February 20, 19 13] 



NATURE 



679 



Canada is, however, running- India very close, and 

 the staff of the Ottawa Experimental Farm is 

 actively eng^aged in studying wheat produc- 

 tion, in raising new varieties suited to the different 

 regions, and in demising new methods of manage- 

 ment or cultivatio. likely to increase the yield. 

 It is satisfactory, al-<j, to find that Australia has 

 considerably increase-ii lier shipments of wheat and 

 sent more than in anv previous year; the yields 

 for some of the States would seem to indicate even 

 further possibilities ot ini. rease. 



GEORGE MATTHEY, F.R.S. 



THE death of Mr. George Matthey, F.R.S., on 

 February 14, in his eighty-eighth year, 

 removes one who whilst actively engaged in 

 commercial work was at the same time keenly 

 interested in scientific progress. 



During the early years of his life Mr. Matthey 's 

 time was devoted not only to developing and 

 extending the business in Hatton Garden, but 

 also to a most careful study of platinum and its 

 associated metals, and he devised methods by 

 which these metals could be separated quantita- 

 tivel)' from each other on a large scale. These 

 methods were described by him in the Proceedings 

 of the Royal Society for 1879 (vol. xxviii., p. 463). 



In 1870 an international metric commission met 

 in Paris. Its object was the construction and 

 verification of a new and uniform series of 

 standards, and upon it served such masters of 

 metallurgical and chemical arts as Deville, 

 Debray, and Stas. Certain members of the com- 

 mission undertook the work of purifying the 

 platinum and iridium of which the new standards 

 were to be composed. 



After much labour had been expended, the alloy 

 consisting of platinum with lo per cent, of iridium 

 was produced, but on analysis it was found to be 

 impure. At this stage Mr. Matthey was invited 

 by the French Minister of War, at the instigation 

 of several important official bodies, to prepare the 

 necessary quantity of alloy. He at once undertook 

 the work of making the large quantities of 

 platinum and iridium in the highest state of purity, 

 and finally cast the ingots of the alloy in Paris. 

 These ingots were submitted to the most rigid 

 analysis, and proved to be exactly of the com- 

 positfon required. 



Mr. Matthey was then invited to construct the 

 bars of the somewhat peculiar cross-section which 

 liad been already decided upon. The writer well 

 remembers Mr. Matthey telling him that his 

 friends besought him to have nothing to do wiiii 

 the construction of the bars ; he was not, how- 

 «ver, a man to be daunted by a difficulty of this 

 sort, and he went into the City and bought a 

 second-hand lathe, and set one of his skilled work- 

 men to produce the bars of the desired cross- 

 section. The bars fulfilled ail the conditions that 

 were laid down. Copies of them were supplied to 

 all the larger countries of the world, and they now 

 ■constitute the standards upon which the metric 

 system rests. Mr. Matthey was appointed a 

 NO. 2260, VOL. 90] 



member of the Legion of Honour, and in 1879 ^e 

 was elected a fellow of the Royal Societ}'. 



Notwithstanding the absorbing character ol 

 business affairs and inroads on his leisure neces- 

 sitated by his deep interest in scientific progress, 

 Mr. Matthey found time to interest himself in 

 educational matters ; he played a very active part 

 in the foundation of the City and Guilds Colle'ges 

 for the advancement of technical education at 

 Finsbury and South Kensington, and served for 

 many years on the executive governing body of 

 those institutions. His wide knowledge of affairs 

 and his keen judgment of men played no small 

 part in determining the signal success of these 

 two colleges from their very inception. The ver}' 

 complete scheme of technical education with which 

 London is provided is in a large measure due to 

 the enthusiastic efforts of Mr. Matthey in associa- 

 tion with two other prominent members of the 

 lioldsmiths' Company, Sir Walter S. Prideaux and 

 the late Sir Frederick Abel. 



Mr. Matthey for a very prolonged period served 

 as a warden of the Goldsmiths' Company, where 

 his counsel and advice were of the greatest assist- 

 ance on questions relating to assaying and the 

 precious metals. Almost all who work at scientific 

 research are under a deep debt of gratitude to 

 Mr. Matthey and his firm for unvarying kindness 

 in helping them out of many difficulties by placing 

 the resources of their works so freely at their 

 disposal. 



Those who had the privilege of counting Mr. 

 Matthey as a friend realise that they have lost a 

 truly delightful companion, remarkable not only 

 for the wide breadth of his sympathies, but also 

 for his genial temperament and abhorrence of all 

 that savoured of sham. C. T. H. 



NO ! ES. 

 Mr. David Hooper, cui;uor of the Industrial Sec- 

 tion, Indian Museum, Calcutta, has been appointed 

 economic botanist to the Botanical Survey of India. 



The Rev. A. H. Cooke, author of an important 

 work on molluscs ("Cambridge Natural History 

 Series "), has succeeded Mr. R. Bullen Newton in the 

 presidency of the Malacological Society of London. 



The Toronto correspondent of The Times states that 

 the Dominion Government will grant Mr. Stefansson the 

 sum of 15^,000?. towards his expedition into unexplored 

 territory north of the Canadian mainland. Mr. 

 Stefansson will take with him Canadian students with 

 scientific knowledge, and the expedition will be 

 directly under the Canadian Geological Survey. He 

 expects to be absent three winters and four summers. 



Dr. W. J. G. Land, assistant professor of botany 

 at Chicago L'niversity, has recently spent four months 

 in investigations in Australia and the Samoan Islands. 

 Two of these months were occupied in the collection 

 and study of plants in the island of Tutuila, where 

 the remarkable growth and variety of the ferns 

 attracted special attention. Dr. Land also made 

 observations in and around the crater of Kilauea in the 

 Hawaiian Islands. 



