DEcEMBER 14, I916] 
NATURE 
295 
of the adoption by Rhodesia, under the influence of 
Mr. Hayes Hammond. of the American mining law. 
- According to that system, instead of each mining com- 
pany holding all the minerals vertically below its 
surface, it has the right to work under its neighbours’ 
lands any reef that it can follow from the surface. 
In this case the Globe and Phoenix Gold Mining Co. 
was extracting very rich ore from beneath the surface 
held by the Amalgamated Properties of Rhodesia. 
The question at issue was whether this ore was part 
of the Phoenix reef, in which case it belonged to the 
Globe and Phoenix Co. by virtue of its extralateral 
tights, or whether it came from an independent reef. 
The Phoenix mine at the surface worked two parallel 
reefs, which .came together underground, and at 
greater depths bifurcated several times. The Globe 
and Phoenix Co. claimed these bifurcations as branches 
of one reef. According to the plaintiff company there 
are no branching reefs, and the alleged Phoenix reef 
consists of at least five independent reefs which had 
been brought into practical continuity by a complex 
series of faults. It was claimed that the so-called 
coalescences and bifurcations were junctions due to 
faults, and that the great variations in the ore indi- 
cated that different parts of the reef had been formed 
at different times and by different processes, and were 
therefore distinct reefs. The geological evidence was 
subject to the drawbacks that the reef had been long 
ago removed at the critical junctions, and that the 
evidence collected by the survey of the fifteen miles of 
underground workings was in places inadequate, as it 
was not always realised what would be the essential 
points. The Globe and Phcenix Co. admitted that the 
reef was not formed in a short time and all parts of it 
simultaneously, as it probably grew by the slow 
extension of a branching system of cracks. Mr. 
Justice Eve’s decision in favour of the Globe and 
Pheenix Co. therefore decides that such a slowly 
formed branched sheet of ore, in spite of considerable 
Variations in its contents and some breaks in its con- 
tinuity, is one reef. 
We much regret to announce the death, on Decem- 
ber 10, of Mr. Clement Reid, F.R.S., late of H.M. 
Geological Survey, at sixty-three years of age. 
WE regret to record the death on December 11, in 
his eighty-ninth year, of Mr. W. Ellis, F.R.S., 
formerly superintendent of the magnetical and 
ae department, Royal Observatory, Green- 
wich. 
Mr. Ransom, of Hitchin, has placed with the Phar- 
maceutical Society funds to endow a research fellow- 
ship to bear his name. The sum to be invested for 
the purpose will yield about tool. yearly in perpetuity. 
Tue Primate of Ireland (Dr. Crozier), in whom the 
appointment is vested, subject to the approval of Ox- 
ford University, has appointed Mr. J. A. Hardcastle, a 
grandson of Sir John Herschel, to be astronomer to 
| the Armagh Observatory in succession to Dr. J. E. L. 
Dreyer, who recently resigned to take up work at 
Oxford. 
Tue “Cecil "’ medal and prize of rol. is offered by 
the Dorset Field Club for award in May next, for the 
best paper on ‘‘The more recent applications of elec- 
tricity in the present war, especially in the treatment 
of wounds and diseases arising therefrom.” The com- 
petition is open to persons of from seventeen to thirty- 
five years of age, born. in Dorset, or resident in the 
county for a year between May 1, 1915, and May 1, 
1917. Competing essays should be sent to Mr. H. 
Pouncy, the Chronicle Office, Dorchester. ; 
NO. 2459, VOL. 98] 
Tue death jis announced, in his ninetieth year, of the 
Rev. W. D. Macray, librarian, historian, and 
archeologist, whose life was spent in the service of the 
Bodleian Library. His first work was a manual of 
British historians down to A.D. 1600, but the main 
study of his life was bibliography, as shown by the 
catalogue of the Bodleian Library, and.*‘The Annals 
of the Bodleian,’ published in 1868. He also edited 
works for the Rolls Series, and prepared a calendar 
of the muniments of Magdalen College. He:was in 
charge of Ducklington parish for more than. forty 
years. ‘ 
Pror. A. S. UNDERWOOD, who died on December 2, 
occupied the chair of dental anatomy and physiology at 
King’s College Hospital for twenty-two years,and became 
inspector of dental examinations on behalf of the General 
Medical Council. He had also been president: of the 
Odontological Society, and held’ several other offices in 
connection with dental science. He was-born’ in Lon- 
don on January 10, 1854, and throughout ‘his: profes- 
sional career did much to encourage research among 
those who were engaged in practice. “He himself was 
successively interested in the production of* dental 
caries by the action of micro-organisms, the detection 
of organic matter in human enamel, and the anatomy 
of the maxillary sinus. In 1912 he took part in the 
restoration of the lower jaw of Piltdown man, and in 
1913 he published an X-ray photograph of this fossil, 
which was discussed at the time in Nature. 
Tue death is announced of Dr. José -Echegaray, 
member of the Spanish Academy, and president of the 
Spanish Academy of Sciences. Born at Madrid on 
April 19, 1832, he began early to incline to mathe- 
matical studies, and in 1854 he was appointed pro- 
fessor in the School of Bridges and Roads. From 
that time onwards his activities widened, and he 
gradually became one of the prime movers in the 
modern revival of science and other intellectual studies 
in Spain. His numerous popular articles on scientific 
subjects in the magazines and reviews were especially 
attractive, and aroused great interest. He was also a 
poet and author of plays, and in 1904 he shared with 
Mistral the Nobel prize for poetry. In 1905, when 
already seventy-three years old, Dr. Echegaray was 
called to the professorship of physics in the University 
of Madrid; he then began with renewed energy to pro- 
mote the study of mathematics, and was occupied with 
the proof sheets of his last work, in several volumes, 
at the time of his death on September 14, 1916. Be- 
tween 1868 and 1874 Dr. Echegaray took a prominent 
part in political life, and while Minister of Public 
Works, Instruction, and Agriculture founded the 
Spanish Geographical and Statistical Institute. 
Tue August. issue of ‘Records of the Geological 
Survey of India,’ which reached'us a few days ago, 
includes. the. following note by the’ director of the 
survey, Dr. H. H. Hayden, upon Mr. R. C. Burton, 
who died of wounds on April 9, at twenty-six years 
of age:—“I greatly regret to-have to record the 
death of Mr. R. C. Burton, ‘assistant superintendent, 
Geological Survey of India. Mr. Burton joined the 
department in: January, 1912, and ‘was posted to the 
Central Provinces, where, during his short period of 
service, he did admirable -work'in helping to solve the 
question of the origin’ of ‘the calcareous gneisses which 
constitute such an important element of the Archzean 
group of that area. His investigations into the origin 
of the bauxite of Seoni and adjoining districts also 
gave evidence of marked ability, and by his death the 
Geological Survey has lost one of the most promising, 
as well as one of the most popular, of its younger 
members. Mr. Burton joined the Indian Army Re- 
serve of Officers early in April, 1915, and, after a 
