Popular Science Monthly/Volume 37/May 1890/Obituary Notes

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OBITUARY NOTES.

Prof. Van Quenstedt, of Tübingen, one of the most famous of German paleontologists, died December 21st, at an advanced age. He was the author of a work on the Jura, and of a Handbook of Petrefactenkunde, or the science of petrifactions. He had an especially profound knowledge of the Lias of Würtemberg and its fossils.

M. Ch. Fievez, assistant in the spectroscopic department of the Royal Observatory of Brussels, died February 2d, aged forty-five years. He studied first for the military profession, but was invited to the observatory by M. Houzeau, and entered it after studying under Janssen at Meudon. His most important work was the construction of a chart of the solar spectrum on a larger scale than that of Angström. He made a detailed study of the spectrum of carbon, and experiments on the behavior of spectral lines under the influence of magnetism and of changes of temperature.

Dr. C. C. Parry, a distinguished American botanist, recently died at Davenport, Iowa, aged sixty-seven years. He made valuable collections of plants, and was an authority in the classification of the North American flora. He was for several years a botanist in the* Agricultural Department in Washington. Mount Parry, near Denver, was named after him.

Prof. Richard Owen, geologist, died from accidental poisoning at his home in New Harmony, Ind., March 24th. He was a son of the Scotch philanthropist, Robert Owen, and was born in Scotland, January 6, 1810. Having been schooled in Europe and come to the United States, he studied civil engineering in Kentucky, was a Professor of Geology there, served in the United States Survey, was a captain in the Mexican War, was State Geologist for Indiana, professor in Indiana State University, and lieutenant-colonel and colonel in Indiana volunteer regiments.