494 Scientific News. [July, 
of important discoveries in astronomy, till he has perfected a sys-  ~ 
tem by which an announcement is flashed from any part of 
America to the Smithsonian Institution, and thence to the observa- 
tories in Paris, London, Berlin and Vienna, all in a time scarcely 
long enough to estimate and without drawing a dollar from the 
proverbially low purses’ of the star-gazing fraternity. The same 
year witnessed the completion by the Royal Society of London 
of a “Catalogue of Scientific Papers "—a compilation of incalcul- 
able usefulness to scholars—mainly in response to a suggestion 
made by Professor Henry in 1858. To him we owe, perhaps, 
more than to any one man, our present position as a nation in the 
domain of meteorology; it was he .who devised our system of 
weather despatches, and who forsaw the importance of tabulating 
them and preparing the daily maps now in use. As an astrono- 
mer he was a leading figure as early as 1845, when he published 
his observations on the temperature of the sun, which were con- 
firmed by Secchi seven years later, and have remained unshaken 
in their passage through a score of hands since. As a topogra- 
of making standard measurements. It was he who, at the age 
Tyndall as an investigator of the questions involved in the 
perfection of fog signals for use on the ocean coasts. Thus m 
every domain he enters we find him an enthusiast and a master, 
his whole soul given to the advancement of the good of his race 
by practical means. : ye 
His place will be difficult to fill in many ways, but his loss will 
be especially felt on account of the influence of his noble moral 
character. He was a man of the clearest sense of justice, and 
would tolerate no wrong; yet as a good man he was not prone to 
suspect evil in others. His rectitude was equalled by his charity; 
but this virtue did not, as too frequently, impair the decision of 
his acts. He was essentially free from partisan spirit, and although 
his own views were broadly liberal, he had no sympathy with the 
methods of some of the modern apostles of liberalism, who while 
= they destroy, fail to offer satisfactory substitutes. The young 
scientists of this country of the present generation, who have 50 — 
often found him a friend in the past, are fortunate in the posses- 
sion of his example for the future. 
ce — The distinguished invertebrate palwontologist, Wm. 
= Gabb, died May 3oth, in this city, of consumption. He was b 
_ January 20, 1839, and was consequently in his fortieth year. 
had returned home but a short time previous to his death from 
Santo Domingo, where he had so ably labored in his chosen pur 
suits—geology and paleontology. He began his career as ge0'0” 
in the capacity of chief of the Geological Survey of Califor 
ni 
