pJUNE 4, 1914] 
NATURE 
sve 
standing work, but he wrote many medical 
papers, publishing the chief of them in the Guy’s 
Hospital Reports. He contributed the article on 
Harvey in the “Encyclopedia Britannica,” and 
delivered the Harveian oration in 1893. He was 
an admirable speaker, always saying just the right 
thing in just the right way. Nothing could have 
been better than the speech he made at the dinner 
given to Sir Samuel Wilks by his many admirers 
when he became a baronet. 
Pye-Smith’s honesty, his high ideals, his 
geniality, his affection for all learning—modern 
or ancient, medical or non-medical—and his many 
kindnesses especially to younger members of the 
profession, gave him troops of friends, and no one 
took more pleasure than he in getting them around 
him. All who knew him admired and liked him. 
Unhappily, illness kept him in retirement for 
several years before his death on May 23. In 1894 
he married Gertrude, the youngest daughter of the 
late Arthur Foulger. She and their only child— 
a son—survive him. 
NOTES. 
Tue Croonian Lecture of the Royal Society will be 
delivered on Thursday, June 11, by Prof. E. B. Wil- 
son, of Columbia University, on the bearing of cyto- 
logical research on heredity. 
Tue Institution of Electrical Engineers will hold a 
conversazione at the Natural History Museum, South 
Kensington, on Thursday, June 25. A conversazione 
of the Institution of Civil Engineers will be held at 
the institution on Thursday, July 2. 
Pror. Metcunikorr, of the Pasteur Institute, is to 
be presented with a ‘“‘ golden”’ book to celebrate his 
scientific jubilee and his seventieth birthday. — Prof. 
Metchnikoff, whose scientific work in zoology and 
microbiology is of a high order, is best known to the 
general public as the author of ‘“‘ The Prolongation of 
Life’’ and ‘‘The Nature of Man.” 
At the Laryngological Section of the Royal Society 
of Medicine on May 27, Prof. Gustav Killian, of Berlin, 
demonstrated his method of examining the larynx and 
its annexes by means of a new instrument, the ‘ sus- 
pension”’ laryngoscope. At the same time, a case of 
cancer of the throat was shown which had been 
treated by high-frequency electric currents—so-called 
diathermy—with promising results. 
THE triennial Parkin prize of tool. in the gift of the 
Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, has been 
awarded to Dr. Johnston-Lavis. The subject set 
was, ‘““On the Effects of Volcanic Action in the Pro- 
duction of Epidemic Diseases in the Animal and in 
the Vegetable Creation, and in the Production of 
Hurricanes and Abnormal Atmospherical Vicissitudes.”’ 
The prize essay will be published in book form by 
Messrs. Bale, Sons and Danielsson, Ltd. 
SEVERAL important earthquakes have occurred during 
the past week. On May 26 a violent earthquake, the 
centre of which may have been in Central or South 
NG.72327, VOL/:93] 
America, was recorded in European observatories. 
On May 27 another strong shock was felt at Panama, 
but again without damaging the canal works. On the 
same day an earthquake of unusual intensity, which 
seems to have originated near Tonga, was recorded at 
Sydney, the disturbance lasting for three hours. 
Mr. W. B. Grove, writing from the University of 
Birmingham, says that any person interested in the 
study of the Uredinales may obtain a supply of the 
rare and remarkable parasite, Puccinia vincae, in a 
fresh condition, by sending a stamped and addressed 
envelope, or other suitable covering, to him at 46 
Duchess Road, Birmingham. The specimens show 
an abundance of the curious debatable bodies called by 
Plowright ‘‘ aecidia.”’ 
THE seventh congress of the International Associa- 
tion for Testing Materials will be held under the 
patronage of H.M. the Czar of Russia, in St. Peters- 
burg, on August 12-17, 1915. Four days will be 
devoted to the discussion of the most important prob- 
lems on testing materials. After the congress ex- 
tensive excursions in the interior of Russia have been 
arranged. The offices of the British section of the 
Association are at the Iron and Steel Institute, 28 
Victoria Street, London, S.W. 
TuE council of the Royal Society of Edinburgh has 
awarded the following prizes :—(1) The Neill prize 
for the biennial period 1911-12, 1912-13 to Dr. W. S. 
Bruce, in recognition of the scientific results of his 
Arctic and Antarctic explorations; (2) the Keith prize 
for the biennial period 1911-12, 1912-13 to Mr. J. Rus- 
sell, for his series of investigations relating to magnetic 
phenomena in metals and the molecular theory of 
magnetism, the results of which have been published 
in the Proceedings and Transactions of the society, 
the last paper having been issued within the period. 
Mr. James W. Munro, Wolfe-Barry student in ento- 
mology at the Imperial College of Science and Tech- 
nology, South Kensington, who is engaged in working 
out the life-history of Xestobium tesselatum with re- 
gard to the roof of Westminster Hall, will be glad to 
be informed of any timber known to be affected with 
this beetle, and whether it would be possible for him 
to obtain it by purchase or to examine it for living 
beetles. He adds :—‘‘ Owing to the precarious condi- 
tion of Westminster Hall roof, it is desirable that my 
investigations be carried out as soon as possible and a 
large supply of living beetles is the first essential.” 
SENSATIONAL paragraphs on seeing by wire have 
been going the rounds of the daily Press, but there is 
no indication in these accounts of anything funda- 
mentally different from the plans that were put for- 
ward in the early days of the Physical Society, when 
the late Mr. Shelford Bidwell, Prof. Ayrton, and others 
were experimenting with selenium. At that time 
mosaics of selenium were going to do all that is pro- 
mised now, but they never did. It may be that Dr. 
A. M. Low, whose apparatus has been described in 
perfervid terms in the daily Press, has made some 
progress, but the published accounts of the invention 
as ‘“‘the latest scientific discovery’ are absurd. 
