October 22, 1914] 



NATURE 



207 



The death of Dr. Anthony Traill, provost of Trinity 

 College, Dublin (writes . E. P. C), removes a 

 forceful personality from Irish life. Of strik- 

 ing all-round ability, never brilliant, but possess- 

 ing an indefatigable power of work, he out- 

 distanced many of his colleagues Who, from the 

 academic point of view, were more highly endowed. 

 Taking his LL.D. at twenty-six, he obtained fellow- 

 ship next year, 1865, and shortly afterwards he entered 

 the medical school, taking his M.D. in 1874. In 1899 

 he was co-opted a senior fellow, and was appointed 

 provost in 1904, vice Salmon. If he was wanting in 

 some qualities usually looked for in a provost, he 

 possessed, and in a high degree, others not so often 

 found in academic men, and thus he was able to bring 

 the college safely through the extraordinarily critical 

 times of the Parliamentary settlement of the Irish 

 University question, and the, in some ways more 

 delicate one, of internal reform. For this reason, and 

 the untiring energy with which he strove to widen 

 its activities, he deserves the hearty gratitude of the 

 college, and must be ranked as one of its most efficient 

 provosts. Of the man himself, it is difficult to give 

 an idea in a few lines. His interests w^ere exceed- 

 ingly wide. As an athlete, an alpine climber, a good 

 cricketer, a rifle shot, as a college fellow and tutor, 

 as a member of public boards and commissions, as a 

 financial adviser to the Church of Ireland, he always 

 acted up to the maxim, " Whatsoever thy hand findeth 

 to do, do it with thy might." Up to his sevent}- 

 fourth year he was remarkable for bodily vigour, even 

 then shooting over his bogs for an entire day without 

 a sign of fatigue; and what must be regarded as his 

 premature death at seventy-six was due to his almost 

 contemptuous disregard of painful symptoms to which 

 far younger men would have yielded. He was seen 

 at his best as a most kindly and entertaining host in 

 the family home at Ballylough. 



Owing to the absorbing attention given by our 

 newspaper Press to the war, we receive but the 

 scantiest notices of important earthquakes, even when 

 they occur in our own Colonies. From the Morning 

 Post for October 15, we learn that, at 2.15 a.m. on 

 the day before, an earthquake was felt all over the 

 colony of Jamaica, strong enough to awaken the in- 

 habitants, but not to cause any damage to buildings. 



0\ October 17, at about 8 a.m., the whole of 

 Greece was shaken by violent earthquake shocks, the 

 first of which lasted twenty seconds. The centre was 

 apparently near Thebes, where a number of houses 

 fell, especially in the villages of Cappareni and Pirri, 

 which were partially destroyed. Atalante nnd Chalcis 

 were also seriously injured, and all the railway stations 

 on the Larissa line were damaged. The shocks were 

 also felt in the Peloponnesus, the Cyclades, Euboea, 

 and the Ionian Islands. Several houses at Athens and 

 the Piraeus were cracked, but none of the ancient 

 monuments suffered. A few persons were injured, 

 but, so far as known, no lives were lost. Though 

 much less severe than the earthquakes of April 20 and 

 27, 1894, the recent shock seems to have originated 

 in the same region, and probably in the same great 

 NO. 2347, VOL. 94] 



fault. This fault was traced by M. Papavasiliou for 

 a distance of thirty-three miles, passing through 

 Atalante, in a direction parallel to the adjacent Gulf 

 of Euboea. The throw was generally small, though 

 in places it amounted to as much as 4 or 5 ft. (sc« 

 Nature, vol. 1., p. 607). 



The Philippine Journal of Science for April last 

 supplies an interesting account by Mr. E. B. Christie 

 of the pottery industry at San Nicolas, in the I locos 

 Norte province. A modified form of the potter's wheel 

 is used, the clay being shaped into a short, thick 

 cylinder, and laid on a board which rests upon a 

 second board, but not connected with it by a bearing- 

 pin. From time to time the woman worker gives the 

 upper board a turn with one hand while she works 

 the clay with the other. At first she uses only hei 

 fingers to shape the vessel. Later on she holds a 

 smooth stone against the inner surface of the vessel 

 with her left hand while with the other she works a 

 paddle to form the outer surface. With the paddle 

 she beats the clay, causing it to spread. When the 

 vessel is complete, she smooths the outside with a 

 shell and smears it with red earth mixed with water 

 in order to produce a uniform colour. If she does not 

 do this, the clay assumes a weak, irregular colour 

 when it is fired. If she desires to blacken the pot, it 

 is, while still very hot, covered with rice bran. This 

 becomes imperfectly consumed, and leaves a black 

 deposit on the clay. The industry is purely domestic, 

 but it is of some economical importance. 



In the October number of Man Dr. H. Basedow 

 furnishes an obituarj' notice of Mary Seymour, the last 

 relic of the lost Tasmanian race. Born in 1833, she 

 died in 1913, her mother being a full-blooded Tas- 

 manian aboriginal, who married a whaler named Nat 

 Thomas. On her marriage to Joseph Seymour, Mary 

 for the first time learned a little English, and she 

 claimed to be the first woman born on Kangaroo 

 Island. She used to give graphic accounts of her 

 experiences in the pioneering days of South Australia. 

 She was of short but robust stature, and her features 

 indicated a keen intellect combined with a determined 

 will. Seen in profile, the deep notch below the glabella 

 at the root of the nasal bones betrayed a Tasmanoid 

 inheritance, described by Dr. Garson (Journal Anthro- 

 pological Institute, vol. xxvii., plate 27) as one of the 

 characteristics of the race. The hair was silken, 

 white, and wavy, the eyebrows bushy. Her lips and 

 skin were remarkably free from hair, and her skin 

 was of a dark bronze-brow-n and wrinkled with age. 

 The lower jaw was well developed, and had a big 

 loose flap of skin attached to it that produced a very 

 noticeable double-chin. The keen, small eyes lay deep 

 within their sockets ; their colour was a greyish-brown. 

 It is interesting to compare the photographs accom- 

 panying the article with those published by Mr. H. 

 Ling Roth in his classical memoir descriptive of this 

 interesting race. 



The preventive treatment of fowl cholera is dealt 

 with by Mr. Philip B. Hadley in Bulletin 159, Agri- 

 cultural Experiment Station of the Rhode Island State 

 College, U.S.A. Various avirulent cultures of the 



