April 11, 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



595 



ing,' may safely accept the conclusions reached 

 by Pemter and Trabert. 



NOTES. 



An article on 'The Making of Australia,' in 

 the Scottish Geographical Magazine for March 

 recalls the fact that in the early days of ex- 

 ploration in the interior of Australia the dis- 

 covery of an inland sea was reported. The 

 news was naturally hailed with delight, but 

 further exploration soon showed that no such 

 sea existed. The deception had been caused 

 by a mirage. 



For November and December, 1901, the 

 Monthly Bulletin of the Philippine Weather 

 Bureau appears for the first time in English 

 as well as in Spanish. In the December num- 

 ber there is an account of the earthquake of 

 December 15 at Manila, with a facsimile (nat- 

 ural size) of the curves traced by the Cecehi 

 seismograph. 



The Weather Bureau has recently issued a 

 new edition of its 'Instructions for Voluntary 

 Observers.' This useful pamphlet contains in- 

 structions for the erection, use and care of 

 maximum and minimum thermometers and 

 of the rain-gauge; instructions regarding the 

 keeping of records, and a brief discussion of 

 the proper uses of several terms which are 

 often misused, e. g., hurricane, tornado, whirl- 

 win'd, etc. 



A SECOND edition of Eliot's valuable 'Hand- 

 book of Cyclonic Storms in the Bay of Ben- 

 gal,' embodying all the latest results, has been 

 published. The fii-st edition was dated 1890. 

 E. DeC. Ward. 



Hakvabd Universitt. 



JOHANN VON BADIN6ER. 



The obituary notices of Johann von Ead- 

 inger, who died November 20, 1901, are ap- 

 pearing in the European scientific journals. 



Eadinger was born July 30, 1842, in Vienna. 

 His education was secured at the Technischen 

 Hochschule, where he became assistant to 

 Professor von Burg before completing his 

 course, and, later, 1867, adjunct to Professor 

 Grimm von Grimburg. He was promoted in 

 1876, and was made Professor des Maschinen- 



baues in 1879. In 1891 he was the Director 

 of that great school of engineering, and at 

 his death, his record within its walls extended 

 over a period of thirty-four years. ]n 1895 he 

 was made President of the Osterreiehischen 

 Ingenieur and Architektenvereines. 



In all this long professional and scientific 

 career, Eadinger exhibited talent, even origi- 

 nal genius, industry and great power of 

 achievement. But his spirit was of that lofty 

 and broad and clear-sighted character which, 

 as in the case of nearly every man of genius, 

 while splendidly working in a chosen vocation, 

 could still find opportunity and strength for 

 those avocations which attract all men of 

 mind. He was interested in art, in literature 

 and in all the sciences. He kept himself 

 abreast modern progress in all these depart- 

 ments of human activity. He even found time 

 to do some purely literary work, and his 

 dramatic poem, 'Das Weib des Polykrates,' 

 was produced under most trying circum- 

 stances. His genius was recognized by both 

 state and private honors. The Order of the 

 Iron Crown was conferred upon this engineer 

 and man of science as the highest tribute the 

 government could pay to his merits as a man 

 and a public-spirited citizen. 



He combined, as do so many men of his pro- 

 fession, practical knowledge and high attain- 

 ments in applied science with an intimate ac- 

 quaintance with the pure sciences. He found 

 occupation for a time with Call at Paris in 

 practical manufactures and, as Konstrukteur, 

 himself directed important interprises. He 

 performed his full share of the great work of 

 his time in the reduction of the art of machine- 

 construction to a scientific system. He was 

 particularly fruitful of good work in the de- 

 velopment of the theory and the scientific 

 method of design and construction of details 

 of mechanism, interesting himself particularly 

 in the great work of his generation of making 

 the heat-engine, and especially the steam- 

 engine, an embodiment of the theory and the 

 art, in applied thermodynamics and in applied 

 mechanics. He was a successful leader in the 

 substitution of the exact methods of science 

 in these fields for the old 'rule-of -thumb' ways, 

 in the conversion of the vocation of engineer- 



