620 Scientific Intelligence. 



2. A Century of Science in America, with especial reference to 

 the American Journal of Science, 1818-1918; edited by Edward 

 Salisbury Dana. Pp. 420, with photogravure frontispiece of 

 Benjamin Silliman, 19 half-tone portraits and facsimile of cover 

 page of the first number. New Haven, Conn. (The Yale Uni- 

 versity Press; price $4.00.) — This volume, which reproduces 

 with important additions the July number of this Journal and is 

 based in part upon the Silliman Memorial Lectures delivered at 

 Yale University in May last, is now in press and will be issued 

 in the near future. 



Obituary. 



Dr. Richard Rathbun, assistant Secretary of the Smith- 

 sonian Institution, died in Washington on July 16 at the age of 

 sixty-six years. He was born in Buffalo on January 25, 1852, 

 and studied at Cornell University with the Class of 1875. He 

 was early interested in natural history and through his acquaint- 

 ance with Professor Charles F. Hartt was led to accept the 

 position of geologist to the Geological Commission of Brazil, 

 which he occupied from 1875 to 1878. He had earlier served as 

 assistant in zoology in the Boston Society of Natural History 

 (1874-75) and in the summer months acted under Dr. Spencer 

 F. Baird in connection with the work of the U. S. Fish Commis- 

 sion on the New England coast. This led to his becoming scien- 

 tific assistant to the Commission in 1878, a position' which he held 

 until 1896. His work was carried on at first in the Peabody 

 Museum of Yale University under Professor Verrill, but in 1880 

 he moved to "Washington, which remained his home through the 

 rest of his life. In 1897 he was appointed assistant Secretary of 

 the Smithsonian Institution, and the following year he was given 

 charge of the National Museum. He had a genius for executive 

 work and the development of the new building of the National 

 Museum as well as the essential activities of the Smithsonian 

 Institution owe much to his quiet, untiring labors. An estimate 

 of his scientific acquirements and contributions must be deferred 

 to a later number. 



Dr. Stephen Farnum Peckham, the able technical chemist, 

 died in Brooklyn on July 1 in his eightieth year after a pro- 

 tracted illness extending over some nine years. He was educated 

 at Brown University and served in the hospital department dur- 

 ing the Civil War. His interest was given particularly to the 

 subjects of petroleum and bitumen and to these he made import- 

 ant contributions. His investigations in California, Texas, 

 Oklahoma and also in Trinidad yielded valuable results. A num- 

 ber of papers on these subjects have been published in the pages 

 of this Journal. The mineral peckhamite from the Estherville, 

 Iowa, meteorite was named after him by Dr. J. Lawrence Smith. 



Samuel Wendell Williston, professor of paleontology in the 

 University of Chicago, died recently at the age of sixty-six years. 

 A notice is deferred until a later number. 



