40 Ture West AMERICAN SCIENTIST. 
As a systematic entomologist Prof. Osborn has not been idle. His pub- 
lished papers on the Aphidide, Thripidie, Phytoptidee, Pediculidee and Mal- 
lophaga easily place him among our best systematic workers. 
For some time Prof. Osborn has been entomological editor of the 
Orange Judd Farmer, in the columns of which he is, by his close contact 
with the tillers of the soil, performing valuable labor in teaching the 
members of that class how to successfully combat their tiny but relentless 
insect foes. 
Prof. Osborn was married to Miss Dora Sayles, January 19, 1883, their 
family consisting of two bright, interesting boys. 
Prof. Osborn’s careful preliminary training, his thoroughly honest work, 
his high official position, together with his talents and enviable reputation, 
point to future distinction of which his admirers can only conceive. 
F. W. Gopina. 
GEORGE VASEY. 
Dr. George Vasey, the head of the botanival division ef the United 
States Department of Agriculture, died in Washington aiter an illness of 
only three days. Dr. Vasey was born in England on the 28th day of Feb- 
ruary, 1822, and was brought by his parents to this country when a year 
old. The family settled in New York, where the boy was educated in the 
common schools and then studied medicine, graduating from the School of 
Medicine in 1848. He practiced his profession in Illinois for twenty years, 
and from 1870 to 1872 was in charge of the Museum of the Illinois Natural 
History Society. In his early years he must have paid considerable atten- 
tion to botany, for in 1874 he was appointed botanist in the Department of 
Agriculture, a position which he held continuously until his death. For 
many years Dr. Vasey has devoted especial study to the Grasses, and a 
number of important papers on this family of plants from his pen have been 
published by the government of the United States. Among these may be 
mentioned the Grasses of the South, Grasses of the Arid Region, The Agri- 
cultural Grasses and Forage Plants in the United States. in 1876 Dr. Vasey 
published a useful catalogue of the Forest Trees of the United States, 
explanatory of the collections of North American wood specimens exhib- 
ited by the government at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. 
Under his active administration Dr. Vasey has seen the national herbarium 
enlarged from a modest beginning to its present size, and through his activ- 
ity and energy become one of the greatest collections of North American 
plants. His death will be felt by a multitude of correspondents to whom 
he was uniformly kind, obliging and helpful. 

THe Sampson well, Waco, Texas, is 1,850 feet deep, and flows about 
1,500,000 gallons daily of perfectly pure water, at a temperature of 103 de- 
grees—the highest temperature of any artesian water yet discovered. 


