120 Scientific Intelligence. 



on December 28-31. Professor H. L. Fairchild, the president, 

 delivers the presidential address on " The Pleistocene Geology of 

 New York." 



The Paleontological Society holds its annual meeting in con- 

 nection with that of the Geological Society. 



12. American Association for the Advancement of Science. — 

 The sixty-fourth meeting of the American Association is held in 

 convocation-week, from December 30, 1912, to January 4, 1913, 

 in Cleveland, Ohio. Dr. Edward C. Pickering, Director of the 

 Harvard College Observatory, is the president. Numerous 

 affiliated societies meet at the same time. 



Obituary. 



Sir George Howard Darwin, second son of the late Charles 

 Darwin, died on December 7 in his sixty-eighth year. He was 

 Plumian professor of astronomy at the University of Cambridge 

 since 1883 and his original work in the departments of astronomy 

 and mathematics was of the highest character. 



Eben J. Loomis, for fifty years (1850-1900) assistant in the 

 Nautical Almanac Office of the Navy Department, Washington, 

 died on the 2d of December at Observatory House, the residence 

 of his son-in-law, Prof. David Todd, at Amherst, Massachusetts. 

 Besides being a mathematician and astronomer, Mr. Loomis was 

 a keen observer of nature, having been an early pupil of both 

 Louis Agassiz and Asa Gray. His remarkable discovery of a 

 flexing movement of the frond of Asplenium trichomanes brought 

 him a most interesting letter from Charles Darwin. His Eclipse 

 Party in Africa (1896) was reviewed in this Journal (vol. iii, 

 p. 80). Among his other works were A Sunset Idyl and Other 

 Poems (1903), and Wayside Sketches (1894). 



Edwin Smith, the astronomer, died on December 1 in his 

 sixty-first year. He was a member of the staff of the Coast and 

 Geodetic Survey from 18*70 to 1895 and was active in astronom- 

 ical work, carrying on extensive observations on the force of 

 gravity, on latitude determinations and related subjects. 



Dr. William A. Buckhout, Professor of Botany in the Penn- 

 sylvania State College, died on December 3 at the age of sixty- 

 six years. 



Dr. John Monroe Van Vleck, Professor of Mathematics at 

 Wesleyan University from 1853 to 1904, died on November 4 at 

 the age of seventy-nine years. 



Dr. Ramsay H. Traquair, the zoologist and paleontologist, 

 died at Edinburgh on November 22 at the age of seventy -two 

 years. 



William Forsell Kirby, the English entomologist, died on 

 November 20 in the sixty-ninth year of his age. 



