SCIENCE 



FRIDAY, AUGUST 26, 1887. 



A FEW WEEKS AGO Stanley's death was announced by a cable 

 despatch from St. Thom6. A missionary at Matadi was said to 

 have received the news from a negro who had come from the upper 

 Kongo. A few days ago the French government received a tele- 

 gram to the same effect from Zanzibar. Both these reports are 

 utterly unreliable. The last letters from Stanley were dated from 

 Aruwimi Falls, June 18. He informed his friends of his safe arrival 

 there, and says that the natives report numerous falls and rapids 

 farther up the river. Therefore he was about to begin his land 

 journey to the Mvutan Nsige. No later news has been received at 



the mouth of the Kongo, and the arrival at Zanzibar of letters or 

 news from his expedition at this date is out of the question, as the 

 distance is very great and part of the route difficult. It is probable 

 that at the present time Stanley is very near Emin Pacha, or has 

 met him. The messengers who were sent from Zanzibar to inform 

 Emin of Stanley's expedition were detained some time by Mwanga, 

 and only recently reached Unyoro. Here they learned that Emin 

 had crossed the Mvutan Nsige, and gone up the river which prob- 

 ably connects the Muta and Mvutan Nsige. They were unable to 

 see him, and therefore were expecting his return. From these re- 

 ports it appears that Emin never intended to make his way through 

 Uganda, as was said some time ago. News from Central Africa 

 reaches us now with such wonderful speed that we may expect to 

 hear soon of the meeting of Emin and Stanley on the shore of the 

 Mvutan Nsige. Emin's latest letters show that the condition of his 

 province has greatly improved, and that at the present time peace 

 prevails on the banks of the upper Nile ; but he says that the negro 

 tribes are at the present time much more powerful than they were 

 before the war, as they have obtained numerous guns. Therefore 

 Stanley's help will be very welcome, and probably enable him to 

 carry on the work of civilization which he has so successfully 

 begun. 



TWO LOSSES TO SCIENCE. 



This week we have to chronicle the deaths of two leading 

 American scientific men. Spencer F. Baird, born at Reading, 

 Penn., Feb. 3, 1823, died at Wood's Holl on Aug. 22. Alvan Clark 

 died the same day at his home in Cambridge, at the age of eighty- 

 three, having been born, at Ashfield, Mass., March 8, 1804. We 

 have already told, in Science, of Baird's life. He was from youth 

 interested in natural history, and so devoted his time and energies 

 that he was early an honored companion of the best. His executive 

 powers finally led to his being singled out as a fit head for first one 

 and then another of the rapidly growing government scientific 

 organizations, and it is for his good conduct of these affairs that we 

 now best know him, and for which he received the sincere respect 

 of the public. Of Clark it might be said that we came near losing 

 him. He was forty before he began his life-work which made him 

 famous. His oldest son, as many a boy has before and since, 

 wished a telescope, and, per force of circumstances, must make it. 



He asked his father's help in grinding and polishing the piece of 

 speculum metal he had obtained for his reflector. The father had 

 never seen a mirror or lens ground and polished. But, as he once 

 said, " a father tries pretty hard when a child asks for help ; " and 

 this father did try, so that now the renown of his achievements as 

 a maker of lenses is world-wide. 



Mr. Clark had been in his usual good health up to a fortnight ago, 

 when he complained of illness, and though no disease of an organic 

 nature appeared, he gradually failed, and death resulted from old 

 age. He was essentially a New England man. He labored on the 

 farm until he reached his twenty-second year, and then, having by 



