SCIENTIFIC ITEMS
We record with regret the deaths of Mr. Francis Blake, inventor of the telephone transmitter and other electrical apparatus; of Dr. Thomas Volney Munson, who while engaged as a nurseryman at Dennison, Texas, made valuable experiments on the breeding of fruits, especially in viticulture; of Professor George Augustus Koenig, professor of chemistry at the Michigan College of Mines; of M. Louis Paul Cailletet, the distinguished French chemist, known especially for his work on liquefaction of gases; of M. Léon Teisserenc de Bort, the French meteorologist, known for his work with captive balloons; of Dr. Otto Schoetensack, professor of anthropology at Heidelberg, and of Dr. Yujiro Motora, professor of psychology at Tokyo.
The Elisha Kent Kane gold medal of the Geographical Society of Philadelphia was presented to Professor William Morris Davis, of Harvard University, on January 28, and the Culver medal of the Geographic Society of Chicago, on February 19.—Professor George Herbert Palmer, Alvord professor of natural religion, moral philosophy and civil polity, and Professor Francis Peabody, Plummer professor of Christian morals, have given their final lectures at Harvard University. Professor Palmer has served the university for forty-three years and Professor Peabody for thirty-eight years.—Professor J. Hadamard, professor of analytical and celestial mechanics in the Collège de France, has been elected a member of the Paris Académie des Sciences in the section of geometry, in succession to the late Professor Henri Poincaré.
