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Popular Science Monthly/Volume 2/April 1873/Obituary

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OBITUARY.

Professor Matthew Fontaine Maury, whose scientific labors in the Hydrographical Office, Washington, earned for him eminent rank among savants, and were of inestimable benefit to the commerce of the world, died at Lexington, Va., February 1st, aged 67 years. At the time of his death he was Professor of Physics in the Virginia Military Institute. He was author of a "Treatise on Navigation," of a "Physical Geography of the Seas," of "Letters on the Amazon and Atlantic Slopes of South America," and other works.

The eminent French naturalist Felix Archimede Pouchet died December 6, 1872, at Rouen, in the 73d year of his age. He is best known to fame by his researches into the question of spontaneous generation, on which he held the affirmative side. He was a very voluminous writer, his principal works being on "Spontaneous Ovulation," and "The Organs of Digestion, Circulation, and Respiration." He was educated for a physician, and was for a long time professor in the Rouen School of Medicine.

The Rev. Adam Sedgwick, LL.D., F.R.S., F.G.S., Professor of Geology in the University of Cambridge, England, died January 27th, aged about 90 years. He long stood in the foremost rank of men of science in England, and was, both alone and with the assistance of Sir R. Murchison, the author of several works on geology. His first acknowledged publication appeared in 1822, and treated of the physical structure of the Devonshire and Cornish formations. In 1851 he was awarded the Wollaston Palladium Medal for researches into the geological structure of the British Isles, the Alps, and the Rhenish provinces. Two years before his death he resigned his professorship at Cambridge, but to the last took a warm interest in the progress of science.