Miscellaneous Intelligence. 525 



powers which saved him from vagaries. These high intellectual 

 powers were served by an untiring capacity for work and equal 

 skill of eye and hand. 



" These are rare gifts ; but they are none of them, nor all of 

 them put together, as rare as his character. His simplicity, his 

 transparent sincerity, his ingenuous anxiety to serve science and 

 to serve science alone, his freedom from all desire for the rewards, 

 the honors and the recognition after which lesser men go a-wan- 

 dering, were as remarkable as his scientific powers." 



Never were words more truthful. Honors came to him from 

 all parts of the civilized world, and more because unsought. 



Dr. Leidy leaves a wife and an adopted daughter. 



John LeConte, Professor of Physics and Industrial Me- 

 chanics in the State University at Berkeley, California, died on 

 the 29th of April, aged 72 years. Professor LeConte, the oldest 

 son of the naturalist, Lewis LeConte, was born in 1818 in Liberty 

 County, Georgia. He was graduated from Franklin College, now 

 the University of Athens, Georgia, when he was twenty years old, 

 and from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York 

 City three years later. He then entered upon the practice of 

 medicine at Savannah where he remained for four years. In 

 1846 he was called to the Chair of Natural Philosophy in Frank- 

 lin College, which he occupied until 1855. In the following year 

 he lectured on chemistry at the College of Physicians and Sur- 

 geons in New York City ; in the same year he was made Profes- 

 sor of Natural and Mechanical Philosophy in South Carolina 

 College at Columbia, S. C, a position which he held for thirteen 

 years. 



In 1869 he was appointed Professor of Physics and Industrial 

 Mechanics in the University of California, and this position he 

 retained until 1881." From 1876 to 1881 he held, in connection 

 with his professorship, the office of President of the university, 

 and at the expiration of that term he retired to the Chair of 

 Physics, which he occupied until the time of his death. 



Professor LeConte's energies were early devoted to medicine 

 but later he turned toward physical science and in both depart- 

 ments he made numerous contributions which have been pub- 

 lished in the Proceedings of the American Association and in 

 various scientific journals. Among those which have appeared in 

 this Journal may be mentioned papers on the influence of musical 

 sounds on gas jets ; on the influence of solar light upon combus- 

 tion ; physical studies on the waters of Lake Tahoe ; several 

 papers upon various aspects of the phenomena of capillarity ; 

 also on sound shadows in water. In 1857 he delivered a course 

 of lectures on " The Physics of Meteorology " before the Smith- 

 sonian Institution, in Washington, and in 1867 he read an im- 

 portant paper on " The Stellar Universe " before the Peabody 

 Institute, in Baltimore. His whole list of published writings 

 includes about a hundred papers extending over a wide range of 

 subjects. 



Am. Jour. Scl— Third Series, Vol. XLI, No. 246.— June, 1891. 

 35 



