August 28, 1919} 



NATURE 



5C9 



1904, Mr. Davis took over, on behalf of his 

 service, from the Scotia Antarctic Expedition their 

 sub-Antarctic station on Laurie Island, S. Ork- 

 neys, where an unbroken series of hourly meteoro- 

 logical and magnetical observations has since been 

 maintained and upper air research undertaken. 



The results of the labours of Mr. Davis are 

 containe^J in thirteen large quarto volumes of the 

 " Anales " of the Argentine Meteorological Office. 

 Mr. Davis also wrote three works on the climate of 

 the Republic, which appeared at intervals of about 

 ten years from 1889 to 1910, and in 1914 he 

 published his " History and Organisation," which 

 gave a condensed summary of the work carried on 

 during his thirty years of office. Whatever the 

 changes of Government might be, Mr. Davis was 

 always persona grata at Government House, and 

 but for the economic crises that set in during 1912 

 his schemes for the setting up of a solar physics 

 , observatory in N.W. Argentina and the establish- 

 ment of another Antarctic station on the west 

 coast of Graham Land would have materialised. 

 Mr. Davis at the time of his death was the oldest 

 member of the International Meteorological Com- 

 mittee, to which he was elected in 1894. His last 

 appearance at an international meeting was at 

 Berlin in 1910, when he brought forward a recom- 

 mendation for the introduction of a standard 

 evaporimeter, the subject of evaporation being one 

 to which he had always given great attention. He 

 was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal 

 Meteorological Society in 1898, and among other 

 honours received many medals and diplomas from 

 scientific institutions. 



In official life, as in private life, he commanded 

 the personal respect and admiration of all with 

 whom he came in contact, and those who had the | 

 privilege to work under him could not help being 

 impressed with his untiring industry and the calm- 

 ness with which he invariably met the exasperating 

 situations that so often arose in a land where the 

 conduct of a large up-to-date scientific organisa- 

 tion is beset with many difficulties. R. C. M. 



PROF. WILLIAM GILS ON FARLOW. 



AMONG the leading botanists of America the 

 name of Prof. Farlow, whose death was an- 

 nounced in Nature for June 26, stood out, by 

 seniority, by personal influence, and by scientific 

 attainment. Prof. Farlow died on June 3 after 

 an illness of three weeks. He was born- in Boston, 

 December 17, 1844, and graduated from Harvard 

 College in the class of 1866, obtaining the degree 

 of A.M. in 1869, and of M.D. in 1870. Doubtless 

 he was one of those who followed the wise advice 

 of Asa Gray : " Graduate in medicine ; you never 

 know how it will come in useful afterwards." 



After graduation Farlow came to Europe and 

 pursued his botanical studies in Strassburg. The 

 old French Academic had been replaced shortly 

 after the conclusion of the peace of 1871 by a 

 German university, staffed by professors carefully 

 selected for their eminence. De Bary, an Alsatian 

 NO. 2600, VOL. 103] 



by birth, was the professor of botany. The study 

 of fungi was a speciality of his laboratory, which 

 was carried on in the cramped rooms of the old 

 Academic. There no doubt the foundations were 

 securely laid for that special study of fungi which 

 Farlow pursued throughout his life. His most 

 notable work at that time was, however, on the 

 ferns ; for he was the first to describe the direct 

 origin of the sporophyte from the prothallus by 

 vegetative outgrowth without the ordinary sexual 

 fusion. This phenomenon of "apogamy," though 

 familiar enough to all students now, was in 1874 

 the first notable digression from the regular alter- 

 nation described by Hofmeister. Ten years 

 elapsed before the observation of "apospory " by 

 Druery. The discovery of these two cognate 

 innovations has given a fresh impetus to inquiry 

 into the nature of alternation, though alternation 

 itself still remains an unsolved enigma. 



After his return to America Farlow was for a 

 time assistant to Prof. Asa Gray; but in 1874 he 

 was appointed assistant professor in Harvard, and 

 in 1879 ^^ received the title of professor of crypto- 

 gamic botany, an appointment which he held for a 

 period of forty years. His position became gradu- 

 ally stronger as years passed by, and there was 

 probably among the botanists of America none 

 whose opinion was held in greater esteem than his, 

 while his published work touched a much wider 

 circle than that in his own country. 



In America Farlow was a pioneer in crypto- 

 gamic botany. His work was largely floristic and 

 systematic. But experimental work was also con- 

 ducted in his laboratory, and a school was 

 founded, of which a brilliant example is seen in 

 •Prof. Roland Thaxter, the monographer of the 

 Laboulbeniacese. 



Personally Farlow was of small build, active, 

 and most vivacious, with a constant ripple of 

 quiet humour, a capital raconteur, and a charm- 

 ing host. In 1900 he married Miss Lilian Hors- 

 ford. Together they made their house at Har- 

 vard, and their country home at Chocorua in the 

 White Mountains of New Hampshire, places of 

 happy memory to those who were fortunate 

 enough to be their guests. Keenly alive to the 

 duties and aspirations of the Allies, they both 

 worked hard for the cause during the war. 



Farlow was the recipient of many honours, 

 being LL.D. of Harvard {1896), of Glasgow 

 (1901), and of Wisconsin (1904), and Ph.D. of 

 . Upsala (1907). He was a member of the National 

 Academy of Sciences and of the American Philo- 

 sophical Society, and was president of the Ameri- 

 can Association for the Advancement of Science 

 in 1906. He was Foreign Fellow of the Linnean 

 Society of London (1892) and of the Academy 

 of Sciences of Paris, as well as of many other 

 scientific bodies in his own country and abroad. 

 For the first twenty years of its existence he was 

 co-editor of the Annals of Botany. Personally 

 he was well known in this country by reason of 

 repeated visits, and was heartily appreciated both 

 for his social and his scientific qualities. 



F. O. B. 



