Popular Science Monthly/Volume 42/February 1893/Obituary Notes

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OBITUARY NOTES.

Sir Richard Owen, one of the most famous comparative anatomists of the age, died in London, December 18, 1892, in the eighty-ninth year of his age. A full sketch of his life and work was published, with portrait, in The Popular Science Monthly, Vol. XXIII, No. 1 (May, 1883).

Mr. W. Mattieu Williams, author of the series of articles on The Chemistry of Cooking, published in the Monthly a few years ago, died suddenly at his home in Neasden, England, November 28, 1892. The book by which he was best known is The Fuel of the Sun. Much of his work was contributed to serial publications, and a volume of his popular essays was issued several years ago under the title of Science in Short Chapters. His Through Norway with a Knapsack called attention to the advantages of Norway as a summer resort for tourists.

Dr. E. W. Siemens, a distinguished German engineer and electrician, died in Berlin, December 6, 1892. He was born at Leuthe, in Hanover, in 1816, taught in the Lubeck gymnasium, joined the Prussian artillery in 1837, and withdrew from the service of the Government in 1850 and devoted himself to scientific studies and private enterprises. He was the inventor of many of the most valuable practical applications of electricity and of devices in electrical apparatus, instituted the Siemens quicksilver unit, contributed much to the successful establishment of the electric railway, and devised the pneumatic dispatch system and the Siemens alcoholimeter.

Prof. John S. Newberry, of Columbia College, died in New Haven, Conn., December 7, 1892, after a long illness. He suffered an attack of paralysis in December, 1890, from which he never fully recovered, and which left him with a gradually failing mind. A sketch of his life and scientific work—chiefly in geology, in which he was one of the most eminent American experts—was given in The Popular Science Monthly, Vol. IX, No. 4, August, 1876. He received the Murchison medal from the Geological Society of London in 1888.