94 
WAYSIDE NOTES-REPORTS OF SOCIETIES 
Apr., 1889. 
The solutions may also be of what is ordinarily termed 
practical use. For instance, we occasionally pick up on 
the seashore pebbles which have the colour and apparent 
lustre of topaz. The readiest means of determining whether 
it is this mineral or merely a coloured quartz pebble, is 
the test of specific gravity. Topaz sinks in the mercury 
potassium solution, while the quartz floats. 
Balea perversa (Linn.) in Nottinghamshire.— Mr. G. W. Mellors has 
sent me specimens of this species from Staunton, near Newark, and 
from Kirkby in this county. This species has not hitherto been 
recorded for Nottinghamshire, although records have been made by 
the Conchological Society’s referees for the adjoining counties of 
Lincoln, Leicester, Rutland, and Derby. From Kirkby the same 
gentleman has also sent me specimens of Pupa ringens, Jeff., the only 
locality, he states, around Nottingham where he has been able to find 
this species. —Joseph W. Williams, Mitton, Stoarport, Worcestershire. 
Death of Prof. S. O. Lindberg. —I regret to have to announce 
the death of the late eminent bryologist, Prof. Sextus Otto Lindberg, 
M.D., F.D., of Helsinfors University, who passed to his rest February 
20th, 1889. This eminent botanist was born at Stockholm, March 
29th, 1835, and by his own exertions raised himself from a com¬ 
paratively obscure position to hold a high post at Helsinfors 
University, to be the most eminent European authority on mosses 
and hepatics, and to have the respect and admiration of botanists 
throughout the world. As a field botanist he was remarkable for his 
wonderful powers of observation; I believe I am right in saying that 
he rarely if ever used a lens, but could, with the unassisted eye, make 
out the most minute details of his plants. To the literature of 
botany his contributions were of unexceptional value ; space, however, 
will not allow of more than a passing glance at his work in this 
direction. At various times he contributed articles on Bryology to 
the “ Journal of the Linnsean Society” and the “ Journal of Botany.” 
But his most valuable papers were communicated to the scientific 
journals of his own land, all of them abounding in original thought 
and evidences of original research. Among the more noteworthy are 
“ Torfmossornas byggnad TJtbredning och Systematiska Uppstiill- 
ning,” a valuable paper on the Sphagnaceae ; “ Kritish Granskning af 
Mossorna uti Dillenii Historia Muscorum,” most valuable as giving 
the modern synonomy of Dillenius’ great work; “ Musci Scandinavici 
in Systemate Novo Naturali Depositi,” a full moss and hepatic flora 
of Scandinavia, with descriptions of many new species. “ Mono- 
graphia Metzgerise,” “ Observationes de formis prsesertim europseis 
Polytrichoidearum,” “ Om de europeiska Tricliostomese,” “ Sandea et 
Myriorrhynchus Nova Hepaticarum Genera,” “ Monograpliia prsecur- 
soria, Peltolepidis, Sauteriae et Cleveae,” &c., &c. Throughout all these 
papers we have evidences of many years’ close study in the exhaustive 
