Editorial note — PHYSICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIAN REVELATION

[Footnote 43: F. Christopher Clavius, S. J., an eminent German mathematician and astronomer, was employed by Gregory XIII. in the reformation of the calendar. His Gregorian Calendar, published in 1581, tardily adopted in Protestant countries, and now regulates our system of leap-years. His collected mathematical and scientific works amount to five volumes folio. He was killed in 1612, page 75. F. Athanasius Kircher, S. J., also a native of Germany, was a diligent cultivator of science. His works, in twenty-two folio and eleven quarto volumes, embrace learned and original treatises on many recondite branches of physical science; on Magnetism, Optics, Acoustics, Geography, etc., etc. He filled the chair of Mathematics in the Jesuit Roman college, and laid the foundation of its extensive and valuable museum. He died in Rome, in 1680, at the age of 79. F. Roger Joseph Boscovich, S.J., a native of Ragusa, filled the chair of Astronomy in the Jesuit Roman College for thirty years, and was highly distinguished for the depth, originality, and variety of his aquirements in Natural Philosophy. He published several valuable treatises on the philosophy of Newton, on optics, etc. He is best known out of Italy for his ingenious theory of the molecular constitution of matter: a theory which the increasing knowledge of more modern philosophy has only confirmed. After the suppression of his order in 1778, he was welcomed to Paris, and taught philosophy there for a time; he returned to Italy, he died at Milan, in 1787, page 73. F. De Vico, S.J., was also an eminent astronomer in the Jesuit Roman College. His discovery of several comets introduced him to the circle of men of science. When the Jesuits were driven from Rome in 1848, he was received with open arms in the United States; but, unhappily for science, he died in London a very few years ago, while procuring instruments for his observatory in the far West. He was highly esteemed and beloved by his pupils, of whom there are many in this country. F. Pianciani, S.J., for many years taught chemistry in the Jesuit Roman College. He is admired for the simplicity of his manners no less than for the valuable contributions he has made to the nature of chemical science. Besides all larger and smaller treatise on it, he has published a work on the cosmogony of Moses; and we believe, is still preparing other treatises for the press.]