398 Scientific Intelligence. 



Dr. Reusch proposes to take part in instruction of advanced stu- 

 dents in the field. 



2. The Calculus for Engineers ; by John Perry, F.R.S., 

 Professor of Mechanics and Mathematics in the Royal College 

 of Science; pp. 378. London and New York, 1897 (Edward 

 Arnold). — This is a work written with much freshness and even, 

 it may be said, vivacity. Every step is illustrated by a profusion 

 of applications to problems of engineering, and the question 

 which the academic beginner in Calculus is so often constrained 

 to ask " what is it all good for " would never suggest itself in 

 reading this text-book. Without sacrificing anything of thorough- 

 ness the book is remarkably iree from the abstruseness which is 

 so blinding to all but the born mathematician and seems much 

 better fitted than the usual text-book to make the Calculus real to 

 all classes of students as well as engineers. w. b. 



3. OstwalcVs Klassiker der Exakten Wissenschaften. Leipzig 

 (Wilhelm Engelmann). — The latest additions in the department 

 of physics to this excellent library of scientific classics are num- 

 bers 81, 86 and 87. These give respectively Series I and II (1832), 

 Series III to V (1833) and Series Vl-VJLII (1834) of Faraday's 

 Experimental investigations of Electricity (Expenmental-Unter- 

 suchungen iiber Elektricitat). 



GrundproblemederN'alurwissenscTiaft: Briefe einer modernen Naturfor seller von 

 Dr. Adolf Wagner, pp. 1-255, Berlin, 1897. 



OBITUARY. 



Victor Meyer died on the 8th of August, 1897, in the 49th 

 year of his age. After studying chemistry with Bunsen at Heid- 

 elburg and with Baeyer in Berlin, he was called in 1872 to the 

 Zurich Polytechnic, from which place he went in 1885 to GoLtin- 

 gen and in 1889 to Heidelberg, on the retirement of Bunsen. As 

 an investigator, whether in the field of physical or organic chem- 

 istry or as an experimentalist, he stood in the first rank. His 

 investigations on the nitro-paraffins in 1872 and on the isonitroso 

 compounds in 1882, his discovery of the two isomeric benzil 

 di-oximes in 1888, which laid the foundation of our knowledge 

 of the stereochemistry of nitrogen, as well as his discovery of 

 thiophene with its numerous derivatives in 1882, may serve as 

 examples of his organic work. His air-displacement method of 

 determining vapor density, devised in 1878, was one of the most 

 ingenious and valuable methods ever given to chemistry. His 

 "Lebrbuch der Organischen Chemie," written in 1891, in connec- 

 tion with Jacobson, is in many respects the most valuable treatise 

 on the subject. The later years of his life were clouded by ill 

 health, but he continued his intense activity without the rest he 

 needed. This brought on insomnia and led to his early death. 

 Though he had accomplished so many and so brilliant achieve- 

 ments in his favorite science, still greater things were promised in 

 his future. His loss to chemistry is well nigh irreparable. 



