Decembep 24, 1914] 



NATURE 



455 



plosives. It is well, therefore, not to have exag- 

 gerated ideas of the power of explosives or to be 

 unduly scared by the threat of explosives dropped 

 from Zeppelins. The destructive effect of the 

 large charges which can be fired from the huge 

 howitzers used in the present war is terrible, but 

 explosives have their limits. 



While without doubt the damage done locally 

 from the explosion of a large quantity of any 

 explosive which might be dropped by a Zeppelin 

 would be appalling enough, yet, judging from 

 the effects of the accidental explosion of a couple 

 of tons of nitroglycerine during manufacture, its 

 area would be comparatively restricted, and the 

 horrifying suggestions mooted of the coming total 

 destruction of cities by explosives dropped from 

 the sky may be ascribed to the imagination of the 

 over-credulous. W. Macxab. 



PROF. INGRAM BYWATER. 



OX December 18 there died in his house in 

 Onslow Square the greatest Greek scholar 

 of our time. Ingram Bywater was remarkable for 

 the fact that he was imbued with the scientific 

 spirit, and pursued the investigation of Greek 

 thought — what may be called "the Greek thing" 

 — in the true scientific method. He was in close 

 sympathy with scientific men engaged in other 

 branches of investigation, of the methods and 

 results of which he had a remarkaBle understand- 

 ing and appreciation. 



Bywater was born in 1840, and after early days 

 spent at University and King's College Schools, 

 became a scholar of Queen's College, Oxford; 

 then, in 1863, fellow and tutor of Exeter College. 

 On the death of Jowett in 1893 he was appointed 

 by Mr. Gladstone Regius Professor of Greek. It 

 was chiefly through Bywater's influence that 

 l^xeter College was led to offer in 1872 a fellow- 

 >liip in the competition for which biology was to 

 be the chief subject. Huxley and Rolleston acted 

 as examiners on behalf of the College, and I had 

 the good fortune to be the successful candidate. 

 My college rooms were adjacent to Bywater's, and 

 we became constant companions and friends. We 

 often discussed — when the college slumbered — the 

 life and learning of the world and our own special 

 studies in a tobacco-parliament of two during the 

 small hours of the night. I learnt more from him 

 than I can say, and not only enjoyed his wise and 

 humorous discourse and his freedom from pedan- 

 try, but formed a warm regard for his fine spirit, 

 his wide learning, and his intellectual veracity. 

 When my fellow-student Moseley — who had not 

 competed for the Exeter fellowship owing to his 

 appointment as naturalist on the Challenger expe- 

 dition — returned from his travels, Bywater pro- 

 posed that the college should elect him also to a 

 fellowship, which was done. 



In 1885 Bywater married the second daughter 

 of Mr. C. J. Cornish, of Salcombe Regis, widow 

 of Mr. Hans Sotheby, a former fellow of Exeter 

 College. The work of her nephews, Charles and 

 \'aughan Cornish, is well known to scientific 



NO. 2356, VOL. 94] 



naturalists. Bywater was singularly happy in his 

 marriage, and after the death of his wife in 1908 

 never recovered his strength and vivacity. He 

 resigned his professorship, but still gave his ser- 

 vices to the University in connection with the 

 Bodleian and the Press. He lived among his 

 books in his London house, where after my own 

 departure from Oxford in 1898 I was his neigh- 

 bour and constantly with him as in the old days 

 at Exeter College. 



He had a most unfavourable opinion of the 

 study of Greek as conducted under the examina- 

 tion and scholarship system at Oxford. " It is not 

 Greek which they study," he said, "but an arbi- 

 trary and unreal creation of the examination 

 system and the traditions of college tutors." He 

 complained that when he was professor even those 

 more serious students among the undergraduates 

 who might have profited by his teaching were by 

 college directors of study kept away from his 

 class-room, as they were in earlier days held back 

 from the lectures of Max Miiller. Bywater pub- 

 lished in 1880 a remarkable piece of research and 

 discovery relating to the fragments of the Greek 

 philosopher Heracleitus, which led to his election 

 as corresponding member of the Royal Academy 

 of Sciences of Berlin. He devoted many years to 

 the criticism of the text of the " Ethics " and the 

 " Poetics " of .Aristotle, and in 1899 the Clarendon 

 Press published his magnum opus, containing his 

 recension of the text of the " Poetics " with an 

 introduction, translation, and commentary. But 

 the young college tutors had the power of direct- 

 ing their pupils " not to waste their time " with 

 listening to this great and original investigator, 

 and, instead, to work up their Greek in the exam- 

 ination classes of the colleges ; and they exercised 

 it ! Such is the mischievous result of the English 

 university dry-rot — the examination system. 



Only a month ago when my friend had tempor- 

 arily rallied from the illness which has now ended 

 fatally, he discoursed to me in his character- 

 istically cautious yet vigorous style of German 

 (more especially Prussian) arrogance and intrigue 

 and the boasted " Kultur " of the Germans. He 

 said that the quality of their abundant work, never 

 very high, had deteriorated since 1870, and con- 

 trasted their grasping and pretentious attitude at 

 the International Conference of Academies in 

 Vienna, where he represented the British Academy, 

 ' with the charm and refinement of the leading 

 ; Austrian delegate, Prof. Suess, the geologist, now 

 also gone from us, who, he declared, justified his 

 name by the sweetness of both his nature and his 

 behaviour. E. Ray Lankester. 



SCIENCE IN WARFARE. 



W/^ reprint from the Daily Mail of December 18 

 '^ ' a communication to that journal from a 

 Belgian man of science showing how the Germans 

 are utilising science for their op>erations in the 

 newly conquered region in Belgium. 



Here is a great lesson for us, for our Govern- 

 ment cares too little for the nation's need for 



