Popular Science Monthly/Volume 36/December 1889/Obituary Notes
Mr. C. Spence Bate, a British authority on crustaceans, has recently died at Plymouth. He was the author of a report on a class of crustaceans collected by the Challenger Expedition; of a catalogue of certain crustaceans in the British Museum; of a "History of British Sessile-eyed Crustaceans"; and of a work on the "Pathology of Dental Caries."
Prof. George H. Cook, of Rutgers College, and State Geologist of New Jersey, died at New Brunswick, in that State, September 22d, in the seventy-third year of his age. He was born at Hanover, N. J.; became a civil engineer in 1836; laid out the line of the Catskill and Canajoharic Railroad; was graduated from Troy Polytechnic Institute in 1839; was made senior professor in that institution in 1840; became Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy in Albany Academy in 1842; Principal of the Academy in 1858; Professor of Chemistry and Natural Philosophy in Rutgers College in 1852; Assistant Geologist of New Jersey in the next year, and State Geologist in 1864, when he was also made Vice-President of the State Scientific College. He was actively connected with the State Board of Agriculture; became Director of the State Weather Service; visited Europe three times on scientific errands; and was associated with many public enterprises.
Prof. Leo Lesquereux, the eminent botanist and paleontologist, died at Columbus, Ohio, October 25th, in the eighty-fourth year of his age. He was a native of Switzerland, was a friend of Guyot and Agassiz, and came to the United States in 1848. He was the author of nearly fifty scientific works; and in his special field of study he ranked with Oswald Heer. A sketch of his life and works, accompanied by a portrait and a list of his writings, was published in "The Popular Science Monthly" for April, 1887.
Dr. James Prescott Joule, F.R.S., the discoverer of the mechanical equivalent of heat, died at Sale, near Manchester, England, October 11th. He was the son of a brewer in Salford, and was born in 1818. His first contribution to scientific literature was made when he was about twenty years old, in a paper describing an electro-magnetic engine. His great discovery was made after patient, independent investigation and experiment, with extremely simple apparatus constructed by himself. He constructed electro-magnets of greater carrying power than any previously known; devised electro-magnetic engines and new forms of galvanometers; measured the heat evolved by the passage of electricity through mechanical conductors; and determined the ratio between chemical and thermal energy. A sketch of his life and a portrait were given in "The Popular Science Monthly" for May, 1874.