June i i, 1896] 



NA TURE 



The death of his wife last year was a blow to him, from 

 which he never seemed quite to recover. Vet at the 

 Centenary of the Institute of France, last October, he 

 took his part in the various functions, save those that 

 required evening attendance. He accompanied the 

 excursionists to Chantilly, and was welcomed there by 

 the Due d'Aumale as an old colleague and personal 

 friend. He began to be somewhat ailing before Easter, 

 and though for a time he appeared to rally, and hopes 

 were entertained that his life might still be prolonged, he 

 died peacefully on May 29, at his house in the Boulevard 

 St. (ierniain. 



A courteous and polished gentleman of the old school, 

 M. Daubree was everj-where a favourite. There was a 

 certain gentle timidity of manner which gave him a 

 peculiar charm. To those privileged with his friendship 

 he was a warm-hearted kindly benefactor who never spared 

 himself trouble to do a kind act, and to give proofs of the 

 depth of his aftectionate nature. A. G. 



NOTES. 



At the annual meeting of the Royal Society for the election 

 of Fellows, held on Thursday last, in the Society's rooms in 

 Burlington House, the following gentlemen were elected into 

 the Society : — Lieut. -Colonel Sir George Sydenham Clarke, 

 R. E., Dr. J. Norman Collie, Dr. Arthur Matthew Weld Down- 

 ing, Dr. Francis Elgar, Prof Andrew Gray, Dr. George 

 Jennings Hinde. Prof. Henry Alexander Miers, Dr. Frederick 

 Walker Mott, Dr. John Murray, Prof. Karl Pearson, Rev. 

 Thomas Roscoe Rede Stebbing, Prof. Charles Stewart, Mr. 

 William E. Wilson, Mr. Horace Bolingbroke Woodward, and 

 Dr. William Palmer Wynne. The investigations made by each 

 of the new Fellows are set forth in the certificates printed in our 

 issue of May 7. 



A DISTIXGUISHED philosopher, a wonderful orator, and a 

 mind that was always on the side of advancement in science, 

 art and literature, has been lost to France by the death of 

 M. Jules Simon. He was a great educational reformer, and 

 his voice and pen were always ready to support those things 

 which make for the peace and progress of the world. At the 

 celebration of the Centenary of the Institute of France, last 

 October, he delivered a remarkable discourse, which was printed 

 in full in these columns. His concluding words reflect the 

 broadness of his mind so well, that they may be appropriately 

 repeated now. " Associes et corresjjundants de ITnstitut de 

 France, vous n'emporterez pas seulement d'ici le souvenir des 

 chaJeureuses sympathies qui vous ont accueillis. Nous eni- 

 porterons tous, de cette reunion fraternelle, un redoublement 

 d"amour pour la paix, pour les sciences (lui la fecondent et pour 

 les arts qui rembellissent ; et nous travaillerons, chacun dans 

 notre coin prefere de I'atelier universel, a la prosperite de la 

 maison, c'est-a-dire au bonheur de I'humanite." The French 

 Chamber has shown its appreciation of Jules Simon's services in 

 the interests of humanity by voting ten thousand francs for a 

 public funeral, and this has been unanimously agreed to by the 

 Senate. 



Dr. Roux has been elected an associate of the Academy of 

 Medicine, in the room of the late M. Pasteur. 



Sir George Stokes and Dr. Carl L. Griesbach, Director of 

 the Geological Survey of India, have been elected honorary 

 members of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. 



The annual conversazione of the Institution of Electrical 

 Engineers will be held in the Galleries of the Royal Institute of 



NO. 1389, VOL. 54] 



Painters in Water Colours, Piccadilly, on the evening of Thurs- 

 day, June 25. 



An agricultural bacteriological laboratory will shortly be 

 opened at St. Petersburg, under the Ministry of Agriculture 

 and State's Domains. Its chief purpose will be the study of 

 the micro-organisms which are harmful to agriculture, and the 

 pursuit of scientific studies in bacteriology. The laboratory is 

 endowed with a yearly grant of 10,000 roubles (£\cioa) from 

 the Treasury of the State. 



The members of M. Andree's balloon expedition to the 

 North Pole left Gothenburg on Sunday, June 7, on board the 

 steamer Virgo, bound for Spitzbergen. 



Owing to some difficulty in connection with the prepara- 

 tions for his new expedition to Greenland, Lieutenant Peary 

 will be unable to come to England as he intended. The meeting 

 of the Royal Geographical Society on Tuesday, June 16, at which 

 he was to read a paper, will, therefore, not be held. 



The steam yacht Windward left St. Katharine's Docks on 

 Tuesday with a very large supply of provisions, a number of 

 sledges, and two additional members for the Franz-Josef Land 

 party of the Jackson-Harmsworth Expedition. It is hoped 

 that she will communicate with the explorers at Cape Flora, 

 Franz-Josef Land, on or about July 20. As soon as the Wind- 

 ward has discharged her cargo, she will leave Franz-Josef Land 

 with news of the doings of the explorers, and she may be ex- 

 pected in England by the end of September. About this time 

 next year, if all has gone well, the ship will leave London again 

 to bring the explorers home. 



We regret to record the death of Sir George Johnson, F. R.S., 

 at the age of seventy-eight. He obtained his medical education 

 in King's College Medical School, with which institution his 

 life's work is intimately associated; for at different times he there 

 filled the posts of medical tutor, professor of materia medica 

 and therapeutics, professor of the principles and practice of 

 medicine, and professor of clinical medicine. He was the author 

 of numerous works and papers on medical subjects, the best- 

 remembered of which will probably be those on cholera, 

 epidemic diarrhcea, and Bright's disease. A melancholy interest 

 is attached to the fact that his last work, on "The Pathology of 

 the Contracted Granular Kidney," was published the day before 

 his death. He was elected a Fellow of the University of London 

 in 1862, and was admitted into the Royal Society ten years later. 



Towards the end of a long and highly appreciative notice of 

 the hfe and works of the late Sir J. Russell Reynolds, whose 

 death we briefly recorded last week, the British Medical 

 Journal thus refers to the scholarly address which he delivered 

 as president of the successful meeting of the British Medical 

 Association held in 1895 • — " His presidential address, as the last 

 important public utterance of a distinguished man, has now a 

 double interest. As we reperuse it we seem to read the 

 departing words of a veteran to whom the sunset of life had 

 already given mystical lore, and whose admonitions to those 

 who shortly will reign in his room have assumed oracular force. 

 At the end of a span of years greater than is usually allotted to 

 men of our calling, he looks with calm survey over a period the 

 most pregnant with scientific progress the world has ever yet 

 known. In a series of terse, closely reasoned passages he points 

 out the vast changes that have occurred in the entire theory 

 and method of physic since he first set foot in a hospital ward, 

 rejoicing in the advances made, warning his successors against 

 the errors and defects that those very advances may beget. 

 Science is great, wisdom is greater ; the ampler the armament 



