Popular Science Monthly/Volume 36/April 1890/Obituary Notes

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OBITUARY NOTES.

Ex-President Martin B. Anderson, who died at Lake Helen, Fla., February 26th, was a scholar who had made himself eminent in many fields of thought and activity. He was born in Brunswick, Maine, in 1815; was graduated from Waterville College, now Colby University, in 1840; studied theology; preached, taught, and served as editor of the "New York Recorder," a Baptist paper, till 1853, when he was chosen President of the University of Rochester, where his after-life was spent. He instituted a course of lectures in intellectual philosophy, which were continued till he retired, in consequence of ill health, a year or two ago; also a course of historical lectures; and under the head of political economy he treated various questions affecting money, taxation, etc., and free trade and protection. His studies extended to questions of constitutional law, and covered the arts. He was prominent in all Baptist denominational enterprises, and served the State on several civil commissions. In fact, as the "Evening Post" well says, "he was one of those men who take all knowledge for their province, and never wearied of enriching his mind with stores of all descriptions, which he distributed with lavish impartiality among the students under his charge."

Among the recent deaths of scientific men abroad are those of M. L. Taczanowski, of Warsaw, a distinguished ornithologist, author of a book on the birds of Peru; M. Neumayr, of Vienna, geologist, who was not yet forty years of age; and M. Otto Rosenberger, astronomer, who had been connected with the observatory at Halle since 1831.

"La Nature," of February 15th, mentions the death of M. Buys Ballot, of Utrecht, one of the most eminent meteorologists of the time, at the age of seventy-three years. He gave much attention to the study of data for facilitating weather predictions—the movement of cyclones, the direct observation of clouds, and all the "natural symptoms of the weather." He propounded several meteorological laws or maxims which bear his name, and probably had an equal part with any other student in giving shape to the present system of observation and investigation in that science.

Major Peter Egerton Warburton, whose name is associated with the hazardous but successful expedition which he made across Australia in 1873, died recently in Adelaide, in his seventy-sixth year. His exploring party Buffered terrible privations during their march, and were not heard of for twelve months. Major Warburton received the gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society and various honors in recognition of his contributions to our knowledge of Australia.

Sir Henry Yule, an Englishman, eminent in geographical research, died December 31st, in his seventieth year. In his annotated edition of Marco Polo's travels he made contributions of the most valuable character to geographical and antiquarian lore.

M. Eugène Deslongchamps, a French paleontologist, who died last December, was the son of another paleontologist, Prof. Elides Deslongchamps, was Professor of Zoölogy and Paleontology at Caen, and was the author of several memoirs on the paleontological fauna of Normandy.

Dr. Karl Eduard Venus, an eminent German entomologist, died at Dresden, December 13th. He was the founder of the Entomological Society "Iris" at Dresden.

M. Gustave Hirn, an eminent French physicist, mathematician, and astronomer, died January 14th, in the seventy-fifth year of his age. He was the author of a work of considerable repute on the "Constitution of Celestial Space."