October 7, 1909J 



NA TURE 



431 



awkward thing was that the young- German architect 

 who had come to Naples with' Dohrn, and was living 

 with us in the Palazzo Torlonia, suddenly went quite 

 mad, and had to be sent home under escort. Happily 

 he completely recovered. A great feature in our life 

 at the Palazzo Torlonia was the occupation of one of 

 the chief " flats " (ours was high up in a building 

 against the Posilippo cliff) by the BaranowsUi family. 

 Dohrn had made their friendship in Sicily a year 

 before, and we spent nearly every evening with them. 

 Baranowski had been governor of the Russian province 

 of Orenburg, and w-as now employed by the 

 Russian Government on important missions in 

 China. His wife, a Polish lady, her sister, 

 two daughters, and a son, took up their resi- 

 dence in the chief " suite " of our Palazzo, 

 and in the late winter were joined by Baranowski 

 himself, whose official business did not allow him to 

 remain for long. All those dear friends of the Palazzo 

 Torlonia are now dead and gone, with the exception 

 of the elder of the two sisters, who three or four years 

 later married Anton Dohrn, and is the mother of his 

 four now grown-up sons; She nursed him in his 

 last illness during the past six months at Munich. In 

 1874, when the Naples laboratory was built and its 

 machinery at work, its rooms filled with professors 

 and investigators from all parts of Europe, including 

 the wonderfully gifted and beloved Frank Balfour and 

 his friend Dew-Smith, I again spent three months at 

 Naples. Dohrn was suffering from the labours he 

 had gone through in securing the position of the 

 laboratory, and also from the climate of Naples. He 

 was engaged, but his marriage was delayed and his 

 future wife's family were no longer at Naples. A very 

 remarkable Englishman, Grant by name, who had 

 been lecturer in English literature and a close friend 

 of Dohrn's at Jena, was with him, and remained for 

 some years in Naples. His delightful book, 

 " .Stories of Naples and the Camorra," is the 

 memorial of the work Grant did there. He 

 died some years ago. Later I made two short 

 visits to Naples, and saw my friend with his 

 familv growing up around him. In the 'nineties he 

 visited Oxford and received an honorary degree. For 

 some years the University, following the example of 

 Cambridge, had rented a table at the Naples station, 

 and provided the travelling expenses of a graduate 

 selected to pursue investigation there. 



During the thirty-six years of its existence, the 

 Naples station has increased vastly in size and the 

 perfection of its organisation. Its biological library 

 is one of the best in the world, its staff of servants, 

 assistants, and skilled workers of all kinds unrivalled. 

 Having secured capable assistants in all departments 

 and the funds for carrying on the now large and 

 celebrated institution, Dohrn was able to pursue some 

 of the problems of vertebrate morphology which had 

 occupied his mind already in Jena days. I think that 

 the most important of the general ideas which he had 

 arrived at in those early times was, first, that de- 

 generation or simplification of organic structure is a 

 result of evolution as well as increase of complexity, 

 and that the relatively simple or less complicated 

 members of a group are not necessarily more primitive 

 or archaic than the more elaborately structured mem- 

 bers. Also of great value was his determination to 

 take a free and unprejudiced view as to the lines of 

 the animal pedigree, and he particularly objected to 

 being tied in any way to the conclusions of Haeckel 

 on this subject. He successfully resisted the notion 

 that either .\mphioxus or the Ascidians represent in 

 anv definite or complete way the lower phases of 

 vertebrate ancestry. He held that they were 

 specialised, and, in the sense of being simplified, 

 degenerate. He sought himself to connect the verte- 

 NO. 2084, VOL. 8t] 



brate stock with that of the cha?topod worms, but 

 though this hypothesis led him into many interesting 

 discoveries of detail — which are published in a series 

 of papers in the Mittheiluiigcn of the Zoological 

 Station of Naples — it cannot be said to have been 

 placed on a secure footing, and we are still specu- 

 lating, w'ith very little assurance, as to the nature and 

 structure of the pre-vertebrate ancestors of Vertebrata. 



Dohrn was a great lover of classical music, like his 

 father, and I think that music and philosophy were 

 his chief relaxations from the severe labour of business 

 correspondence and scientific discussion. He was very 

 fortunate in having the opportunity, some fourteen 

 years ago, of receiving the German Emperor at the 

 Naples laboratory. He was able thoroughly to in- 

 terest that able man in the work of the institution, 

 who recognised that it was a real honour and glory 

 to the German name, and accordingly gave to it his 

 warm friendship and support. From that time 

 forward large assistance has been given to the Naples 

 laboratory from Berlin, and I believe that some de- 

 finite responsibility in regard to the institution — in- 

 volving possiblv its ownership — now passes to certain 

 authorities in Berlin. 



It is a great and satisfactory thing which I have 

 had to record here — the success of a noble effort. 

 Dohrn's example in founding a " station " for marine 

 zoologv has been followed in a modest way elsewhere. 

 The Marine Biological Laboratory at Plymouth, which 

 I joined with others in founding some twenty-five 

 years ago, was, confessedly, an attempt to provide on 

 our English coast an institution similar to, if less 

 spacious than, that established by Anton Dohrn at 

 Naples. The PIvmouth laboratory has done good ser- 

 vice to science and to fishery interests, but London is 

 not Berlin, nor are the ways of British departments of 

 Government in regard to science in any way similar 

 to those of the German Imperial Government. The 

 former are ignorant, envious, and destructive; the 

 latter are intelligent, friendly, and helpful. 



E. Ray Lankester. 



NOTES. 

 Is reply to a question asked in the House of Commons 

 on Thursday last, the Postmaster-General stated that 

 arrangements have been completed with the Marconi Com- 

 pany for the transfer to the Post Office of all their coast 

 stations for communication with ships, including all plant, 

 machinery, buildings, land, and leases, &c., and for the \ 

 surrender of the rights which they enjoy under their. agree- 

 ment with the Post Office of August, 1904, for licences 

 or facilities in respect of coast stations intended for such 

 communication. In addition, the Post Office secures the 

 right of using, free of royalty, the existing Marconi 

 patents and any future patents or improvements, for a 

 term of fourteen years, for the following purposes : — com- 

 munication for all purposes between stations in the United 

 Kingdom and ships, and between stations on the mainland 

 of Great Britain and Ireland on the one hand and outlying 

 islands on the other, or between any two outlying 

 islands ; and (except for the transmission of public tele- 

 grams) between any two stations on the mainland ; and 

 on board Post Office cable ships. All the stations will, 

 under the International Radio-telegraphic Convention, be 

 open for communication equally to all ships, whatever 

 system of wireless telegraphy they may carry, and the 

 Post Office will be free to use or to experiment with any 

 system of wireless telegraphy at its discretion. .-Ml inland 

 communication of messages by wireless telegraphy will be 

 entirely under, the control of the Post Office. Arrange- 

 ments have also been made with Lloyd's for the transfer 



