112 



NATURE 



{Dec. 4, 1879 



at night and during early morning hours, as the inventor 

 has to give his daytime to his profession of teacher. 

 Signor Perini informs us that he could without difficulty 

 make his planetarium as large as the Albert Hall and 

 small enough to become a school apparatus for teaching. 

 He showed us a table, like a small writing-table, between 

 the tops of which he had arranged his machinery on a 

 small scale to give motion to a tellurium which he fits on 

 to the table. Of course the invention, as indeed Signor 

 Perini admits, may be capable of improvements in detail, 

 but as it stands it seems to us a triumph of ingenuity and 

 determined perseverance, for which its inventor deserves 

 the highest credit. 



A MICROSCOPIC SERENADE 1 





O COME, my love, and seek with me 

 A realm by grosser eye unseen, 

 Where fairer forms will welcome thee, 

 And dainty creatures bail thee queen. 

 In silent pools the tube I'll ply, 

 Where green conferva-threads lie curled, 

 And proudly bring to thy bright eye 

 The trophies of the protist world. 



We'll rouse the stentor from his lair, 

 And gaze into the cyclops' eye ; 

 In chara and nitella hair 

 The protoplasmic stream descry, 

 Forever weaving to and fro 

 With faint molecular melody ; 

 And curious rotifers I'll show, 

 And graceful vorticellida?. 



Where melicertse ply their craft 

 We'll watch the playful water-bear, 

 And no envenomed hydra's shaft 

 Shall mar our peaceful pleasure there ; 

 But while we whisper love's sweet tale 

 We'll trace, with sympathetic art, 

 Within the embryonic snail 

 The growing rudimental heart. 



Where rolls the volvo\- sphere of green, 

 And plastids move in Brownian dance, — 

 If, wandering 'mid that gentle scene, 

 Two fond amcebse shall perchance 



T From Scr r y Magazine for November. 



Be changed to one beneath our sight 

 By process of biocrasis, 

 We'Jl recognise, with rare delight, 

 A type of our prospective bliss. 



O dearer thou by far to me 

 In thy sweet maidenly estate 

 Than any seventy-fifth could be, 

 Of aperture however great ! 

 Come, go with me, and we will stray 

 Through realm by grosser eye unseen, 

 Where protophytes shall homage pay, 

 And protozoa hail thee queen. 



Jacob F. Hexrici 



JOHN ALLAN BROUN 



TT is only a few weeks ago that it became our painful 

 *■ duty to record the untimely death of a distinguished 

 mathematical and experimental physicist, and we have 

 now to mourn the loss of one equally distinguished in 

 observational inquiry. John Allan Broun was born at 

 Dumfries, where his father had, we believe, a normal 

 school especially intended for young men about to enter 

 the navy. Upon the death of his father, Mr. Broun, 

 then about twenty years of age, went to the University of 

 Edinburgh, and speedily became a successful student in 

 more than one branch of knowledge. But his strongest 

 attachment was always to physical science, and the late 

 James D. Forbes, who was at that time Professor ot 

 Natural Philosophy at Edinburgh, considered Mr. Broun 

 as one of his very best pupils. A friendship was thus 

 formed which lasted through life. 



About 1842 the scientific world began to perceive the 

 necessity of conducting cosmical inquiries, and Sir 

 Thomas McDougal Brisbane, in the most generous 

 manner, agreed to establish and maintain a magnetical 

 observatory at his residence at Makerstoun. Prof. 

 Forbes had thus the opportunity of recommending his 

 pupil, Mr. Broun, to Sir Thomas, who gave him the 

 directorship of his observatory. In this capacity he con- 

 tinued to reside at Makerstoun for some years, where 

 the delight of pursuing an occupation congenial to his 

 tastes was enhanced by the great pleasure he derived 

 from the society of Sir Thomas Brisbane, and of his 

 amiable family, and their loss one after another was a 

 very severe trial to him. It was no slight task to super- 

 intend an institution such as this in a branch of science 

 then comparatively new, and Mr. Broun laboured so 

 hard at his duties that he began to have palpitation of 

 the heart, caused, probably, by his constant night watches. 

 In consequence of this he obtained as his assistant Mr. 

 John Welsh, who became one of his warmest friends, and 

 who afterwards, as Director of the Kew Observatory, won 

 for himself a high reputation in the course of a life that 

 was, unhappily, very short. 



Mr. Broun left Makerstoun in 1850 and went to Paris, 

 where he formed the acquaintance of the lady who was 

 afterwards his wife, I saline Vallouy, the daughter of a 

 clergyman in the Canton du Vaud, and belonging to an 

 old Protestant family of Dauphine (du val Louise) who 

 had fled from France at the Revolution. This lady is now 

 left to mourn his loss. From this marriage he had three 

 sons and two daughters. Of his sons one is an architect, 

 one has just left this country to enter upon his duties as 

 civil servant in the North-West Provinces of India, while 

 another, in preparation for the Indian forest department, 

 is finishing his studies at Nancy. In 1851, through the 

 influence of his friend, Col. Sykes, Mr. Broun was ap- 

 pointed director of the Trevandrum Observatory, an 

 institution supported by His Highness the Rajah ot 

 Travancore, and he left this country for India in the 

 same year. Of the scientific value of his work in India 

 we will speak later on ; but we may remark that it was 



