GRANT ALLEN, one of the most popular scientific essayists of his day, was born at Kingston, Canada, February 24th, 1848. His sponsors christened him “Charles Grant Blairfindie” Allen, but, as a result of his well-deserved international celebrity, this has been shortened to “Grant.” As “Cecil Powers” and “J. Arbuthnot Wilson” he has done no inconsiderable work as a novelist and miscellaneous writer, but it is on his scientific essays, published in English periodicals, that his enduring reputation will rest. Except in the late Prof. R. A. Proctor, he has had no rival in popularizing science, and in the lightness of his touch he surpasses Proctor. His sense of humor is delicate, and, while it appears in such works as his essay on the “Scientific Aspects of Falling in Love,” he does not allow it to discredit him or to lower him in the eyes of the reader from the plane of the scientist to that of the humorist. His uncollected essays published during the last twenty years are numbered by the score. The article on “Apparitions” in the current edition of the British Encyclopædia is from his pen. He died in London, October 25th, 1899.