vi 



character of its degrees and the ample recognition of the study of 

 natural science for which the University is now distinguished. 



He was able now to give a larger amount of time than formerly to 

 his original investigations, and, in his summer holidays at Arran and 

 elsewhere, commenced, amongst other studies, those researches on the 

 structure and development of the beautiful little feather- star, which 

 were from time to time published in the " Philosophical Transactions," 

 and led to his association with Wyville Thomson, and thus to the 

 deep-sea explorations of the "Lightning," and subsequently of the 

 " Challenger." 



Carpenter's memoirs on Comatula give a very full and beautifully 

 illustrated account of the structure of the skeleton of the feather-star, 

 but for many years the view which he entertained with regard to the 

 nature of the axial cord which runs through the segments of the arm- 

 skeleton of that animal was regarded by all other observers (with 

 scarcely an exception) as erroneous. Dr. Carpenter considered these 

 cords as nerve-cords, and in the Easter vacation of 1876 he made a 

 special visit to the marine laboratory erected by Dr. Dohrn at Naples, 

 in order to test his views by the repetition, on an extensive scale, of 

 experiments which had already appeared convincing to his mind. 

 These experiments, and others since carried out by younger natural- 

 ists, have at length fairly established the view for the truth of which 

 the veteran observer had long contended. 



In December, 1875, Dr. Carpenter had communicated to the Royal 

 Society the outlines of his work on the soft parts of Antedon (Coma- 

 tula) rosacea, and on returning from Naples he communicated a 

 supplemental note to the Society on the subject of the nervous system 

 of that animal ("Roy. Soc. Proc," vol. 24, 1876, p. 451). He lived 

 to see his conclusions, first formulated in 1865 ("Phil. Trans.," vol. 156, 

 p. 705), fully confirmed by the experiments of Marshall (" Quart. 

 Journ. Micro. Sci.," vol. 24, 1884) and by those of Jickeli of Jena 

 (" Zool. Anzeiger," No. 170, 1884). Important evidence in favour of 

 these conclusions was also furnished by the anatomical investigations 

 of Dr. P. Herbert Carpenter on the allied genus Actinometra ("Journal 

 of Anatomy and Physiology," 1876). M. Ed. Perrier of Paris, who 

 had strenuously opposed Dr. Carpenter's conclusions, was thus led to 

 renewed observations and to a complete acceptance of their correct- 

 ness (" Comptes Rendus," July, 1883, p. 187), whilst the most care- 

 ful student of Echinoderm anatomy among German zoologists, viz., 

 Dr. Ludwig, who had also previously opposed these conclusions, has 

 now endorsed them. Thus in the " Roy. Soc. Proc," vol. 37, 1884, 

 p. 67, Dr. Carpenter was able to give a complete history of the 

 question, showing how the opposition on theoretical grounds to the 

 view that the axial cords of Comatula were nerve-cords, had gradually 

 given way before an appeal to observation and experiment. This 



