May 6, 1898.] 



SCIENCE. 



635 



bei-ger, professor of mineralogy at Wiirzburg, 

 aged 72 years. 



Me. Melville Atwood, geologist and 

 metallurgist, died on April 25tli, at Berkeley, 

 Cal. He was born in Worcester, Eng., on July 

 SI, 1812, and went to tbe gold and diamond 

 mines of Brazil at an early age. In 1843 he 

 made a discovery that increased the commercial 

 value of zinc ore. He came to California in 

 1852, and invented and introduced the blanket 

 system of amalgamation. He was a member of 

 the Academy of Science and of the Microscop- 

 ical Society of San Francisco, and a Fellow of 

 the Geological Society of London. 



Eefeeeing to the recent death of Professor 

 Aime Girard at the meeting of the Paris Acad- 

 emy on April 12th, M. Th. Schloesing, according 

 to the translation in Nature, remarked: " M. 

 Aim6 Girard was the highest authority on 

 chemical and agricultural industries in the 

 Academy. After some valuable scientific work 

 he was nominated professor of industrial chem- 

 istry at the Conservatorie des Arts et Metiers, 

 in succession to Pay en. His teaching revealed 

 the dominating object of his efforts. Affable 

 and cheerful, loyal and entirely disinterested, 

 he possessed all the attributes required to gain 

 the confidence of manufacturers. The pro- 

 ducers whose places he visited, in France and 

 in other countries, became and remained his 

 friends ; they gave to him a large amount of 

 information which he used to enrich his attrac- 

 tive lectures, and in return M. Girard oflfered 

 them advice suggested by his esperience and 

 his own investigations. In a few years his 

 masterly researches on vegetable fibres, wheat, 

 farinas, sugars and woods had made him the 

 first authority upon these matters, and he was 

 frequently consulted by the government on 

 subjects concerning the great industries of 

 paper, alcohol, sugar, flour and bakery. The 

 study of these products led to inquiries as to 

 crops. In this new direction M. Girard ren- 

 dered valuable services, and, after his researches 

 on the cultivation of sugar-beet and the im- 

 provement of the potato, he obtained among 

 agriculturists the same position and the same 

 sympathies which he enjoyed in the industrial 

 world. Though weakened in recent years by 



illness, and saddened by repeated troubles, he 

 nevertheless continued his work. He died 

 while occupied in applying to wheat of various 

 origins the new methods of analysis which 

 were the subject of a recent communication to 

 the Academy. The vacancy which his death 

 has caused enables us to estimate the high place 

 which he occupied in scientific societies and in 

 the committees in which he took part." 



The Sanitary Institute of Great Britain will 

 hold its next meeting in Birmingham, com- 

 mencing on September 27th. Sir Joseph Fayrer, 

 Bart, is the President. 



The twenty-seventh Congress of German 

 Surgeons was opened on April 13th in the hall 

 of the Langenbeckhaus in Berlin by the Presi- 

 dent, Professor Trendelenburg, of Leipzig. 

 About 800 members were present. A donation 

 was announced of 50,000 Marks from the Lang- 

 enbeck family, the interest of which sum is to 

 be devoted to studies in military surgery. Pro- 

 fessor Hahn, of Berlin, was elected President 

 for the next Congress. 



The Societe Franjais de Physique held its 

 annual exhibition of apparatus in its rooms on 

 April 15th and 16th. Addresses were made by 

 MM. Ducretet, Morin and Hurmuzescu. 



The regular public lecture for April of the 

 N. Y. Academy of Sciences was given on the 

 27th inst., by Dr. James Douglas, his subject 

 being the progress of mining and metallurgy 

 during the last half century. 



At the Paris Museum of Natural History, M. 

 Stanislas Meunier has begun a course of lec- 

 tures on experimental geology in which he will 

 discuss" the attempts that have been made to 

 reproduce artificially geological phenomena. 



Me. Haevey will give, at the approaching 

 annual meeting of the Paris Academic des In- 

 scriptions, an address on the introduction, in 

 1647, of the teaching of chemistry in France 

 through the Scotchman Davisson. 



We referred recently to the eiForts of the 

 Prince of Monaco for the establishment of an 

 observatory in the Azores for meteorological, 

 seismic and other observations. He addressed 

 the Eoyal Society on the subject last week and 

 proposed that the observatory be made inter- 

 national in character. 



