BY the death of Miss Katherine A. Burke, University College, London, has lost an excellent teacher who was untiring in her devotion to the academic, social, and athletic life of the college. Graduating at Birkbeck College, Miss Burke began her career at University College, in 1898, as a research assistant of the late Sir William Ramsay, and she took a share in the research emanating from the chemical laboratory at about this time. Later, she was appointed to the chemical staff, and was the first woman teacher directly concerned with the teaching of the undergraduates of the college. Miss Burke's original work included research on thorianite, the oxides of chlorine, the Joule-Thomson effect, the chemical dynamics of the alkyl iodides, and the absorption spectra of alcoholic solutions of nitrates. The paper on chemical dynamics, with Prof. F. G. Donnan (Journ. Chem. Soc, 1904, 555), showed that the order of reactivity of the alkyl iodides varied with the type of chemical reaction investigated, and hence it was not possible to ascribe their reactivity to a uniform cause, such, for example, as a dissociation of the iodides into ions. A research, published jointly with Prof. E. C. C. Baly and Miss Effie G. Marsden (Journ. Chem. Soc, 1909, 1096), on the absorption spectra of the aqueous alcoholic solutions of nitric acid and lithium, ammonium, and silver nitrates in relation to the ionic theory, afforded strong support for the theory of hydrated ions. It was found that the limiting conductivity and the persistence of the absorption band of these solutions showed a minimum at three per cent, of water. During the War, in addition to her work in connexion with the Voluntary Aid Detachment, Miss Burke found time to assist in the preparation of synthetic drugs, which were so badly needed at that time.