i6 



NA TURE 



\_Nov. 5, 1874 



medical student, and took the membership of the College 

 of Surgeons, as well as the licentiateship of the Apothe- 

 caries' Society, in 1837. In the year 1839 he graduated 

 at Heidelberg, and was appointed lecturer on Materia 

 Mcdica at St. George's School of Medicine four years 

 later. In 1845 he was elected to the Fellowship of the 

 Royal Society, and five years afterwards became Professor 

 of Natural History in New College, London. In 1851 he 

 received the degree of LL.D. from Amherst, U.S.; in 

 1853 was made lecturer on Anatomy and Physiology at 

 the Grosvenor-place School of Medicine ; in 185S, 

 Superintendent of the Food Collection, and in 1S62 

 Examiner in Botany to the Science and Art Department 

 of the South Kensington Museum. In 1859 he was Presi- 

 dent of the Microscopical Society, and in 1862 he was, 

 after a severe contest, elected Coroner for Central Middle- 

 sex, which post he retained until his death. 



For about twenty-five years Dr. Lankester was secretary 

 of Section D of the British Association, of which he was 

 one of the originators, being a most intimate friend of 

 Edward Forbes, with whom, in his younger days, as a 

 bachelor, he lodged in London. In conjunction with Mr. 

 Busk, he for eighteen years edited the Quarterly Journal 

 of ISIkroscopic Science, after which he did so with his son, 

 Mr. E. Ray Lankester, Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford. 



Dr. Lanicester's contributions to scientific and medical 

 literature are very considerable. He edited the Natural 

 History portion of the "English Encyclopedia," and con- 

 tributed the article " Rotifera" to Todd's " Encyclopaedia 

 of Anatomy and Physiology." In 1S49 he published a 

 translation of Schleiden's "Principles of Scientific Botany,'' 

 and, in 1859, of Kirchenmeister's "Animal Parasites." 

 In conjunction with Dr. Lctheby he contributed the article 

 on Sanitary Science to the " Encyclopoedia Britannica." 

 Among his most popular works is the well-known " Half- 

 hours with the Miscroscope." His contributions to this 

 journal have been several, and, like all that he wrote, are 

 mirked by their admirable style and tone, as well as by 

 the lilDcral spirit of modern scientific thought, which gives 

 them an almost youthful freshnesi ; we have, not less 

 than others, to deplore the loss that has been sustained 

 by ourselves in his premature decease. 



To those who, like the present writer, were accjualnted 

 with him, and had the privilege of passing many pleasant 

 hours in his company, Dr. Lankester was always genial 

 and kindly, inspiring others with that hopefulness which 

 was so marked a feature of his own character. He made 

 many sincere friends, amongst whom was Henfrey the 

 botanist, who named the genus of plants (which is grown 

 in many nursery gardens) Lankestcria, after him. It was 

 his kindly spirit which directed his attention to ciuestions 

 of social organisation, and he always referred to the 

 articles by himself, in the Daily News — when a young 

 man — on Medical Reform, as having been of assistance 

 in the passing of Mr. Wakley's bill. His remains were 

 interred in the churchyard of Hampstead Church on 

 Tuesday last. 



NOTES 



Ntws conceniing tliree of the Transit Expeditions is to hand. 

 Advices from Capetown of Oct. 6 state that the German screw 

 corvette Gazelle, bound to Kerguelen on the Transit Expe- 

 dition, arrived in Tab^e Bay and left on Oct. 4. The Gau'lle 

 will visit the Crozette Islands, and proceed from thence to Ker- 

 guelen. If circumstances are favourable she will search for 

 a warm current, supposed to exist between 60 and So east, 

 and endeavour to reach Wilkes Land. She will then visit the 

 noith and west coast of Australia, the coast of Guinea, and 

 several island groups of die Pacific. Lord Lindsay had arrived 

 out and left for Mauritius in his yacht, there to watch the transit 

 of Venus. A Cairo correspondent of the Daily News, writing under 



date Oct. 20, sends a long account of the preparations made by 

 the Egyptian party. General Stanton, the Consul-General, has 

 taken the greatest interest in the expedition, and pat himself to 

 consideralile trouble to make everything smooth for the party 

 and enable them to make all the necessary arrangements. All 

 the instruments have arrived safely, and Capt. Browne, the chief 

 of the party, has determined to erect his observatories on the top 

 of the Moquattam Hills, a distance of about diree miles in a 

 direct line from Shepheard's hotel. They are about 600 feet in 

 height and overlook the whole country. Capt. Browne, who has 

 been carefully observing the atmosphere, finds it free of moisture, 

 at least about sunrise ; which is most important, as the maximum 

 altitude that will be observe! will be only 15°. It is at present 

 the intention to form a camp on the top of the hill, the tents 

 having been furnished by the Egyptian Government. Mr. Dixon, 

 a civil engineer in Cairo, has been of great assistance in the 

 matter of transit. Capt. Abney was expected to leave for Thebes 

 on the 26th. Admiral Ommaney had arrived at Alexandria, but 

 to what party he would be attached was not known. 



The generally well-informed London correspondent of the 

 SiOlsman states that another Arctic Expedition will be despatched 

 in the ensuing year under the auspices of the Government and 

 the Royal Geographical Society. He believes that it is so far 

 considered an accepted fact that the expedition will leave these 

 shores in the spring of 1S75, inasmuch as it has the approval of 

 the Premier. 



Some time since we pointed out the extreme inconvenience of 

 the form and manner in which our learned societies publish their 

 " Transactions." Anyone who is not a Fellow, for example, of 

 the Royal Society, and who may wish to possess a memoir, say 

 on some physiological subject published in the " Philosophical 

 Transactions," is probably debarred from doing so by finding 

 that he must purchase with the memoir which he wants a number 

 of others belonging to the most diverse subjects, pure mathe- 

 matics being ahn:)st invariably one. We advocated, as the 

 common-sense remedy for this state of things, the sale of 

 separate copies of each memoir. We were not aware at the time 

 that this was actually done by tlie Linnein Society. After 

 the completion of the twenty-sixth volume of its "Transac- 

 tions," it was decided by the Council that twenty-five separate 

 copies of each memoir should be kept for sale. Probably because 

 the arrangement is not generally known, the sale of the part of 

 the "Transactions " is still as gool, if not actually better than 

 that of the memoirs which tliey contain. The price is, iiowever, 

 proportionally higher, which may have something to do with this. 

 Thus the part of the "Transactions" containing Pro''. Owen's 

 memoir on the King Crab is sold to Fellows for gj-., to the public 

 for \2s. The corresponding prices of the memoir itself (of which 

 no separate copies have been sold) are ^s. dJ. and los. But the 

 part also contains anotlier paper, the price; of which are 4^. 6i/. 

 and 6j-. In one case all the available spare copies were purchased 

 by the author. 



We are glad to be able to announce that a considerable portion 

 of the galleries of tlie late International Exhibition at South 

 Kensington, taken by the India Office, will be devoted to the 

 display of Natural History collections of that department of the 

 Government. The fact of the collections having been kept in 

 an unavailable form for so m.iny years past has always been a 

 great grievance to working naturalists, and has called forth many 

 remonstrances, from ourselves among others. 



Me. Richard Lydekker, B.A., of Trinity College, Cam- , 

 bridge, second in the First Class of Natural Sciences Tripos in 

 1871, has been appointed to the PalajDiitological Department of 

 the Geological Survey of India in the room of the late Dr. 

 Stoliczka. Mr. Lydekker left some months since for India, 



