DECEMBER 3, 1896] 
NATURE 
115 
of lead and gold are held together zz waco at a temperature of 
only 40° for four days, they will unite firmly and can only be 
separated by a force equal to one-third of the breaking strain 
of lead itself. And gold placed at the bottom of a cylinder of 
lead 70 mm. long thus united with it, will have diffused to the 
top in notable quantities at the end of three days. Such facts 
tend to modify our views concerning the mutual relations 
of the liquid and solid states of matter. 
Such are a few samples of the many highly interesting com- 
munications we have had in physics and chemistry. On the 
biological side, also, there has been no lack of important work. 
Of this I may refer to one or two instances. 
Prof. Schafer has given us an account of the well-devised 
experiments by which he has conclusively established that the 
spleen is on the one hand capable, like the heart, of independent 
rhythmical contractions, and, on the other hand, has those con- 
tractions controlled by the central nervous system acting through 
an extraordinary number of efferent channels. 
Prof. Farmer and Mr. Lloyd-Williams made a very beautiful 
contribution to biology in the account they gave of their 
elaborate investigations on the fertilisation and segmentation of 
the spore in Fucus. Especial interest attached to this com- 
munication, from the fact that it described in a vegetable form 
exactly what had been established by Oscar Hertwig in 
Echinodermata, viz., that out of the multitude of fertilising ele- 
ments that surround the female cell, one only enters it and 
becomes blended with its nucleus. 
Lastly, I may mention the very remarkable investigation into 
the development of the common eel, which was described to us 
a fortnight ago by Prof. Grassi, to which I shall have occasion to 
refer in some detail when speaking of his claims to one of the 
Society's medals. 
These, as I have before said, are but samples of what we have 
had before us ; but Iithink they are in themselves sufficient to 
justify the statement that in point of scientific interest the past 
year has been in no degree inferior to its predecessors. 
Corley MEDAL. 
Prof. Card Gegenbaur, For. Mem. RS. 
The Copley Medal for 1896 is given to Carl Gegenbaur, Pro- 
fessor of Anatomy in Heidelberg, in recognition of his pre- 
eminence in the science of Comparative Anatomy or Animal 
Morphology. Professor Gegenbaur was born in 1826, and a 
few weeks ago his seventieth birthday was celebrated by his 
pupils (who comprise almost all the leading comparative anato- 
mists of Germany. Holland, and Scandinavia) by the presenta- 
tion to him of a *‘ Festschrift ” in three volumes. Gegenbaur is 
everywhere recognised as the anatomist who has laid the founda- 
tions of modern comparative anatomy on the lines of the theory 
of descent, and has to a very large extent raised the building by 
hisown work. His *‘ Grundziige der vergleichenden Anatomie ” 
was first published in 1859, when he was thirty-three years old. 
In the second edition, published in 1870, he remodelled the 
whole work, making the theory of descent the guiding principle 
of his treatment of the subject. Since then he has produced a 
somewhat condensed edition of the same work under the title of 
**Grundriss” (translated into English and French), and now, 
in his seventy-first year, he is about to publish what will pro- 
bably be the last edition of this masterly treatise, revising the 
whole mass of facts and speculations accumulated through his 
own unceasing industry and the researches of his numerous 
pupils during the past quarter of a century. 
Gegenbaur may be considered as occupying a position in 
morphology parallel to that occupied by Ludwig in Physiology. 
Both were pupils of Johannes Miiller, and have provided Europe 
with a body of teachers and investigators, carrying forward in a 
third generation the methods and aims of the great Berlin pro- 
fessor. Gegenbaur’s first independent contribution to science 
was published in 1853. It was the outcome of a sojourn at 
Messina in 1852, in company with two other pupils of Johannes | 
Miiller, namely Albert Kolliker (still professor in Wiirzburg) 
and Heinrich Miiller, who died not long afterwards. 
young morph ologists published the results of their researches in 
common. Gegenbaur wiote on Medusz, on the development 
of Echinoderms, and on Pteropod larve. A long list of papers 
on the structure and development of Hydrozoa, Mollusca, and 
various invertebtata followed this first publication. The greatest 
interest, however, was excited among anatomists by his re- 
searches on the vertebrate skeleton (commenced already in 1849 
with a research, in common with Friedreich, on the skull of 
NO. 1414, VOL. 55] 
These | 
axolotl). In a series of beautifully illustrated memoirs he dealt 
with and added immensely to our knowledge of the vertebral 
column, the skull, and the limb-girdles and limbs of Vertebrata, 
basing his theoretical views as to the gradual evolution of these 
structures in the ascending series of vertebrate forms upon the 
study of the cartilaginous skeleton of Elasmobranch fishes, and 
on the embryological characters of the cartilaginous skeleton 
and its gradual replacement by bone in higher forms. His 
method and point of view were essentially similar to those of 
Huxley, who independently and contemporaneously was engaged 
on the same line of work. 
For many years Gegenbaur was professor in Jena, where he 
was the close friend and associate of Ernst Haeckel, but in 1875 
he accepted the invitation to the chair of Anatomy in Heidel- 
berg, and in view of the increased importance of his duties as a 
teacher of medical students, and therefore of human anatomy, 
though still continuing his researches on vertebrate morphology, 
he produced a large treatise on that subject, which has run 
through two editions. In this work he made the first attempt 
to bring, as far as possible, the nomenclature and treatment of 
human anatomy into thorough agreement with that of compara- 
tive anatomy, and to a very large extent the changes introduced 
by him have influenced the teaching of human anatomy through- 
out Europe and America. 
There is probably no comparative anatomist or embryologist 
in any responsible position at the present day who would not 
agree in assigning to Gegenbaur the very first place in his science 
as the greatest master and teacher who is still living amongst us. 
He is not only watching in his old age the developments of his 
own early teaching and the successful labours of his very numer- 
ous disciples, but is still exhibiting his own extraordinary in- 
dustry in research, his keenness of intellectual vision, and his 
unrivalled knowledge and critical judgment. 
RoyaL MEDAL. 
Sir Archibald Gethie, F.R.S. 
One of the Royal Medals is conferred on Sir Archibald 
Geikie, on the ground that of all British geologists he is the 
most distinguished, not only as regards the number and the 
importance of the geological papers which he has published as 
an original investigator, but as one whose educational works on 
geology have had a most material influence upon the advance- 
ment of scientific knowledge. 
His original papers range over many of the main branches of 
geological science. Wis memoir upon the ‘‘ Glacial Drift of 
Scotland ” (1863) is one of the classics in British geology. His 
work on the ‘‘ Scenery of Scotland, viewed in connection with 
the Physical Geology” (1865) was the first successful attempt 
made to explain the scenery of that country upon scientific 
principles, and is still without a rival. _ His papers on the ** Old 
Red Sandstone of Western Europe” (1878—79) gave for the 
first time a clear and convincing picture of the great lake 
period of British geology, founded upon personal observation in 
the field. re 
His many original contributions to the volcanic history of the 
British Isles form a succession of connected papers, crowded 
with important observations and discoveries, and brilliant and 
fertile generalisations respecting the abundant relics of former 
volcanic activity in the British Isles from the earliest geological 
ages to Middle Tertiary times. f , 
In the first series of these papers—commencing with the 
“*Chronology of the Trap Rocks of Scotland i (1861), and 
ending with the ‘* Tertiary Volcanic Rocks of the British Isles ~ 
(1869), abundant original proofs were advanced of the activity 
of volcanic action in the Western Isles of Scotland, and of its 
long duration in geological time. The second series (1871-88) 
was especially distinguished by the publication of his remark- 
| able paper on the ‘‘ Carboniferous Volcanic Rocks in the Basin 
of the Firth of Forth,” our earliest, and, as yet, our only mono- 
graph on a British volcanic area belonging to a pre-Tertiary 
geological system. The third series (begun in 1888) com- 
menced with his memoir on the ‘‘ History of Volcanic Action 
during the Tertiary Period in the British Isles,” a paper which 
is by far the most detailed and masterly contribuiion yet made 
to the subject, and for which the Brisbane Medal was awarded 
him by the Royal Society of Edinburgh ; and this succession of 
papers has been followed by the publication of others of almost 
equal importance. ‘ 
Sir Archibald Geikie has also written many papers and 
-memoirs bearing upon geological processes and their effects, 
