When Mr Crawford's paper (see pp. 348–389) was passing through the press, Professor Love drew our attention to a paper by Walther Ritz, whose early death robbed the world of science of one whose brilliancy gave promise of a great future. This paper was published in Crelle's Journal in 1908 under the title, “Ueber eine neue Methode zur Lösung gewisser Variationsprobleme der mathematischen Physik.” In illustration of this new method Ritz showed how to solve, by a series of successive approximations, the problem of the clamped rectangular plate.