358 
NATURE 
[JUNE 4, 1914 
Tue trustees of the Ray Lankester Fund are pre- 
pared to appoint the ‘‘Ray Lankester Investigator ”’ 
for 1914. The fund has been founded in connection 
with the Marine Biological Association of the United 
Kingdom, and enables the trustees torent a table at 
the Plymouth Laboratory of the association, and from 
time to time to appoint to it an investigator for twelve 
months. The investigator appointed will be expected 
during the year to spend a total of five months, which 
need not be continuous, carrying on his researches at 
Plymouth. The biologist appointed receives from the 
trust 7ol., of which half is to be paid to him when 
he enters into occupation of his table, and the other 
half when the five months’ research is completed. 
Applications should be addressed to the director of the 
laboratory at Plymouth. 
WE notice with regret the death, in his fifty-first 
year, of Prof. George Dean, Regius professor of 
pathology in the University of Aberdeen. After a 
distinguished career as a student in the Universities 
of Aberdeen, Berlin, and Vienna, Prof. Dean became 
University assistant to the professor of pathology at 
Aberdeen. In 1897 he was appointed bacteriologist 
in the serum department of the Lister Institute, and 
became senior bacteriologist in 1906. He was the 
author of numerous medical articles and of contribu- 
tions to the Proceedings of the’ Royal Society and the 
transactions of other learned societies. He also intro- 
duced a rapid method of immunisation used in the 
preparation of diphtheria antitoxin. He was a mem- 
ber of the War Office Commission on Typhoid Inocu- 
lation. 
THE tragic ramming and sinking of the steamer 
Empress of Ireland in the St. Lawrence River, result- 
ing in the loss of more than one thousand human lives, 
gives particular interest to the article on the Aquitania 
in Engineering for May 29. This article deals at 
length with the subdivision of the ship by bulkheads 
and the effect on the buoyancy of flooding several 
compartments at either bow or stern, or wing com- 
partments. Diagrams and curves are given showing 
that five compartments from the bow or five from the 
stern, including the three turbine rooms, may be 
flooded and still leave a satisfactory margin of safety. 
With all the wing compartments on one side of the 
ship flooded (taking 5320 tons of water), the ship 
would heel to the extent of 26°, which is not in any 
way excessive, although the contingency of such flood- 
ing is so remote as to be declared almost impossible. 
The fore-and-aft bulkheads on each side of the space 
occupied by the boilers extend for a distance of 450 ft. 
and are 18 ft. from the ship’s skin, thus securing prac- 
tically a ‘‘ship within a ship.” The Aquitania left 
Liverpool for her maiden voyage on Saturday, May 
30. 
At the meeting of the Cambridge Philosophical 
Society held on May 18 the following were elected 
honorary members of the society :—Dr. H. E. Arm- 
strong; Prof. J. Bordet, the University, Brussels; 
Madame Curie, the Sorbonne, Paris; Prof. F. Czapek, 
the German University, Prague; Prof. T. W. Edge- 
worth David, the University, Sydney; Colonel W. C. 
NO, 923275. Vale Op 
Gorgas, Medical Corps, U.S.A. Army; Prof. P. H. 
von Groth, the University, Munich; Prof. Jacques 
Hadamard, the College of France, Paris; Dr. G.- E. 
Hale, director of the Mount Wilson Solar Observa- 
tory; Dr. Francois A. A. Lacroix, Natural History 
Museum, Paris; Prof. C. Lapworth, late professor of 
geclogy, the University, Birmingham; Prof. H. 
Lebesgue, the Sorbonne, Paris; Dr. Jacques Loeb, the 
Rockefeller Institute, New York; Prof. Arthur Looss, 
the Government School of Medicine, Cairo; Prof. 
H. A. Lorentz, the University, Leyden; Prof. M. 
Planck, the University, Berlin; Lieut.-Col. Leonard 
Rogers, the Medical College, Calcutta; Prof. 
Gustay Schwalbe, the University, Strassburg; Dr. 
Karl Schwarzschild, the University, Berlin; Dr. D. H. 
Scott, foreign secretary, Royal Society; Prof. E. B. 
Wilson, Columbia University, New York; A. F. Yar- 
row, Blanefield, Glasgow; Prof. P. Zeeman, the 
University, Amsterdam. The society will celebrate in 
tg1g the centenary of its foundation. 
In Peru To-day (December, 1913) an interesting 
account is given of the anti-yellow fever campaign in 
Iquitos. This principally comprised measures for the 
destruction of the mosquito-carrier of this disease, the 
Stegomyia. Previously 500-600 deaths occurred 
annually from yellow fever, but since the institution 
of these measures not a single death from yellow fever 
occurred during the first seven months of 1913. The 
cost has been about 3001. a month. 
“‘OrGaANIsMsS and Origins’? is the title of Prof. 
Dendy’s presidential address to the Quekett Micro- 
scopical Club (Journ. Quekett Microscop. Club, April, 
I914, p. 259). The origin of life was dealt with, and 
reference was made to Dr. Charlton Bastian’s experi- 
ments. While admitting that Dr. Bastian’s a prion 
position is a strong one, Prof. Dendy doubts if com- 
paratively highly organised beings can be evolved so 
rapidly as seems to be the case in Dr. Bastian’s 
solutions. 
A course of three public lectures on altitude and 
health has recently been delivered by Prof. Roget, of 
Geneva, under the Chadwick Trust. The lecturer 
directed attention to the changes which occur in the 
blood at high altitudes, to the relative freedom of the 
air from micro-organisms, and to the richness of the 
solar light in violet and ultra-violet rays. Exposure 
of the unclothed body to the bniliant alpine sun of 
winter exercises a marked curative effect on tuber- 
culous conditions. 
WitH reference to the mutations of Bacillus 
anthracis induced by exposure to ultra-violet rays 
(Nature, April 23, p. 193), attention may be directed 
to the power which bacteria possess not only of 
secreting enzymes, but also of adapting the enzyme 
they secrete to the soil on which they are growing. 
Thus a bacterium which has been secreting peptonis- 
ing enzymes on a protein soil will secrete a diastatic 
enzyme when transferred to a carbohydrate soil, as 
was demonstrated by Sir Lauder Brunton and the 
late Dr. Macfadyen (Proc. Royal Soc., vol. xlvi.). 
In the issue of Folk-lore for March, recently issued, 
Mr. W. Crooke discusses the remarkable vernal fire 
