568 NATURE 
[JuLy 22, 1915 


action in defending the top of Shotover Hill from 
enclosure. The preservation of beauty; whether in 
nature or in art, always found in him an enthusiastic 
champion. 
1 
HERBERT KyNASTON, whose death was recorded in 
our issue for July 15, was the son of the late Dr. 
Kynaston, Canon of Durham, and was born on July 
19, 1868. He entered King’s College, Cambridge, 
making a special study of geology, and securing a 
first class in part ii. of the Natural Sciences Tripos 
in 1891. He proceeded to examine the volcanic rocks 
of Old Red Sandstone age in the Cheviot Hills, and 
was appointed an assistant geologist to the Geological 
Survey (Scottish Branch) on May 3, 1895. His first 
official work lay among the Old Red Sandstone rocks 
of Lorne and Glencoe, and he made important con- 
tributions to the Memoirs on Mid-Argyll and the 
Oban and Dalmally districts. He resigned his post 
in January, 1903, to take up the difficult duties of 
director of the reconstituted Geological Survey of the 
Transvaal, and numerous members of the British 
Association will recall his kindly guidance during a 
memorable visit to South Africa in 1905. The first 
report under his auspices, that for 1903 (see NATURE, 
vol. Ixxi., p. 53), contains a paper by him and his 
colleague, A. L. Hall, on diamond-bearing pipes and 
alluvial deposits. He described in later reports the 
Komati Poort coalfield and the tin-deposits of Water- 
berg, south of the Limpopo, and much of his work 
had to be carried on in advance of the mapping of the 
country. When, under the Union Government, the 
Geological Surveys of the provinces were © united, 
Kynaston was selected as director, and he initiated 
the series of Memoirs of the Geological Survey of 
South Africa. His death at Pretoria on June 28, 1915, 
at the early age of forty-six, will be regretted as much 
in Scotland as in South Africa, and some of his ob- 
servations on the Glencoe area are embodied in a 
memoir that is still passing through the press. One 
of his colleagues writes of him with simple feeling as 
a man who was “‘a true friend, of quiet disposition, 
but full of kindly humour and affection.” 
We learn from Science that Dr. Viktor von Lang, 
emeritus professor of physics at Vienna, has been 
elected president of the Vienna Academy of Sciences. 
The academy has elected as corresponding members 
Dr. Sven Hedin, Dr. Max Planck, professor of mathe- 
matical physics at Berlin, and Dr. P. H. von Groth, 
professor of mineralogy at Munich. 
Tue Livingstone gold medal of the Royal Scottish 
Geographical Society has been awarded to Lord 
Kitchener in recognition of his work on the survey of 
Palestine, and as a director of the survey of 
Cyprus, as well as in recognition of his signal ser- 
vices to the State. The society’s gold medal has been 
awarded to Dr. J. Scott Keltie, late secretary of the 
Royal Geographical Society, in consideration of his 
services to geographical science. 
WE regret to record the death on June 18 of Mr. 
T. D. West, at Glenville Hospital, Cleveland, Ohio. 
Engineering for July 16 contains a brief account of his 
career. Mr. West was born in Manchester in 1851; 
NO. 2386, VOL. 95] 


his parents emigrated to the United States when he 
was an infant. He entered a foundry at the age of 
twelve, and was connected with foundry work through- 
out his life; he was a recognised authority on sub- 
jects pertaining to foundry work. At the time of his 
death he was chairman of the West Steel Casting 
Co., Cleveland. He was a member of several 
American societies, and was the author of several 
books and pamphlets on foundry practice. 
THE annual meeting of the general committee of 
the Imperial Cancer Research Fund was held on 
Tuesday, July 20, Sir William Church in the chair. 
The work of the fund has been greatly curtailed 
owing to the war, and the scientific part of the annual 
report is restricted to a summary of the work pub- 
lished during the year. The work comprises an ex- 
perimental study of metastasis, which emphasises the 
importance of the processes at the site of arrest of 
tumour emboli, an investigation into immunity to 
transplanted sarcomata extending the well-known 
findings with regard to carcinoma to the connective 
tissue’ tumours, and biochemical studies. The two 
biochemical papers deal with the action of ferments. 
The first is concerned with the effect of minute altera- 
tions in the reaction of the medium on the activity 
of a maltose hydrolysing ferment. The second deals 
with the action of the protein-splitting ferment present 
in normal serum of man and animals as accounting 
for the phenomena comprised in the Abderhalden 
serum reaction. The conclusion is drawn that the 
doctrine of specific protective ferments set up by 
Abderhalden is unsound, and that the reaction even in 
its improved form cannot be relied on for the serum- 
diagnosis of pregnancy or cancer. The report also 
discusses the pathological bearings of the new and 
interesting data in the Registrar-General’s Report for 
1913 On the influence of marital condition in women 
on the mortality from cancer of organs special to 
their sex. 

Tue Engineering Magazine for July contains an 
interesting article on war orders and their effects on 
American industry. Sales of benzol have been much 
stimulated by the war, and the price has been quin- 
tupled. American makers of explosives have had two 
problems to solve, first, to expand their plants; 
secondly, to change over their processes to make 
foreign powder. These, together with the problem of 
securing a sufficient supply of raw materials, such as 
benzol, have been pretty well solved, and the produc- 
tion of explosives is proceeding on a tremendous scale. 
Many makers who have undertaken orders for shells 
have made heavy purchases of machine tools for 
executing the orders; these firms have been unwilling 
to fill their existing plants with such special work at 
the expense of inconveniencing their regular custo- 
mers. Evidently these firms are looking for a strong 
revival in domestic demands. The Westinghouse 
Electric and Manufacturing Company, after accepting 
a large order for rifles, bought two plants—the Stevens 
Arms Company and the Stevens-Duryea Automobile 
Company—in order to take care of the work outside 
of its Pittsburgh plants. Mr. J. F. Wallace, formerly 
chief engineer of the Panama Canal, thinks that, as 
