156 



NA TURE 



[July 29, 1922 



(d) Also the most competent authorities regarded 



;en load of about 90 per cent, of the possible 

 maximum as being required for the conduct of life — 

 apart from short exposures. 



(e) The probable partial pressure of oxygen in the 

 lungs at 25,000-30,000 feet is calculated by a process of 

 exter] lolation to be about 30 mm. Combining c, d, and 

 e above, the quantity of oxygen in the arterial blood on 

 Everest would be 58 per cent, of the maximum — far 

 below that necessary. 



(J) The recent expedition to Cerro de Pasco has 

 brought out two new points : 



(1) That natives lead a reasonably normal existence 

 with blood charged only up to 82 per cent, of the 



possible, and Europeans with S5 percent, of the possible, 

 load of oxygen. 



(2) That the graph changes in position, and for 

 natives and Anglo-Saxons approximates to that labelled 

 Cerro (14,000). 



(g) On this graph a partial pressure of 70 mm. of 

 oxygen in the lung might saturate the blood up to 

 67 per cent. (c). 



(h) It is scarcely likely that the curve moves further 

 than that marked " Probable limit (30,000 ft.)." On 

 that curve, however, the blood would be charged 

 up to 76 per cent. — a figure within a reasonable 

 distance of what has actually been observed in the 

 Andes. 



Obituary. 



H.S.H. Prince Albert of Monaco. 



NOT infrequently in the past have princes and 

 nobles been munificent patrons of science and 

 played a useful part in promoting the advancement of 

 knowledge — would that we had more such at the present 

 day — but it must be rare indeed for a reigning prince 

 to attain recognition and distinction as a practical, 

 working, man of science. The late Prince of Monaco, 

 whose death took place recently, was both. He has 

 given to France and the world of science at least three 

 research institutions of first-rate importance, and 

 throughout many years of his lite, during the last 

 half-century (since, in January 1873. on one °f n ' s 

 early expeditions he met the Challenger at Lisbon), 

 he has himself planned and carried out many notable 

 investigations in both physical and biological oceano- 

 graphy. 



His Serene Highness Prince Albert Honore Charles, 

 a descendant of the ancient House of Grimaldi, was 

 born in 1S48, and succeeded his father, Prince Charles 

 Iff., as ruler of the principality of Monaco in 1889. 

 In his early youth Prince Albert served as lieutenant 

 in the Spanish Navy, and since then has shown a 

 life-long devotion to the sea and a rare enthusiasm 

 for its scientific exploration. Probably the most 

 characteristic representation of the Prince is the 

 statue in the entrance hall of the Museum of Oceano- 

 graphy at Monaco showing him in plain sailor's 

 uniform standing at the rail on the bridge of his yacht. 

 He must have spent a large portion of his life, and 

 much of the ample funds at his disposal, in the many 

 expeditions which he conducted in the successively 

 larger and more perfectly equipped yachts Hirondelle 

 (a 200-ton schooner) and the first and second Princesse 

 Alice — the last a magnificent ocean-going steamer of 

 1420 tons, built by Lairds' on the Mersey in 1898, 

 and fitted with all necessary machinery and apparatus 

 for every form of modern oceanographic research, 

 and for the rapture of whales. By means of these 

 vessels the " Gulf Stream " in its various parts, and 

 its effect on the roast of France, the Azores, the seas 

 around Spitsbergen, the Mediterranean, and much of 

 the Atlantic from the equator to within the Arctic 

 Circle, were systematically investigated in both their 

 physical and their biological characters. Among his 

 companions and assistants on these expeditions have 



NO. 2752, VOL. I io] 



been Baron Jules de Guerne, Dr. Jules Richard, and 

 occasionally our own countrymen Mr. J. Y. Buchanan 

 and Dr. W. S. Bruce ; and the results of more than 

 thirty annual cruises have been made known to science 

 first by the Prince's preliminary reports in the Comptes 

 rendus, and later, in full detail, in those beautifully 

 illustrated, sumptuous memoirs in the series entitled 

 " Resultats des Campagnes Scientifiques accomplies 

 sur son Yacht par Albert I er Prince Souverain de 

 Monaco," dating from 1S89, and the later series of 

 the Bulletins and the " Annales de ITnstitut Oceano- 

 graphique." 



It is chiefly in connexion with the devising of 

 apparatus for deep-sea research, and with the intro- 

 duction of new methods of investigation, that the 

 Prince's personal influence was felt on his expeditions. 

 Among other new appliances which have yielded 

 notable results may be mentioned his huge baited 

 traps (the " Nasse "), his various types of trawls and 

 nets for use in different zones of water, and his use of 

 submarine electric lights to attract free-swimming 

 animals with power of vision, such as fishes and 

 Crustacea. There can be no doubt that his practical 

 knowledge as an experienced sailor and as a mechanical 

 engineer has added greatly to the efficiency and 

 jcci oi all his work on the yachts. His chief 

 assistant, Dr. Jules Richard, who has charge of the 

 museum and laboratories at Monaco, gave full de- 

 scriptions and useful illustrations of many of these 

 appliances for oceanographical investigation in a 

 special volume of the Bulletin series that was published! 

 about 1900. 



All the Prince's successive voyages have been very 

 fruitful of scientific results, and biology owes its 

 knowledge of many deep-sea Atlantic animals to the 

 special memoirs issued from the Monaco Press ; but 

 none of these have been more remarkable, novel, and 

 almost sensational, than the results of the Prince's 

 whale-fishing expeditions, when he obtained the more 

 or less perfect remains of various new, and in some 

 cases gigantic, cuttlefishes (such as Lepidoteuthis and 

 Cucioteuthis) from the stomachs of captured sperm 

 whales. Some account of these discoveries and exploits, 

 and of Homeric combats when, for example, three 

 huge killer-whales attacked one of the boats and tried 

 to crush it between their bodies, and again when a 

 large Cachalot died under the keel of the vacht which 



