398 Miscellaneous Intelligence. 



4. Science Abstracts. Physical and Electrical Engineering. — 

 The Institution of Electrical Engineers and the Physical Society 

 of London have recently undertaken the publication of a monthly 

 series of abstracts in their departments of science. This appears 

 to be an extension of the work hitherto done by the Physical 

 Society and published in their Proceedings. The editor-in-chief 

 is J. Swinburne and the sub editor W. R. Cooper. The committee 

 includes Capt. Abney, Profs. W. E. Ayrton, A. W. Rticker, S. P. 

 Thompson, and others, and a list of about forty abstractors is 

 given. Part 3, volume I, for March, 1898, is now in hand and 

 gives abstracts from No. 231 to 355. It is obvious that it is a 

 great advantage to all interested in science to have placed before 

 them a brief, well-written digest of memoirs recently published in 

 the many scattered journals and society transactions, and it is to 

 be hoped that the enterprise may receive the full support it de- 

 serves. 



OBITUARY. 



Prof. Jules Marcou, the veteran geologist, died at his home 

 in Cambridge, Mass., on April 17th at the age of seventy- four 

 years. He was born in Saline, Jura, France, April 20, 1824, and 

 was educated at Besancon and afterward at Paris. In 1845 he 

 became associated with Jules Thurmann, in his work on the 

 geology of Jura Mountains ; it was while engaged in this that he 

 first met Louis Agassiz, with whom he later became intimate. 

 Acting as traveling geologist for the Jardin des Plantes, he vis- 

 ited the United States and Canada in 1847 and accompanied Prof. 

 Agassiz on his trip to the Lake Superior region in 1848. The col- 

 lections of minerals he then made were forwarded to Paris in the 

 following year. Later he studied the geology of New Jersey, 

 Pennsylvania, Virginia and the Mammoth Cave. After a 

 short visit to Europe, in 1850, he returned to this country and pub- 

 lished his geological map of the United States and the British 

 North American possessions. Entering the geological service of 

 the United States in 1853, he made a section map of the thirty- 

 fifth parallel from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean. His 

 impaired health compelled a return to Europe in 1855, and from 

 that year to 1859 he held a professorship in the Polytechnic School 

 in Zurich. In 1861 he returned to the United States and aided Prof. 

 Agassiz in the founding of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, in 

 which he had charge of the paleontological division. From 1864 on 

 he devoted himself to scientific work, and in 1875 he again entered 

 the National service for a time. Prof. Marcou was decorated with 

 the Cross of the Legion of Honor in 1867, and was a member of 

 many scientific societies here and abroad. He published numer- 

 ous works on scientific, geological and geographical subjects, 

 both in this country and France. His last work of note was a 

 a life of Agassiz, published in 1896. Many of his papers in recent 

 years have been largely of a polemical nature. He was positive 

 and vigorous in controversy and persistent in his opinions. The 

 debatable questions on the Taconic and Jurassic lurnished him 

 with many themes for defense and attack. 



