1283 
OBITUARY. * 
Prank N. Meyer, the Agricultural Explorer of 
China and Turkestan, is dead. The following cable- 
grams received through the State Department from the 
American Consul in Nanking contain all the informa- 
tion which we now have about his death - perhaps they 
are all we shall ever know about the last hours of 
this remarkable man: 
"June 4, 1918. 
"Prank Meyer, Department Agriculture, disappeared 
from a steamer in this consular district en route 
Hankow to Shanghai, June 2nd." 
"June 7, 1918. 
"Yours June fifth. Proceeding with Chinese up 
river to search for Meyer. Steamer captain states 
Meyer normal but complained of headache. Have tele- 
graphed Legation and requested Swingle come to Nan- 
king to assist in search." 
"June 9, 1918. 
"Pound Meyer's body thirty miles above Wuhu." 
Mr. Meyer had endeared himself to all those who 
came to know him, because of his real interest not 
only in. plants but in the building up of the human 
race and the work of making the world more beautiful 
for that race to live in. 
It is hard to realize that those facinating 
letters from dusty inns, Buddhist temples and river 
steamers will cease. We shall receive no more of the 
characteristic cloth packages addressed always in his 
own handwriting and containing carefully packed and 
carefully labelled packets of seeds or cuttings. Un- 
like the work of most travelers, whose stories cease 
with the writing of a book of travel^ Frank Meyer's 
work had a concreteness about it which the making of 
books can never quite approach; for the things which 
he brought .us are scattered all over this country, 
and other countries as well, - growing into avenues, 
orchards, forests, hedgerows, broad cultivated fields 
and flowering borders, and thousands of men and women 
own them and appreciate them and some will perhaps 
make a living out of them. 
