August io, 191 6] 



NATURE 



487 



joined the Cambridge O.T.C. in October, 1914, was 

 gazetted to the Liverpool Regiment in January, 1915, 

 proceeded to the front in the following August, 

 and, after seeing much hard service, was killed 

 in action by a shell-burst whilst gallantly lead- 

 ing in a charge at the battle of the Somme 

 on July I last, aged twenty years. The academic 

 career of George A. Herdman was brilliant, 

 but only those scientific friends who knew him person- 

 ally were able to appreciate his originality of outlook 

 and scientific independence of spirit, and to look for- 

 ward to the development of a great career, which has 

 been so untimely cut short by the cruel fate of war. 

 Although his university career was only opening when 

 the call to arms came, he was already deeply interested 

 in several original problems, and had been taking 

 physical observations on sea-water at Port Erin Marine 

 Biological Station and on the west coast of Scotland 

 during vacations for several years, as also on the 

 voyage to Australia. He had recently worked assidu- 

 ously and successfully with Prof. Benjamin Moore 

 upon biochemical problems in nutrition of marine 

 animals and plants, and questions in the physics and 

 chemistry of photosynthesis, and he was joint author 

 of two papers from the Port Erin Laboratory partly 

 recording these observations: (i) "The Nutrition and 

 Metabolism of Marine Animals : the Effects in the 

 Lobster of Prolonged Abstention from Food in Cap- 

 tivity," and (2) " Seasonal Variations in the Reaction 

 of Sea-water in relation to the Activities of Vegetable 

 and .Animal Plankton" (Trans. Biol. Soc, Liverpool, 

 1914 and 1915). While science deplores the early loss 

 of such a promising young votary, those who knew 

 him will agree that he himself would have gloried in 

 the splendid victory won in the charge in which he 

 fell, and counted his personal sacrifice as nothing for 

 the honour of the cause. 



It is with great regret that we record the death of 

 Lieut. Arthur Poynting, who was killed in action in 

 France on July 25. Lieut. Poynting, who was thirty- 

 three years of age, was the only son of the late Prof. 

 J. H. Poynting, F.R.S. After a four-year course in 

 civil engineering, he graduated as B.Sc. of Birming- 

 ham University in 1905. On leaving the University 

 he entered the service of the Midland Railway Co., 

 being engaged for a short time at Derby, and after- 

 wards on the construction of Heysham Harbour. For 

 a thesis on his work at Heysham he was awarded the 

 degree of M.Sc. in 1909, and in the same year he was 

 elected an associate member of the Institution of 

 Mechanical Engineers. In 1910 he became assistant- 

 engineer at the London and St. Katharine Docks, and 

 a year later was transferred to the Port of London 

 -Authority as assistant to the chief engineer, by whom 

 he was regarded as a man of exceptional abilitv, with 

 a first-class knowledge of engineering, and, in addi- 

 tion, a special aptitude for the legal aspects of his 

 profession. In his university days he was an enthu- 

 siastic Volunteer, and on the outbreak of the present 

 war he obtained a commission in the 6th (Service) 

 Battalion of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, going 

 to the front early in 19 15. At the time of his death 

 he was in command of a machine-gun section, and 

 was shot by a sniper, being killed instantaneously. 

 Energetic and efficient in his work, modest and kind'lv 

 in his bearing, steadfast of purpose, he was indeed 

 a very gentle, perfect knight. 



, .^^^-CoL. A. St. Hill Gibbons, who has been 

 killed in action, was well known as an African ex- 

 plorer. During the 'nineties he and the men 

 who were associated with him in his travels 

 covered more than 20,000 miles beyond the reach of 

 railways, mainly in remote parts of the continent. 

 NO. 2441, VOL. 97] 



On two expeditions in 1895-6 and 1898-1900 he 

 thoroughly explored and mapped Barotseland and 

 other parts of the Upper Zambezi basin, tracing the 

 Zambezi to its* most remote source, and providing 

 valuable information about the navigability of the 

 river, the resources of the country, and the customs 

 of its inhabitants. His routes in this region covered 

 at least 8000 miles. His maps were based on numerous 

 astronomical observations, as well as careful compass 

 surveys, and the late Mr. E. G. Ravenstein formed a 

 high opinion of their accuracy. On his second expedi- 

 tion. Col. Gibbons, after completing his work in Barotse- 

 land, followed the Congo-Zambezi watershed towards 

 Lake Tanganyika, and then, striking north, made his 

 way to the Nile Valley. Ewart Grogan was the first 

 traveller to complete the transcontinental journey from 

 south to north; Col. Gibbons was a close second. He 

 lectured more than once before the Royal Geograph- 

 ical Society, and in 1906 was awarded by the society 

 the Gill Memorial. After serving through the South 

 African War, Col. Gibbons settled in northern 

 Rhodesia, and took an active interest in the develop- 

 ment of that territory, delivering a lecture on its 

 resources and prospects before the Royal Colonial 

 Institute only a few months before the outbreak of the 

 present war. 



We regret to learn of the death, in action, on July 

 14, of Second Lieut. C. M. Selbie, formerly assistant- 

 naturalist in the National Museum, Dublin. He en- 

 listed as a private in the Royal Scots, and in Januarv, 

 1915, he received a commission as second lieutenant 

 in the Scottish Rifles, and had been at the front since 

 November. During the two years that Lieut. Selbie 

 spent in the National Museum of Ireland he devoted 

 himself with energy and enthusiasm to the collections 

 of the Myriapoda and Crustacea. He rearranged the 

 exhibition series and also undertook to name a portion 

 of the collections of Crustacea procured on the west 

 coast of Ireland during the Fishery Sur\ev of the 

 Department of Agriculture. The following is a list 

 of the more important notes and papers published by 

 him : — " A New Variety of Polydesmus coriaceus, 

 Porat, and Note on a Centipede Monstrositv " (Annals 

 and Magazine of Natural History) ; " Some New Irish 

 Myriapods " (Irish Naturalist) ; " New Records of Irish 

 Myriapods" (Irish Naturalist); "The Decapoda Rep- 

 tantia of the Coasts of Ireland," part i., " Palinura, 

 Astacura, and Anomura (except Paguridea) " (Fisheries, 

 Ireland, Sci. Invest.). In addition, he had prepared 

 but left unpublished "The Paguridea of the Coasts of 

 Ireland." 



By the deaths of Prof. Johannes Ranke, of the 

 University of Munich, and of Prof. Gustav Schwalbe, 

 of the University of Strasburg, Germanv has lost two 

 of her most renowned students of the human body. 

 Both died full of years and honours. Their careers 

 were remarkably alike. Ranke, who was born in 

 1836, did his first research on tetanus, then devoted 

 himself to physiologv", and, finallv, in the earlv 

 eighties, took up the study of physical anthropolog\-, 

 and made many and important contributions to our 

 knowledge of that subject. For manv vears he was 

 editor-in-chief of the Archiv filr' Anthropologic. 

 Schwalbe, somewhat Ranke's junior— he was born in 

 1844 — did his first research on Infusoria, then devoted 

 himself to the study of the microscopic structure of 

 tissues, his chief work being an elaborate and accurate 

 investigation of the finer structure of the sense organs. 

 He taught and researched at Bonn, Amsterdam, Halle, 

 Freiburg, Jena, and Konigsberg, being ultimately called 

 to the chair of anatomv in Strasburg in 1883, where 

 he laboured for thirty-six years. He was well known 

 and much respected by anatomists in every country. 



