Marcu 5, 1914| 
-public-as.the leader. of-the.search. party which recovered 
the bodies of Capt. Scott and his companions. Surgeon 
Atkinson also made a large and important collection 
of Antarctic parasites, and since his return from the 
expedition he has been occupied in working out the 
helminths in collaboration with Dr, Leiper. Draw- 
ings of the helminths collected were exhibited by Dr. 
Leiper and Surgeon Atkinson at a recent scientific 
meeting of the Zoological Society. The collection of 
Antarctic Protozoan parasites still remains to be 
worked out. 
THE recent review of the position of Army aviation 
in a statement to Parliament by the Secretary of State 
for War is interesting as showing the progress of 
aviation in England, and also the need for further 
improvement before aeroplanes can be regarded as 
having reached a satisfactory degree of development. 
Six years from the date of the first successful flights 
in Europe, it can be said that in the year just ended 
there were only six flying days on which flights by 
officers and men of the Royal Flying Corps did not 
take place. This is a significant indication of the 
rapidity of development of the science of aviation 
which is made still more noticeable by the statement 
that during this time journeys amounting to more 
than 100,000 miles were made without any loss of life. 
It appears that aeroplanes are being taken out in 
stronger and stronger winds, and a record of nearly 
seventy miles an hour stands to the credit of one of 
the officers of the Royal Flying Corps. In spite of such 
striking performances, it is clear that there is still 
much to be learnt. Colonel Seely pointed out the 
necessity for keeping 200 machines in being, so that 
100 of them may be ready for use at a given time. 
In other words, at least half the life of a modern 
aeroplane is spent in the repair shop. This fact makes 
it necessary to attempt to raise the factor of safety 
of aeroplanes, and an inspection department has been 
organised by the War Office to deal with this aspect 
of the problems relating to aviation. 
THE committee of the Lister Memorial Fund has 
commissioned Sir Thomas Brock, R.A., to execute a 
medallion portrait of the late Lord Lister, to be placed 
in Westminster Abbey. This will form part of the 
international memorial to commemorate the priceless 
services of Lord Lister to the cause of science and the 
alleviation of human suffering. Further subscriptions 
are required to enable the committee to carry out 
adequately the proposed scheme for the establishment 
of an International Lister Memorial Fund for the ad- 
vancement of surgery. Among the subscriptions 
recently received are the following :—American Sur- 
gical Association, 135].; received through Dr. W. W. 
Keen, of Philadelphia, 35]. (second donation); Com- 
mittee of Surgeons in Holland, 1251.; faculty of medi- 
cine, University of Copenhagen, rogl.; members of the 
medical profession in Victoria (Australia), g1l.; Medi- 
cal and Surgical Societies in Japan, 31/.; Union of 
Swedish Hospital Surgeons, 20l.; Newcastle-on-Tyne 
committee and members of the Clinical Society, rr3l.; 
City of Belfast committee, 54]. Donations may be 
sent to the honorary treasurers of the fund (Lord 
Rothschild and Sir Watson Cheyne) at the Royal 
Society, Burlington House, W. 
NOM2314, VOL. 93 | 
NATURE 
25 
Pror. Ernst HAEcKEL’s eightieth birthday (Febru- 
ary 16) has just been celebrated with natural enthu- 
siasm at Jena. The heartiness of the congratulations 
from far and near must have delighted the veteran, 
who has had the great reward of seeing the successful 
development of the evolutionist doctrine of which he 
was an early champion. There were some noteworthy 
addresses summing up various aspects of his work, 
one of the weightiest being that delivered by Prof. 
Maurer, director of the Anatomical Institute, and pub- 
lished by Mr. Gustav Fischer, Jena. He refers to 
Haeckel’s education and the influences of Leydig, 
Kolliker, and Virchow (then inclined to be an. evolu- 
tionist), and still more of Johannes Miiller, the 
‘Origin of Species,” and Gegenbaur. It was in the 
early days of his friendship with Gegenbaur that 
Haeckel wrote his monumental ‘‘Generelle Morpho- 
logie,” in many ways the greatest of his works. We 
have become familiar with much of its teaching, e.g. 
that the individual development is essentially related 
to the racial evolution, or that classification is an 
attempt to discern a genealogical tree, and we are 
thus apt to forget what forceful new ideas these once 
were. Prof. Maurer directs attention to Haeckel’s 
strong historical sense, so well expressed in the early 
chapters of ‘‘The Natural History of Creation,” to the 
permanent influence that his radiolarian work (he 
described some 4000 new species) had throughout his 
life, to the extraordinary success of his educative expo- 
sitory writings, to his exceptional talent as an artist, 
to his unwavering consistency and courage, often 
expressed in polemical writing which gave little hint 
of the charm of his personality, and to the strenuous- 
ness with which he has realised the ever serious pur- 
pose of his life. Since an unfortunate accident a few 
_ years ago, Haeckel has not been able to go about, but 
_it is delightful to hear that he is still youthful in 
spirit, able to follow the progress of science, and even 
to share in it. We would join in the congratulations 
which have been recently offered to him. 
Mr. W. CaMERON Forses is about to start for Cen- 
tral and South America, for the purpose of collecting 
specimens of birds for the museum of Harvard Uni- 
versity. 
THE death is announced, in his seventy-sixth year, 
of Dr. L. Schoney, late professor of pathology and 
clinical microscopy in the New York Eclectic Medical 
College. He had made numerous contributions on 
botany and histology to scientific journals. 
Dr. R. K. Duncan, director of the Mellon Institute 
of Industrial Research, and professor of industrial 
chemistry at the University of Pittsburg, has died at 
the age of forty-five. He was a Canadian by birth, 
and was educated at the University of Toronto. After 
teaching science for several years in various American 
secondary schools, he was appointed in rgo1 to the 
chair of chemistry in the Washington and Jefferson 
College. In 1906 he became professor of industrial 
chemistry at the University of Kansas, where he 
initiated a new scheme of industrial fellowships which 
has since grown to large proportions. His Pittsburg 
appointment dated from tg10. He discovered new 
processes for manufacturing glass and phosphorus. 
