640  Obituary.  {  m'^;^xm 
Methods  of  Analysis  of  Commercial  Fertilizers,  Feeding  Stuffs  and  Dairy  Products, 
adopted  at  the  fourth  annual  Convention  of  the  Association  of  Official  Agri- 
cultural Chemists,  August  16-18,  1887.  Edited  by  Clifford  Richardson,  Sec- 
retary.   Washington  :  Government  Printing  Office.    8vo.  pp.  80. 
This  pamphlet  is  issued  by  the  U.  S.  Department  of  Agriculture,  Division 
of  Chemistry,  as  Bulletin  No.  16. 
The  reception  of  the  following  pamphlets  is  acknowledged  : 
Supra-pubic  Lithotomy  ;  A  Historical  Sketch.  By  Ch.  W.  Dulles,  M.  D.,  etc.  pp.  8. 
— Reprint  from  the  Transactions  of  the  Medical  Society  of  the  State  of  Penn- 
sylvania, for  1887. 
The  Position  which  Chemistry  Occupies  in  Itself  and  in  Its  Relation  to  Medicine.  By 
Prof.  W.  Simon,  M.D.,  Ph.D.— Reprint  from  the  Maryland  Medical  Journal, 
Oct.  22, 1887. 
Report  of  the  Committee  appointed  October  21,  1887,  to  examine  into  the 
scientific  value  of  Volapuk.  Presented  to  the  American  Philosophical  Society, 
November,  1887. 
Fifteenth  and  Sixteenth  Annual  Reports  of  the  Alumni  Association  of  the  College  of 
Pharmacy  of  the  City  of  New  York,  1886  and  1887.    8vo.  pp.  116. 
The  pamphlet  contains  the  commencement  exercises  of  the  College,  the 
minutes  of  the  meetings  of  the  Alumni  Association,  the  reports  of  the  officers, 
various  addresses,  lists  of  graduates,  etc. 
OBITUARY. 
Gustav  Robert  Kirchhoff  died  in  Berlin,  October  17th.  He  was  born  in 
Konigsberg,  March  12th,  1824,  and  studied  physics  and  mathematics  at  the  uni- 
versity of  his  native  city,  where  he  graduated  in  1846.  In  1848  he  was  attached 
to  the  University  of  Berlin,  as  private  lecturer  on  Mathematical  Physics.  In 
1854  he  was  called  to  the  University  of  Breslau  as  Professor  extraordinary  of 
Experimental  Physics;  in  1854  he  accepted  a  call  to  Heidelberg  as  Professor 
of  Natural  Philosophy  and  Director  of  the  Physical  Institute  ;  and  in  1875  he 
went  in  a  similar  capacity  to  the  University  of  Berlin.  He  made  a  large  num- 
ber of  laborious  and  important  investigations  on  electricity,  galvanism,  light, 
elasticity  and  other  branches  of  physics,  and,  while  thus  engaged,  published 
in  1861  his  work  on  The  Physical  Constitution  of  the  Sun  and  the  Spectra  of 
the  Chemical  Elements.  These  researches  extended  the  previous  observations 
of  Fraunhofer,  Talbot,  Whetstone,  Foucault,  Angstrcem,  Swan  and  others,  and 
led  to  that  analytical  method  known  as  spectrum  analysis,  which  was  elabo- 
rated by  Kirchhoff  conjointly  with  Robert  Bunsen,  who,  since  1852,  is  Pro- 
fessor of  Chemistry  at  the  University  of  Heidelberg.  Their  joint  researches 
were  published  in  1860  and  1861,  together  with  the  announcement  of  the  dis- 
covery by  them  of  two  new  metals — caesium  and  rubidium. 
Herman  A.  Vogelbach,  of  Philadelphia,  died  at  Green  Cove  Springs,  Florida, 
November  15th.  He  graduated  from  the  Philadelphia  College  of  Pharmacy  in 
1860,  and  was  in  business  for  a  number  of  years  in  the  upper  part  of  the  city. 
Some  years  ago  he  went  to  Florida,  and  at  the  time  of  his  death,  was  in  the 
drug  business  in  Melrose,  Fla. 
