348 



NATURE 



lNovember 25, 19 1 5 



works on the nervous system are "The Brain as 

 an Or^an of Mind," " Paralyses : Cerebral, Bulbar, 

 and Spinal," and "Aphasia and other Speech De- 

 fects." Herbert Spencer was a life-long- friend, 

 and, as one of his trustees, Dr. Bastian was joint- 

 editor of that writer's posthumous "Autobio- 

 g-raphy." He was also a naturalist of catholic 

 tastes, and contributed a monograph on the 

 Anguillulidae, a family of free nematode worms, 

 to the Linnean Society and compiled a " Flora of 

 Falmouth." 



But it is particularly in connection with the 

 "origins" of life that Bastian's name will be 

 chiefly remembered. Contrary to generally 

 accepted views, he denied that life always origin- 

 ates from pre-existing life, and maintained that, 

 just as presumably in past agfes life developed 

 from non-living matter, so at the present time 

 lowly living organisms are, under certain con- 

 ditions, being generated from non-living elements. 

 He was, in fact, an upholder of the doctrine of 

 spontaneous generation, or, as he preferred to 

 term it, of "archebiosis." By the use of solutions 

 containing colloidal silica and iron, enclosed in 

 sealed glass tubes and sterilised by heat, and 

 maintained under particular conditions of light and 

 temperature, he claimed that after a time micro- 

 org-anisms, such as bacteria and torulae and even 

 moulds, developed. His results have been de- 

 tailed in several papers which have appeared in the 

 pages of Nature during the last few years, and 

 in "The Beginnings of Life" and "Nature and 

 Origin of Living Matter." Few have cared to 

 undertake the laborious investigations necessary 

 to follow this work, which cannot be said to have 

 been confirmed, though the MM. Mary, of Paris, 

 and a correspondent writing only last week in the 

 English Mechanic, state that they have observed 

 the development of lowly organisms in culture 

 tubes prepared according to his directions. 



Dr. Bastian also supported the doctrine of 

 "heterogenesis," the sudden appearance of one 

 kind of organism as the offspring of another, e.g., 

 ciliates and flag-ellates descending- from amoebae. 

 This work was published in book form under the 

 title of "Studies in Heterogenesis." Dr. Bastian 

 maintained his views against all opposition with 

 a tenacity and Ingenuity which won the respect of 

 his bitterest opponents. A man of g-reat personal 

 charm and originality he literally died In harness, 

 for up to three or four months ago he was con- 

 tinulngf his Investigations and planning new ex- 

 periments with a vigour which showed little 

 decline in spite of his four-score years, and to the 

 last his interest in science he had served so well 

 remained undlmmed. R. T. H. 



NOTES. 



His Majesty the King has been pleased to approve 

 of the following- awards this year by the president and 

 council of the Royal Society : — A Royal medal to Prof. 

 Sir Joseph Larmor, F.R.S., for his numerous and 

 important contributions to mathematical and physical 

 science; a Royal medal to Dr. W. H. R. Rivers, 

 NO. 2404, VOL. 96] 



F.R.S., for his important contributions to ethnography 

 and ethnology. The following awards have also been 

 made by the president and council :— The Copley 

 medal to Prof. Ivan Petrovitch Pavlov, for his inves- 

 tigations in the physiology of digestion and of the 

 higher centres of the nervous system ; the Davy medal 

 to Prof. Paul Sabatier, for his researches on contact 

 action and the application of finely-divided metals 

 as catalytic agents; the Hughes medal to Prof. Paul 

 Langevin, for his important contributions to, and pre- 

 eminent position in, electrical science. 



The Admiralty announces that Staff-Surgeon G. M.- 

 Levick has been specially promoted to the rank of 

 Fleet Surgeon for his seryices with the British Ant- 

 arctic Expedition in 1910. 



The council of the Royal Meteorological Society 

 has awarded the Symons Memorial gold medal, which 

 is presented biennially for distinguished work done 

 in connection with meteorological science, to Dr. 

 C. A. Angot, director, Central M^t^orologique de 

 France, Paris. The medal will be presented at the 

 annual general meeting of the society on January 19, 

 1916. 



In the death of Lieutenant Fi'ank Stevenson Long, 

 nth Essex Regiment, British science loses a young 

 man of great promise. Educated at Parmiter's 

 School, he proceeded to East London College as a 

 Drapers' Company scholar In 1906, and graduated 

 with first-class honours in chemistry in 1909. He 

 acted as demonstrator in the chemical department for 

 a year, publishing his first paper on the velocity of 

 addition of alkyl bromides to cyclic tertiary bases in 

 the Transactions of the Chemical Society in 191 1. In 

 the same year he took honours in physics, and went 

 to Cambridge, first as a member of the Day Training 

 College, and successively as secretary to the censor 

 and librarian at Fitzwilliam Hall. At the outbreak 

 of war he had already taken the mathematical tripos 

 in the first class, and was intending to sit for physics 

 in the following June. With such careful preparation 

 for his future work and with so wide an outlook. 

 Long was regarded as a man for whom a brilliant 

 career could safely be predicted. He obtained his com- 

 mission in September of last year, and was killed in 

 action on September 26, 1915. 



A BRONZE statue of Captain R. F. Scott, R.N., sub- 

 scribed for by officers of the Navy, has been erected 

 in Waterloo Place. The statue, which shows the 

 explorer in polar dress, is the work of Lady Scott. 

 Mr. A. J. Balfour, First Lord of the Admiralty, in 

 unveiling the statue on November 5, said that it was 

 not a bad thing even in the midst of a great war to 

 remember how great have been the performances of 

 the British Fleet in times of peace. The statue was 

 to commemorate the hero of one of those peaceful 

 victories which resemble the victories of war, in that 

 it involved danger, struggle, and an heroic death. 

 We are apt to forget how much the Navy has done 

 in the unwarlike and yet most dangerous work of 

 exploration, travel, and of wresting from nature 

 secrets most jealously held. Captain Scott was worthy 

 to be ranked with those two great explorers whose 



