at the switch--perhaps for no reason within its control; and that American writers were in no such favorable case to write convincingly on the subject as were their British and continental contemporaries. So it was quite in accord with what might have been expected to find, on opening the identifying envelopes, that not alone the winning essay, but its two most immediate rivals, come from members of that school of British thought which had been in contact with the Einstein theories in their entirety for two years longer than the average American of equal competence. This riper familiarity with the subject was bound to yield riper fruit. Indeed, had it not been for the handicap of writing in a strange language, it is reasonable to assume that the scientists of Germany would have made a showing superior to that of either Americans or British--and for the same reason that Britain showed to better advantage than America. THE WINNER OF THE PRIZE Mr. Bolton, the winner of the big prize, we suppose may fairly be referred to as unknown in a strict scientific sense. Indeed, at the time of the publication of his essay in the Scientific American nothing could be learned about him on the American side of the water beyond the bare facts that he was not a young man, and that he had for a good many years occupied a position of rank in the British Patent Office. (It will be recalled that Einstein himself was in the Swiss Patent Office for some time.) In response to the request of the Scientific American for a brief biographical sketch that would serve to introduce him better to our readers, Mr. Bolton supplied such a concise and apparently such a characteristic statement that we can do no better than quote it verbatim.