June 3, 1922] 



NA TURE 



72 



not so well known that Sandmeyer directed the atten- 

 tion of the professor, who had forgotten the incident, 

 to this remarkable difference between the two kinds 

 of benzene, which subsequently led to the discovery 

 of thiophene and its numerous congeners. When 

 Prof. Meyer was transferred to Gottingen in 1885, 

 Sandmeyer accompanied him, but very shortly re- 

 turned to Zurich, where he became assistant to Prof. 

 Hantzsch. In 1888 he joined the firm of J. R. Geigy, 

 manufacturers of dyestuflfs of Basle. 



Apart from the Sandmeyer reactions and his re- 

 markable synthesis of indigo from thiocarbanilide 

 in 1899, Sandmeyer's discoveries are little known to 

 chemists unconnected with the s>Tithetic dye industry, 

 in which his later activities lay, and where his greatest 

 successes were achieved. He was a man of reserved 

 habits and made few friends outside the small coterie 

 of his collaborators and fellow-workers, but is described 

 by one, formerly associated with him, as a colleague 

 who was always ready to help and advise. His skill 

 as an expert mechanician, his scrupulous care as an 

 experimenter, and his powers of observation often led 

 him to discoveries which others had overlooked, and 

 the long list of new and valuable dyestuffs of which 

 he was the author placed him in the forefront of colour 

 chemists. 



In recognition of his work the University of Heidel- 

 berg conferred upon Sandmeyer the degree of Ph.D. 

 honoris causa in 1891, and in 191 5, at the celebration 

 of the 150th anniversary of the firm of J. R. Geigy Co., 

 of which he had meantime become a director, he was 

 made an honorary doctor of the Zurich Technical 

 School. On his retirement in 1919 Sandmeyer left a 

 large portion of his wealth to the pension fund of the 

 firm with which he had been so loner associated. 



Prof. H. M. Howe. 



Prof. Henry Marion Howe, whose death was 

 recently announced, in his seventy-fifth year, was the 

 doyen of American metallurgists. He was well known 

 both here and on the Continent. He was born at 

 Boston on March 2,' 1848, the son of Dr. Samuel 

 Gridley Howe, who was one of the earliest to assist 

 the Greeks in their struggle for freedom. His 

 mother, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, was the author of the 

 famous " Battle Hymn " of the Republic. 



Prof. Howe graduated at the University of Harvard 

 in 1869 in arts, and two years later in science at the 

 Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He then 

 engaged in metallurgical work in Pittsburg, Pa., and 

 Troy, N.J., and soon became known as a keen observer 

 and investigator. In 1880 he designed and built 

 the works of the Orford Nickel and Copper Company 

 at Capeltown in the province of Quebec, and at Bergen- 

 point, N.J. From 1883 to 1897 he resided at Boston, 

 and set up in private practice as a consulting metal- 

 lurgist and expert witness in metallurgical patent suits. 

 With this he combined the position of lecturer on 

 metallurgy at the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- 

 nology. He was an original member of the American 

 Institute of Mining Engineering, founded in 187 1, 

 and soon contributed to its transactions. His first 

 paper was on " Blast-furnace Economy," which was 

 followed by " Thoughts on the Thermic Curves of 



NO. 2744, VOL. 109] 



Blast-furnaces " and " Nomenclature of Iron," the 

 latter a remarkable contribution to the discussion 

 inaugurated by A. L. Holley in his famous paper, 

 " What is Steel ? " His first book, published in 1885, 

 dealt with copper smelting. This was followed in 

 1891 by " The Metallurgy of Steel," a book which 

 did much to lay the foundations of scientific steel 

 metallurgy, and created for him an international 

 reputation in the subject. 



In 1897 Prof. Howe was called to the chair of metal- 

 lurgy at Colombia College, New York, a position which 

 he filled for some fifteen years. On his retiring to 

 become a consulting metallurgist, he was appointed 

 professor emeritus. He was one of the small band of 

 metallurgists who helped to lay the foundations of 

 the science of metallography, and his name will always 

 be remembered in connection with those of the late 

 M. Osmond, Martens, H. Le Chatelier, Tschernofif, 

 Anossov, Stead, Roberts- Austen, and Arnold. In 

 this connection, his principal contribution is his book 

 entitled " The Metallography of Steel and Cast-iron," 

 a monumental work, which displays a remarkable 

 grasp of the subject and an unusual power of weighing 

 scientific evidence. Prof. Howe was not primarily 

 an' experimentalist, although in his later years he 

 published several papers with the late A. G. Levy, 

 dealing particularly with the iron-carbon equilibrium. 

 He was, however, a prolific writer, and in all published 

 more than 300 papers. He was vice-president of the 

 Taylor Wharton Iron and Steel Company, and intro- 

 duced the manufacture of manganese steel into the 

 United States in 1890. 



Prof. Howe was president of the American Institu- 

 tion of Mining Engineers, honorary vice-president of 

 the Iron and Steel Institute, chairman of the engineer- 

 ing division of the National Research Council, con- 

 sulting metallurgist of the U.S. Bureau of Standards, 

 and research associate of the Carnegie Institution of 

 Washington. Many honours came to him from various 

 countries. In 1895 he was awarded the Bessemer 

 Medal of the Iron and Steel Institute, later the Elliot 

 Cresson gold medal of the Franklin Institute, a special 

 prize and gold medal from the Societe d'Encourage- 

 ment pour ITndustrie Internationale, and finally, in 

 191 7, the John Fritz gold medal, the highest honour 

 in the gift of the engineering institutions of the United 

 States of America. He also received several foreign 

 orders, including the Legion of Honour and the Russian 

 order of St. Stanislas. Prof. Howe was a frequent 

 visitor to this country, and his genial personality will 

 be greatly missed by metallurgists over here. 



Dr. Robert Bruce-Low. 



Dr. Robert Bruce-Low, the distinguished epi- 

 demiologist, died on May 11 after a brief illness. 

 Born in Edinburgh in 1846, he was educated at the 

 Royal High School and University of that city, and 

 graduated in medicine in 1867. After a year spent in 

 post-graduate study in London and Germany, he 

 settled down as a general practitioner, first in Lincoln- 

 shire and afterwards at Helmsley in the North Riding, 

 becoming the medical officer of health of the latter 

 district. 



This nineteen years of general practice gave him 



