The sum required to secure the erection of the monument to the chemist Scheele at Köping, Sweden, has been collected.
Ephraim George Squier, a distinguished American archaeologist and author, died in Brooklyn, N. Y., April 17th. He was one of the first persons, in conjunction with Dr. Edward H. Davis, of Ohio, to undertake a systematic exploration of the ancient mounds and earthworks of the Mississippi Valley, and their joint account of their explorations, published by the Smithsonian Institution, is still the fullest work, and a standard for reference on the subject. He also published a memoir on the Aboriginal Monuments of the State of New York"; accounts of researches among the ruins of Central America and Peru; a "Monograph of Aboriginal authors who have written on the Aboriginal Languages of Central America"; and "Tropical Fibers and their Economic Extraction." He was in his sixty-seventh year. The death of Mr. Squier was followed, on the 15th of May, by that of Dr. Davis, his coadjutor in the preparation of the "Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley," in the seventy-eighth year of his age. Dr. Davis began to explore mounds while a student in Kenyon College, Ohio, and presented papers on the results of his work as society and college exercises. He was encouraged to continue his explorations by Daniel Webster. He opened nearly two hundred mounds in the Mississippi Valley at his own expense, and gathered a large collection of relics, which are now in Blackmore's Museum, at Salisbury, England. He became, in 1850, Professor of Materia Medica and Therapeutics in the New York Medical College.
Dr. Emil Bessels, the physician and scientific leader of the Polaris Expedition, died in Stuttgart, Germany, March 30th, aged forty years. He was a native of Heidelberg, and first became known through an expedition into the Spitzbergen Sea. In 1871 he took the scientific direction of the Polaris expedition. He was afterward appointed a secretary to the Smithsonian Institution. He was the author of "Scientific Results of the United States Arctic Expedition," "Physical Observations" of the same, a German account of the expedition, and of contributions in American and German scientific journals.
Prof. Leone Levi, an eminent English statistician, has recently died at his home in London. He was born in Ancona, Italy, of Hebrew parents, in 1821, and came to England when twenty years old. He originated the movement for the establishment of the Chamber of Commerce in Liverpool, the oldest of institutions of that class. Having lectured for some time in King's College on commerce, he was made professor of that branch. The London "Daily News" characterizes as the three directions in which his work has perhaps been of most public value as being in his exposure of the evils of war, his minute and careful investigation of questions bearing on the wages of the working classes, and his conclusive dealing with the fair-trade folly in connection with the depression of trade.
Prof. Alexander Dickson, of the University of Edinburgh, who died at the close of 1887, was a botanist most distinguished for his investigations of the morphology of several of the conifers, and on the diplostemony of the flowers of the angiosperms; for various contributions to the study of the embryology of flowering plants; for researches on the development of the pitcher plants; and for various special studies.
Dr. Gerhard von Rath, the eminent German mineralogist, died in Coblentz, April 28d, while on his way to the East on a scientific expedition. He was born in 1830, was appointed a professor at Bonn in 1863, and became recognized as the most distinguished representative of mineralogical science in Germany.
The death is reported of Surgeon-Major F. S. B. François de Chaumont, F. R. S., Professor of Military Hygiene at the Army Medical School, Netley, England. He was fifty-five years of age.
Vice-Admiral Thomas A. B. Spratt, of the British Navy, who has recently died, made many most valuable contributions to geography during his thirty-six years of continuous service in Mediterranean stations, in connection with which he made many surveys and explorations. His chief publications concern these surveys; and his deep soundings and dredgings have been commended as having been essential to the elaboration of Edward Forbes's views on the submarine zones inhabited by different classes of animals.
Nicholas von Miklucho-Maclay, one of the earliest and most industrious of the explorers of New Guinea, has recently died, at the age of forty-two years. He was the son of a Russian nobleman, and, having studied medicine and natural science at St. Petersburg and the Dutch universities, visited Madeira with Prof. Haeckel, in 1866, and afterward the Canary Islands and Morocco. He spent a year in 1871-'72 in exploring the northwest and southwest coasts of New Guinea; then visited Farther India, Malacca, and various island groups; and, in 1876-'78, explored the northern coast of New Guinea. He visited this island again in 1879, and returned to Russia in 1882 with rich collections. He resided for some time in Sydney, and founded a biological station there.
