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Typo: A Monthly Newspaper and Literary Review, Volume 6

Obituary

Obituary.

Miller.—At Invercargill, on 21st January, Robert Lines Miller, of apoplexy, aged 67. He was just leaving work, apparently in his usual health, when he became unconscious, and six hours later expired. He belonged to an old newspaper family in Elgin, Scotland, where they still publish the local journal; he was one of the founders of the Melbourne Age on the co-operative principle; and afterwards owner of a paper in Singleton, N.S.W. He was highly respected by all who knew him, and up to the time of his sudden death was remarkably active and cheerful.

Hoey.—Mr Cashel Hoey, who had been in failing health for some time, died early this month in London, aged 63. For eight years he was editor of the Dublin Nation. In 1861 he was called to the bar at the Middle Temple. Ten years later he was appointed secretary to the Agent-General for Victoria. This appointment was one of the grounds of a direct vote of want of confidence, the allegation being that Mr Hoey had written treasonable articles in the Irish press; and the Duffy ministry were defeated and resigned. In 1858 he married Frances, daughter of Mr C. C. B. Johnston and widow of Mr A. M. Stewart, both of Dublin, whose popularity as a novelist has made the name of Cashel Hoey very familiar to English readers.

Adams.—On 23rd January, Professor J. C. Adams, the celebrated astronomer. He was born in 1819, at Lidcot, near Launceston, near Cornwall. At an early age he developed great aptitude for mathematics and astronomy. His chief renown rests on his discovering the orbit and position of a hitherto unknown planet (Neptune) by calculations based upon the irregularities in the movements of Uranus. In 1861 he was appointed Director of the Cambridge University, and in 1886 he was awarded the gold medal of the Royal Astronomical Society for his in-vestigatio of the lunar parallax and the secular acceleration of the moon's mean motion.

Airy.—On 5th January, in his 92nd year, George Airy, astronomer, one of the most learned and versatile men of science of the century. He was Senior Wrangler at Cambridge; he was the first who investigated the common visual defect known as astigmatism, and he devised the cylindrical lenses which are found to correct it. In 1826 he was appointed Lucasian Professor, and inaugurated a series of lectures on experimental philosophy, particularly illustrating the undulatory theory of light. Further scientific honors followed, and in 1835 he became Astronomer-Royal. He brought his scientific skill and judgment to bear in this capacity, and the Observatory progressed greatly under his management. He devised a method, now in universal use, by which the disturbance of compasses in iron ships is neutralized. After the national standards of weights and measures were lost in the great fire of 1834 he was appointed chairman of the commission formed to replace them; and on another royal commission he recommended the narrow gauge as against the broad gauge for railways. He was a prolific writer on scientific subjects. In 1881, being then eighty years of age, he resigned the position of Astronomer-Royal, and was granted a pension of £1100 a year, in consideration of his long and valuable services.