May 24, 191 7] 



NATURE 



249 



"Abnormal Atmospheres and Means of -Combating 

 Them," and Prof G. S. Boulger, at the Chelsea 

 Physic Garden, '' The Associations of the Garden with 

 the Historv of Botany." During the meeting there 

 will be several visits to places of scientific interest. 

 All subscriptions m:ist be sent direct to the hon. 

 general secretary, Mr. H. Norman Grsy, 334 Com- 

 mercial Road, London, E.i. 



We regret to record the death of Mr. Benjamin 

 Hall Blyth on May 13, in his sixty-eighth year. An 

 account of his career appears in Engineering for May 

 18, from which we take the following particulars. 

 Mr. Blyth ser\ed his pupilage to civil engineering 

 with Messrs. B. and E. Blyth in Edinburgh, and in 

 187 1 became a member of the firm of Messrs. Blyth 

 and Cunningham. The work undertaken by this firm 

 ^■^rew ver}- rapidly^ — between 1871 and 1877 Parlia- 

 mentan,' plans for work estimated to cost 6,ooo,ooot. 

 passed through its hands. Mr. Blyth joined the 

 Institution of Civil Engineers in 1877. became a mem- 

 ber of the council in 1900. and was elected president 

 in 1914. He was consulting engineer to the Cale- 

 donian, the North British, and the Great North of 

 Scotland Railways. He was responsible for the two 

 great stations, the Central in Glasgow and the Waver- 

 ley in Edinburgh. Mr. Blyth was also engaged in 

 dock enlargement and improvement at Grangemouth 

 and at Methil ; both these docks are fully equipf>ed 

 with the latest appliances for handling material. He 

 was called upon to advise the leading corporations in 

 Scotland, and was much in demand as an expert wit- 

 ness, both in Scotland and at Westminster. He con- 

 tested East Lothian unsuccessfully three times. He 

 was chairman of the Edinburgh and District Tram- 

 ways Company, director of the National Bank of Scot- 

 land and of the Edinburgh Life Irvsurance Company, 

 and governor of the Merchiston Castle Schools and of 

 the Roya! Hospital for Sick Children. He is sur\'ived 

 by an only daughter. 



Botanical «.cience has suffered a serious loss through 

 the death of Ruth Holden, an American botanist of 

 great promise. Miss Holden was born at Attle- 

 borough. Massachusetts, in 1890, and graduated M.A. 

 of Harvard in 19 12. She took up palaeobotanical re- 

 search under Prof. Jeffrey, of Harvard, and in 1913 

 came to this country as a travelling Harvard fellow in 

 order to devote herself more particularlv to the anatom- 

 ical investigation of Mesozoic Conifers. She became 

 a post-graduate student of Newnham College, and was 

 afterwards elected to a fellowship. Impelled by her 

 love of strenuous work and by her strong conviction 

 of the justice of the cause of the ."MHes, Miss Holden 

 temporarily relinquished her scientific career at the 

 Cambridge Botany School and threw herself with char- 

 acteristic energ}- into nursing. In December last she 

 went to Russia with the first of the Millicent Fawcett 

 medical units, and earned the unstinted praise of the 

 administrator of the unit by her self-sacrificing work 

 in Petrograd, Kazan, Galicia, and in various parts of 

 Russia. After partially recovering from an attack of 

 typhoid fever, she died from meningitis at Moscow on 

 April 21. Miss Holden had published several papers 

 on palaeobotany, both in America and E.igland, and 

 shortly before her departure for Russia she completed 

 an account of a new Cordaitalean genus from India. 

 She was an exceptionally keen and able investigator, 

 who endeared herself to all with whom she was asso- 

 ciated by her outspoken candour, her sense of humour, 

 and her wonderful power of overcoming difficulties, 

 both in the way of fulfilment of her plans of scientific 

 work and in surmounting obstacles which confronted 

 her in her endeavours to obtain emploxtnent as an 

 American citizen with a British medical unit. 



NO. 2482, VOL. 99] 



Mr. J. \'. DuPRi. whose death we regret to record, 

 had a distinguished scientific career, and did much 

 valuable work in connection with explosives. After 

 leaving Merchant Taytors School, he took the three 

 years' course in engineering at the City and Guilds 

 of London Technical College, South Kensington, and 

 gained the college diploma. After leaving college he 

 worked fpr about a year in the laboratory of the late 

 Dr. A. Dupr^, F.R.S., where he gained his first 

 experience of explosive work, in which he evinced 

 the greatest interest. He then obtained an entrance 

 into Messrs. Vickers, Ltd., and went through their 

 shops at Erith, afterwards working for six years in 

 their drawing office at Westminster. During the 

 whole of this time he lived with his brothers, then 

 chemical advisers to the Explosives Department of 

 the Home Office, having succeeded their father in 

 this position, and thus kept in closest touch with 

 explosive chemistry, practical and applied. He then 

 went to Canada, where he worked as chemical 

 assistant to Dr. Lynde, of the McGill L'niversity, at 

 St. Anne's. Soon after the outbreak of war he 

 obtained an appointment in connection with the 

 Explosives Department of the Munitions Board, 

 Canada, and superintended the erection and working 

 of a number of explosives factories in various parts 

 of Canada. In all this work he showed such a grasp 

 of his subject that in October. 1916. he was appointed 

 chief chemical adviser, and finally technical adviser 

 also, posts he filled with the greatest success. During 

 January of this year he had a serious breakdown 

 owing to overwork, and on convalescence was sent by 

 the board to Old Point, Comfort, Virginia, to re- 

 cuperate, but caught a chill on the journey, which 

 developed into rheumatic fever, and finally into pneu- 

 monia, which ended fatally on March 13. 



Few men were so well known in pharmaceutical 

 circles, and few so highly respected, as Mr. Peter Mac- 

 Ewan, who died on May 16, in his sixty-first year, and 

 for the past eighteen years had held the responsible 

 post of editor of the Chemist and Druggist. Mr. 

 MacEwan received his pharmaceutical training in 

 Scotland, and exinced very early in his career a. dis- 

 tinct inclination towards the scientific side of phar- 

 macy. When only twenty-six years of age he was 

 appointed secretan.^ in Scotland of the Pharmaceutical 

 Society, and in that capacity found time and scope 

 for the development of his scientific tendencies and 

 ability for organisation. After a comparatively short 

 time he joined the editorial staff of the Chemist and 

 Druggist in London, succeeding the late Mr. A. C. 

 Wootton in 1899. He published numerous papers 

 dealing chiefly with the chemical aspect of pharma- 

 ceutical problems, and also devoted much attention to 

 pharmaceutical politics. His judgment was keen and 

 accurate, and his criticisms of the prevailing policy 

 were frequently advanced with remarkable vigour. 

 There was scarcely a branch of pharmacy in which he 

 did not possess some special knowledge, and, being 

 one of the kindliest and most generous of men, an 

 appeal to him for assistance in any subject was seldom 

 made in vain. He was a constant attendant at phar- 

 n-!aceutical meetings, and his contributions to the dis- 

 cussions almost invariably threw new -light on the 

 subject under consideration. His health had been 

 for some time indifferent, but his death, which was due 

 to apoplexy, was sudden. The funeral, which took 

 place on Saturday last at Marylebone Cemetery. 

 Finchley, was attended by many well-known phar- 

 macists, including the president and registrar of the 

 Pharmaceutical Society-, and also by representatives 

 of other learned ^societies. By his death pharmacy- 

 has sustained a distinct loss, and his absence from 

 pharmaceutical gatherings will be painfully felt. 



