M Alien 13, 1885. J 



SCIENCE 



221 



the volume as a whole, we are driven to one of 

 two conclusions, — either that there is a lack 

 of good editorial judgment in preparing the 

 volume and accepting articles for publication, 

 or else there must be a lack of good articles. 

 That the latter is the case we cannot believe. 



Of an altogether different type is the Report 

 of the fish-commission. Its greatest fault lies 

 in the fact that it is extremely bulky, being 

 composed of over eleven hundred pages ; but 

 this fault is partly hidden by the value of some 

 of the articles. Among the most valuable con- 

 tributions contained in the appen'dices are those 

 by Verrill and Smith upon deep-sea animals, 

 and by R}der upon the embryography of osseous 

 fishes and upon the development of the oyster. 

 There are other important articles b} T Collins, 

 McDonald, and others. We notice that in 

 many of these papers there is a decided ten- 

 dency toward the use of more space than is 

 necessary to set forth the ideas of the author. 

 This tends only to swell to unwieldy propor- 

 tions an alread} T buhsy volume. There are two 

 articles — one by McDonald, the other b}^ Smi- 

 le}' — the value of which we fail to see : the} 7 

 are simple lists of the people who have received 

 carp from the commission. If these had been 

 left out, together with the equally superfluous 

 lists of lakes and rivers of the United States, 

 the report would have been shortened by at 

 least two hundred and fifty pages. The idea 

 of separately paging the different articles, and 

 furnishing them each with an index, is good. 



In addition to the report of the secretary, a 

 new and important feature, the report of the 

 assistant director of the National museum, is 

 introduced into the Annual report of the Smith- 

 sonian institution. The appendices, which have 

 been introduced in the last three volumes under 

 the title of ' Record of recent scientific prog- 

 ress,' are continued in this report. These are 

 very good summaries, and are written by some 

 of our most eminent scientific men ; still we 

 doubt if they are of any considerable value. 

 The specialist in each branch treated must ne- 

 cessarily know as much as is contained in the 

 article upon his own branch, and all are certainly 

 too concise to be of popular interest. The idea, 

 however, is excellent ; and if the Smithsonian 

 could each year publish separate bulletins, each 

 one covering one of the branches of natural 

 science, and if each one should be made to 

 occupy several times as much space, and be 

 written in a more popular style, we think that 

 the} 7 would soon come to be recognized as the 

 most important publications of the institution 

 by all who are interested in the natural sci- 

 ences. 



The last volume of the Proceedings of the 

 national museum shows a decided improvement 

 over all the others. It is even richer in im- 

 portant articles than any previous one, such 

 men as Smith, Bean, Jordan, Ryder, Gill, and 

 Ridgewa} r , being among the chief contributors. 

 A noticeable feature of this volume is, that 

 among its list of contributors are the names of 

 two women. This is a comparatively new 

 feature in American science. The chief fault 

 of the volume lies in the appendices, which are 

 entirely out of keeping with the rest of the vol- 

 ume. Such articles as "Brief directions for 

 removing and preserving the skins of mam- 

 mals," although very valuable to young col- 

 lectors, are out of place here. The volume for 

 this year shows signs of careful editorial work ; 

 but the index could be improved by printing 

 it in treble columns, to bring more under the 

 eye at once. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



Mr. Sidney Gilchrist Thomas, whose name is 

 connected with the Thomas-Gilchrist patent for the 

 conversion of phosphoric pig-iron into steel, died in 

 Paris on Sunday morning, Feb. 1. Mr. Thomas, 

 says the Athenaeum, was educated at Dulwich col- 

 lege, and was intended for the medical profession; 

 but on the death of his father he entered the civil 

 service. He was excessively fond of chemistry, and 

 devoted all his leisure to the study of that science. 

 In 1878 he read before the Iron and steel institute a 

 paper on the elimination of phosphorus, in which he 

 announced the discovery which he and his relative, 

 Mr. Gilchrist, had made. The dephosphorization or 

 basic process, as it is usually termed, renders avail- 

 able for the production of steel the pig-iron smelted 

 from spathic and less pure ores of England. This 

 process was thought so highly of, that Mr. Thomas 

 was presented by the Iron and steel institute with the 

 Bessemer gold medal. The labors of Mr. Thomas in 

 establishing the basic process in Germany, where it is 

 most extensively employed, in France, and in Eng- 

 land, told severely upon a constitution always in- 

 clined to be delicate. A voyage to Australia, and a 

 residence for some time in Algeria, appeared to give 

 hopes of his ultimate recovery; but on his return to 

 Paris he became worse, and on Sunday morning 

 (Feb. 1) he breathed his last, at the early age of 

 thirty-six. 



— The Academie d'aerostation meteorologique of 

 Paris held a celebration, on the 15th of January, 

 of the centennial of the balloon-voyage of Blanchard 

 and Jeffries across the English Channel. On account 

 of an accident, the fete, which was held at the seat 

 of W. de Fonvielle, was postponed from the 7th, the 

 actual date of the transit. It is now proposed to 

 hold a celebration in the forest of Guines on the 

 25th of May, on the spot where the balloon landed, 

 and where a monument has been erected. 



