chemical investigation, not only in France but 

 in all Europe. In 1S54 he accepted, in addition to his 

 usual duties, a lectureship at the Sorbonne, which, four- 

 teen years later, was changed for a full professorship. 

 His favourite field of activity remained, however, the 

 Ecolc Normale, and it was with difficulty, some months 

 since, that he felt himself called upon to relinquish active 

 professorial duties in consequence of rapidly increasing 

 feebleness. 



As an investigator, Deville made his debut in organic 

 chemistry in 1840 with a remarkable study of turpentine 

 oil and various derivatives of the terpenes. His care- 

 fully tabulated results form the chief basis of our present 

 knowledge of the different isomeric states of this group. 

 They were followed in 1842 by a research on toluene, the 

 importance of which was only duly feh on the iritroduc- 

 tion of the aniline colours. After minor investigations 

 of various resins, Deville abandoned organic chemistry 



