February 26, 1920] 



NATURE 



699 



what invidious selection of exhibits for comment, 

 and we have had to leave much interesting and 

 clever work unnoticed. But, granting the scope 

 and versatility of the attack, we venture to predict 

 that the exhibition will be as nothing to a similar 

 one held, say, in five or ten years' time. Great 

 improvements are imperative, and will doubtless 

 be forthcoming, in the means of registering 

 X-rays. Photographic plates and fluorescent 

 screens need to be improved out of recognition. 

 A good explorer for use in radio-metallography 

 could doubtless be evolved by means of the therm- 

 ionic valve, as in wireless telegraphy. 



With improved equipment radiology will acquire 

 powers which will give it acknowledged status 

 among the sciences, and medical radiology will 

 find an unquestioned place in every medical curri- 

 culum. The diploma of medical radiology estab- 

 lished last term by the University of Cambridge 



lative effort to succeed. The really remarkable 

 thing about Peary is that the method by which 

 he achieved success was practically independent 

 of modern developments in the art of travel. 

 Before very long the North Pole will be accessible 

 by aircraft ; it is possible that it might have been 

 attainable years ago by a steamer in an exception- 

 ally open season, but Peary reached the Pole with- 

 out mechanical help, bv the exercise of the powers 

 of human mind and body alone ; and had he been 

 a contemporary of Hudson or of Davis there 

 seems to be no reason why his genius could not 

 have won success in the sixteenth or seventeenth 

 century as well as in the twentieth. 



Peary's professional training was that of a land- 

 surveyor and civil engineer, and from early youth 

 he was accustomed to find his way through un- 

 mapped solitudes and to survey routes hitherto 

 untrodden. He was engaged, amongst other 



(«) 



500). (a) Natural photograph. (/•) Rajiograph showing monk in surplice and stole 



7. — Thfe "Crucifixion" by Cornells Etigeibrechtsz (r. -j--,. ,- , - — . = , . - - ... .. . 



underlying portrait of " doi.atrice " on right (Hcilbion). (< ) Natural photograph takt:n durmg process of re?toration, revealing monk. 



is a first step. An even bigger one would be the 

 setting up of an X-ray institute in London, which, 

 properly staffed and equipped, would lead to incal- 

 culable progress. W'e understand that such an 

 institute forms part of a forthcoming memorial 

 scheme to the late Sir James Mackenzie Davidson, 

 which we trust will command generous support. 



G. W. C. Kave. 



REAR-ADMIRAL R. E. PEARY, U.S.N. 



THE death of Rear-Admiral Peary at Washing- 

 ton on February 19, at the age of sixty-four, 

 removes one of the most remarkable of modern 

 explorers. It is not so much to the crowning 

 achievement of his life in reaching the North Pole 

 that Peary's claim to the respect of the geo- 

 graphical world is due as to the manner in which 

 he persevered, in the face of almost overpowering 

 difficulties, with very slender resources in a cumu- 

 NO. 2626, VOL. 104] 



things, on the survey of the abortive Nicaragua 

 Canal after he had joined the civil engineering 

 branch of the United States Navy, and his naval 

 rank must not be taken to imply that he was in 

 any sense a sailor. His official work lay in the 

 construction of harbours and dockyards, and the 

 world owes a debt to the enlightened chiefs of 

 the United States Navy, who recognised that they 

 were making a wise use of their powers in grant- 

 ing this born explorer unlimited leave for Arctic 

 work. 



Peary was led to visit Greenland for the first 

 time in 1886 on account of his interest in Baron 

 Nordenskiold's journey on the inland ice, and he 

 returned from the trip determined to continue the 

 exploration of the ice-cap in its least-known parts. 

 In 1891-92 he spent thirteen months in northern 

 Greenland, establishing himself amongst the Etah 

 Eskimo on Whale Sound, and making a 1200- 

 mile journey with dog-sledges to the north-eastern 



