82 Miscellaneous Intelligence. 



Prof. G. K. Gilbert, President; The American Microscopical 

 Society, on Aug. 9, 10, 11, 12, Prof. M. E. Ewell, Prest. ; The 

 Society for tiw promotion of Agricultural Science, on Aug. 15, 

 16, Prof. I. P. Roberts, Prest., and the Association of JEcono);t<<- 

 Entomologists, on Aug. 15, 16, Dr. J. A. Lintner, President. 



OBITUARY. 



Lewis Morris Rutherfurd died on the 30th of May at Ins 

 home, Tranquillity, New Jersey, in the seventy-sixth year of his 

 age. He was born at Morrisania, N. Y., Nov. 25th, 1816, and 

 was graduated at Williams College in 1834. He at first devoted 

 himself to the practice of the law, but in 1843 he turned into the 

 field of physical science in which he was to accomplish such good 

 work. His interests lay chiefly in the direction of stellar pho- 

 tography and spectroscopic work, and in 1862 and 1863 he pub- 

 lished (in this Journal) several important papers upon these sub- 

 jects. One of these discussed the spectra of the stars, moon and 

 the planets, which was one of the early contributions in this line 

 and contained the first attempt to classify stars according to 

 their spectra. He constructed about the same time a telescope 

 for photographic work with specially corrected objective of 114; 

 inches aperture, and in 1868 one of 13 inches; with the latter he 

 made many admirable negatives of the sun, moon and star 

 groups; his photographs of the lunar surface are remarkable for 

 their beauty and perfection. He also constructed a micrometer 

 for astronomical measurements, and in connection with photo- 

 graphs of stellar groups he made a large series of measures which 

 in many cases constitute the earliest accurate observations of the 

 clusters in question. A paper has recently been published* upon 

 the " Rutherfurd Photographic Measures of the Group of the 

 Pleiades," and it is stated that others are to follow giving the 

 results of the Rutherfurd measures. Another work of great 

 importance was the construction in 1890 of an accurate ruling 

 engine with which he ruled diffraction gratings for spectroscopic 

 work; these "Rutherfurd gratings" for many years played as 

 important a part as do the "Rowland gratings" to-day. 



Mr. Rutherfurd was one of the original members of the National 

 Academy of Sciences. He was named by the President of the 

 United States as one of the American delegates to the Interna- 

 tional Meridian Conference that met in Washington in October, 

 1885, and he took a prominent part in the work. In 1887 he was 

 invited by the French Academj' of Sciences to become a member 

 of the International Conference on Astronomical Photography, 

 held in Paris in 1887, and was appointed by the President of the 

 National Academy of Sciences as its representative, but was 

 obliged to decline the honor on account of his failing health. He 

 was an Associate of the Royal Astronomical Society and, besides 

 being a member of several scientific societies in this country and 

 abroad, was the recipient of many medals, orders and diplomas. 



*By Harold Jacobs in the Annals N. T. Acad. Sci., vol. vi, pp. 239-330, Feb. 

 1892. 



