The "Revue Scientifique" claims the first thought of the germ theory of disease for a Dr. Goiffon, who died at Lyons more than one hundred and fifty years ago. He believed, in 1721, that diseases like the plague could be caused only by minute insects or worms, too small to be seen, perhaps, but nevertheless really existing. He also believed that the conveyance of infection could be explained by their activity and propagation.
An observatory is in building at Sonnblick, in the Tyrolese Alps, ten thousand feet above the sea, which will be the highest of the kind in Europe. The mountain is relatively easy of access, with mines halfway up its slopes, and a wire rope-way in operation leading up to them. The observatory will be in telephonic communication with the mines, and thence in telegraphic communication with whatever spot it may be desirable to reach.
Professor Odling has described a process in which benzoic acid, when heated in sealed tubes at about 260° with an aqueous solution of zinc chloride, is decomposed, and yields chiefly benzene, together with a small quantity of diphenyle.
OBITUARY NOTES.
Mr.Eli Whitney Blake, the inventor of the Blake stone-crusher, who recently died at his home in New Haven, Connecticut, was the founder of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, and for several years its president. He communicated several papers to the "American Journal of Science" and other scientific publications; and a number of these were published together in 1882, under the title of "Original Solutions of several Problems in Aërodynamics." His stone-crusher is in nearly universal use.
Professor H.A.Batne, Ph.D., of the Royal Military College, Kingston, Ontario, has recently died. He was a student under Liebig, Bunsen, and Dumas.
Herrmann Abich, an eminent Austrian geologist, died on the 1st of July, nearly seventy years of age. He began his scientific career in 1831 by the publication of a memoir on the minerals of the Spinel family. At a later period he devoted special attention to the phenomena of volcanic action; he published an atlas of views of Vesuvius and Etna in 1837, and a work on volcanic formations in 1841. He investigated the Caucasus region and Southeastern Europe, and was, at the time of his death, superintending the publication of the "Geologische Forschungen in den kaukasischen Ländern," his greatest work.
The death is reported of M. Ernest Desjardins, professor in the College de France, aged eighty-three years. His principal labors were upon problems of comparative geography, in which missions executed by him in Egypt, Italy, and the basin of the Danube, led to interesting discoveries. His most important publications were on the topography of Latium, the ancient geography of Italy, and the geography of ancient Gaul.
Alessandro Dorna, Director of the Astronomical Observatory at Turin, died in August last, aged sixty-one years.
M.Paul Bert, the eminent French physiologist, died in Tonquin, where he occupied the position of French resident in Annam and Cochin-China, on the 11th of November. He had held professorships at Bordeaux and Paris; was elected to the National Assembly in 1874; was an elBcient Minister of Public Instruction in Gambetta's Cabinet; and was a pleasing writer on scientific and educational subjects.
Professor Frederick Settle Barff, inventor of the Barff process for preventing the corrosion of iron and of an antiseptic compound, died on the 11th of August, aged sixty-two years. The record of his life is one of useful investigation and invention. He delivered at different times "Cantor Lectures" of the Society of Arts on "Artistic Colors and Pigments," "Silicates, Silicides. Glass, and Glass-Painting," and "Carbon, and Certain Compounds of Carbon, treated principally in reference to Heating and Illuminating Purposes"; also juvenile lectures, for 1878, on "Coal and its Compounds." He was awarded the Society's medal for a paper on "Zinc-White as Paint, and the Treatment of Iron for the Prevention of Corrosion," and a second medal for his paper on "A New Antiseptic Compound." He held the positions of Assistant Professor of Chemistry at University College, London, Examiner in Chemistry for the Natural Science Tripos, Cambridge, and Professor of Chemistry at the Catholic University at Kensington, and in the Jesuits' College, Beaumont.
Dr.John P.Gray, Superintendent of the New York Lunatic Asylum, died in Utica, November 29th, of Bright's disease, aged sixty-one years. After having been assistant physician at the lunatic asylum for several years, he was appointed its superintendent in 1854. He was regarded as one of the foremost experts in insanity in the United States.
Professor Pancm, the great Danish physiologist, has recently died in Copenhagen, in the sixty-fifth year of his age.
