18 NATURE 
NOTES. 
Tue Hon. Sir Charles Parsons,’ K.C.B., F-R.S., 
has been nominated as president of the British Asso- 
ciation, the meeting of which is to be held at Bourne- 
mouth in September next. 
Tue annual autumn meeting. of the Institute of 
Metals will be held on Wednesday, September 20, 
in the rooms of the Chemical Society, Burlington 
House, London. Sir George T. Beilby will preside, 
and a number of important metallurgical papers will 
be presented and discussed. 
Tue fourth annual meeting of the Indian Science 
Congress will be held at Bangalore on January 10-13. 
H.H. the Maharajah of Mysore has consented to be 
patron of the meeting, whilst Sir Alfred Bourne, 
K.C.1.E., F.R.S., will be the president. The follow- 
ing sectional presidents have been appointed :—Mr. J. 
MacKenna (Pusa), Agriculture and Applied Chemistry ; 
the Rev. D. Mackichan (Bombay), Physics; Dr. Zia 
Ud-din Ahmad (Aligarh), Mathematics; Dr. J. L. 
Simonsen (Madras), Chemistry; Mr. K. Ramunni 
Menon (Madras), Zoology; Mr. C. S. Middlemiss 
(Calcutta), Geology. All communications relating to 
the congress should be addressed to Dr. Simonsen, 
the Presidency College, Madras. 
Great satisfaction is felt by everyone in the news 
published in the Daily Chronicle on September 5 that 
Sir Ernest Shackleton had succeeded in rescuing the 
twenty-two members of his Antarctic expedition 
marooned on Elephant Island since April 15. Three 
previous attempts to reach the island were unsucceéss- 
ful, but with characteristic persistence Sir Ernest con- 
tinued his efforts to relieve the men, and sailed from 
Punta Arenas on August 26 in the Yelcho, a small 
Chilian steamer. On August 30, after steering in a 
fog through numerous stranded bergs, he reached 
Wild’s camp at 1 p.m., and at 2 p.m. the vessel was 
homeward bound. On September 3 Punta Arenas was 
reached, and the message ‘All saved. All well,” was 
dispatched to the Daily Chronicle, from which the fol- 
lowing summary of Mr. Frank Wild’s report is 
taken :—‘‘On April 25, the day after the departure of 
the boat, the island was beset by dense pack-ice. The 
party was confined to a narrow spit of land, 250 yards 
long and 4o yards wide, surrounded by inaccessible 
cliffs and ice-laden seas. We were forced to abandon 
our ice-hole, which was made untenable by the snow. 
We made a dwelling of our two boats, supported by 
rocks, and set up as far as practicable from the sea. 
The weather continued appalling. In May a heavy 
blizzard swept much valuable gear into the sea. For- 
tunately, owing to the low temperature, an icefoot 
formed on the seashore, and this protection was the 
means of saving us from total destruction. From 
June onwards the weather was better as regards wind, 
but we were under a constant pall of fog and snow. 
At the beginning of August we were able to collect 
seaweed and limpets, which formed a valuable change 
in our diet, but the deep water, heavy seas, and ice 
prevented us from fishing. On August 28 the gale 
drove the ice-pack from the island, and on August 30, 
through the lifting fog, we caught sight of the Velcho 
steering through a maze of stranded bergs. An hour 
later we were homeward bound.” Sir Ernest Shackle- 
ton has announced the safe return of the party in a 
telegram to the King, who has_ replied :—‘‘ Most 
heartily rejoice that you have rescued your twenty-two 
comrades all well. Congratulate you on the result of 
your determined efforts to save them, and that suc- 
cess crowned your third attempt. TI greatly admire 
the conduct of their leader, Frank Wild, which was 
NO. 2445, VOL. 98] 
[SEPTEMBER 7, 1916 
so instrumental in maintaining their courage and 
hope. I trust you will soon bring them all safely 
home.—GeorceE R.I.” 
Mr. R. W. Doyne, who died at Oxford on August — 
30, was well known as an ophthalmologist. Born on 
May 15, 1857, educated at Marlborough and Keble 
College, Oxtord, he became a naval surgeon, but 
early relinquished this work to specialise in ophthal- 
mic practice. He returned to Oxford, and devoted 
his boundless energy and enthusiasm to the prosecu- 
tion of his favourite study in that town and Univer- 
sity. There he succeeded in founding the now flourish- 
~ 
ing Eye Hospital, and thanks to the munificence of - 
the late Mrs. Ogilvie, obtained recognition of ophthal- 
mology in the University, being himself appointed 
first Margaret Ogilvie reader in ophthalmology. The > 
clinical material at Oxford is not large, but from the 
‘point of view of research the paucity of cases is not 
without its advantages, and was utilised by Doyne to 
the fullest extent. The inhabitants of the surrounding 
country districts are wedded to the soil, so that cases 
can be kept under observation for many years, and 
hereditary disorders can be traced through several 
generations. Doyne was thus enabled to study forms 
of hereditary cataract, etc., under the most favourable 
conditions, and thereby to contribute many valuable | 
papers to the Transactions of the Ophthalmological 
Society. He was enthusiastic in ophthalmoscopic 
work, and ungrudging in spending money on having 
coloured drawings made of interesting fundus cases. 
His collection is extremely fine, and formed one of the 
attractions at the annual gathering of ophthalmologists 
which has for several years met at Oxford at his 
invitation, and is known as the Oxford Ophthalmo- 
logical Congress. Doyne was very keen on sports, 
and his papers on ‘‘The Eye in Sport,” dealing with 
such topics as the influence of visual acuity, binocular 
vision, and so on, in shooting, fencing, and other 
sports, are important, not only for the brilliant appli- 
cation of physiological facts to practical conditions, but 
also for the light they throw on visual phenomena 
themselves. 
News has just reached us of the death, on May 21, 
of Prof. J. A. Portchinsky, the distinguished Russian 
entomologist, at sixty-eight years of age. Prof. 
Portchinsky graduated in 1871 at the Natural History 
Faculty of the Petrograd University. He was con- 
servator and librarian to the Russian Entomological 
Society, and between 1874 and 1894 occupied the 
post of its scientific secretary. In 1894 he was 
appointed member of the scientific committee of the 
Ministry of Agriculture, chief of the Entomological 
Bureau of this committee, and chief editor of its 
Memoirs, in which capacity he remained until his 
death. The number of these Memoirs of which he 
was himself the author amounts. to twenty-four, 
besides a great number of articles and scientific 
papers published in many journals and periodicals. 
He travelled extensively over Russia, Caucasia, and 
Turkestan, and collected a mass of observations and 
materials on. the biology of insects. He was also 
the reviewer of ‘“‘Applied Entomology in Russia.” 
Pror. FERDINAND Fiscuer, professor of chemical 
technology in the University of Géttingen, whose 
death, at the age of seventy-four, was 
announced, was born at Rodermiihle a. Harz in 1842 
and graduated at Jena in 1869, after previously study- 
ing both in Gé6ttingen and in Berlin. In 1897 he 
was appointed to the chair at Géttingen, a position 
he occupied with conspicuous success for close upon 
twenty years, during which period he made valuable 
contributions to chemital technology, both by his 
recently _ 
i ee 
