Brigadier EM Jack, CB

No. 4273 September 22, 1951 NATURE 495 Born on April 27, 1882, at Wimbledon, Agar pa,ised work of others, Agar played an important part in from his preparatory school to Sedbergh and then substantiating the view that environmental or to King's College, Cambridge, where his tutor w&S 'acquired' characters are not inherited and are S. F. Harmer. He went through the regular courses therefore not available for the process of racial of instruction for the Natural Sciences Tripos, Parts I evolution. and II, in both of which he obtained a first cla,is. In its third phase, Agar's work diverged from the Of all his teachers he looked back with special realm of pure science, in which things are observed, gratitude to Harmer, for his inculcation of precise accurately recorded and when possible seriated into and orderly method, and to Bateson, then in the a general expression, into the realm of 'philosophy', flood tide of Mendelism, for turning his mind in the which deals rather with ide&S or opinions, and is free direction of his future research in genetics. from the constraints to which purely scientific I had been impressed by Agar as the most out research is subject. In this phase Agar was, above all, standing member of the Tripos class in zoology influenced by the philosophy of A. N. Whitehead during my last year as demonstrator ; so when he primarily a mathematician, not a biologist-as had completed his Tripos, I invited him to join the expounded in his "Process and Reality". According staff of the Zoology Department in the University of to this philosophy, reality consists not in substance Glasgow, on which he remained until 1920, holding but in process, and the difference between living and latterly the position of senior lecturer. non-living 'organisms' is merely one of degree- During his Gla,igow years, Agar showed himself to "Biology is the study of the larger organisms ; where be an admirable teacher, and he also achieved a large as physics is the study of the smaller organisms." proportion of his most valuable research work. Whether or not Whitehead's philosophy is destined During his first two years this was devoted to verte to _have any influence upon the advancement of brate morphology, and he produced valuable papers biological science, it is clearly of advantage to have upon the skull and visceral arches, and upon the an account of it and its implications from the pen anterior mesoderm, of Lepidosiren and Protopterus. of one who not only accepts the general principles In 1907 he made an expedition to the Gran Chaco of that philosophy but also holds a distinguished to supplement my work on Lepidosiren ; but above p'.lsition in the realm of biological science. Such an all to obtain full material for investigating the account with further developments in detail is pro gametogenesis of that fish-outstandingly suitable vided by Agar in his last book, "A Contribution to the for such a research on account of the relatively Theory of the Living Organism" (Melbourne Univer enormous size of the chromosomes and their strongly sity Press, 1943), a revised edition of which he had marked individuality. Agar made a splendid success just completed at the time of his death. of his expedition and brought back a large amount It would be wrong to conclude this notice without of perfectly preserved material which he proceeded to mention of Agar's activities outside laboratory and investigate in detail. His skill and accuracy as an lecture-room. At Glasgow he held a commission in observer, in conjunction with his admirable technique, the Of-ficers' Training Corps, and during the First, enabled him to achieve what is still probably the most World War he was captain in the 5th Highland Light reliable account of the gametogenesis of a male Infantry, until invalided home from Gallipoli. Later vertebrate. In his work he made full use of the he acted as adjutant to the 1st Volunteer Battalion Glasgow technique, which enjoined that all microscopic of the same regiment. Then in 1920 came his appoint work under high-power oil-immersion objectives be ment to the professorship of zoology at Melbourne. done with stereoscopic eyepieces-the technique There he served as dean of the Faculty of Science which enabled Ballantyne in 1925 to establish with (twice), president of the Professorial Board, in which certainty the passage of neurofibrils across the he played an important part in the deliberations pre generally accepted discontinuity between the ceding the appointment of a full-time vice-chancellor, neurones of the vertebrate nervous system. Agar's and as member of the University Council (twice). Chaco expedition achieved other results than those of As a Melbourne colleague writes, "Wilfred Eade his main quest, the most important being the discovery Agar will be remembered by all as a thoughtful and of the 'neonychium'-the cushion-like structure kindly man, reserved, yet with a delightful sense of which in the embryo of the Amniota fills up the humour, slow to assert himself, yet vehement when concavity of the claw and safeguards the amniotic the need arose. \Vith his death the University of membranes against injury. Melbourne has lost one of its great men." Agar's work on the chromosomes of Lepidosiren JOHN GRAHAM MRR may be said to inaugurate the second phase of his research career, devoted to genetics. Next after it came the breeding through long series of generations of Daphnid crustaceans and having as their main Brigadier E. M. Jack, C.B., C.M.G. object the testing of Lamarckian inheritance of BRIGADIER EvAN MACLEAN JACK, who died on environmental or 'acquired' characters. The Daphnids August 10, was born in Edinburgh in 1873. Com in question were chosen as specially advantageous missioned in the Royal Engineers in 1893, he served for such investigations in view of their partheno first at Gibraltar and St. Helena; and in 1903 joined genetic reproduction, their short life-cycle, and the the Ordnance Survey, on the staff of which he served fact that all members of a clone are genetically for four years. identical so as to exclude the disturbing effects of In 1907 he was selected for duty with the Uganda Mendelian segregation. The results of Agar's work Congo Boundary Commission under Major Bright on the whole, including one particularly precise set of and four years later became chief commissioner of experiments extending over a hundred generations, another Central African Boundary Commission, which, was to show the complete absence of any evidence of in the course of its work, measured a section of the such inheritance. arc of the 30th meridian. In 1913, Jack, now pro Both by his own original work and by his critical moted major, was posted to the Geographical Section examination, and in some cases repetition, of the of the General Staff at the War Of-fice ; and on the © 1951 Nature Publishing Group 496 NATURE September 22, 1951 voL. 1ss outbreak of war, in 1914, WElJlt to France with the Dr. G. A. Shakespear B.E.F. as officer in charge of maps at G.H.Q. In this post, which he held throughout the War, he was DR. GILBERT ARDEN SHAKESPEAR, who died as a responsible for directing and controlling a great result of a road accident within a few days of his variety of survey developments, including the seventy-eighth birthday, was a prominent member of mapping of the trench lines, German as well as the University of Birmingham for more than half a British; sound-ranging and flash-spotting (for the century. Educated at Wyggeston School, Leicester, location of enemy batteries); and, last but far from and Mason College, Birmingham, he was one of J. J. least, the 'Artillery survey' procedure, which made Thomson's research students at Cambridge before possible the sudden accurate bombardments of 1918 returning to Birmingham as lecturer under Poynting. by massed artillery-a development which, from the He was acting professor during 1914-19 and, though battle of Cambrai onwards, contributed so much to he retired in 1938, he continued active research work the Allied victory. in the Department of Physics. For his services in the First World War Jack was Dr. Shakespear was distinguished for his ingenuity awarded the C.M.G. and the D.S.O. and was several and skill in making precise measurements by simple times mentioned in dispatches. The Boyal Geo methods. Much of his early work was inspired by graphical Society, which in 1916 had given him its Poynting, whom he greatly admired, and was con Gill Memorial Award for his work in Africa, awarded cerned with thermal radiation. His most important him its Founder's Medal for his geographical work contribution to science, however, arose from a on the Western Front. In 1920 he became head of practical need and was made with characteristic speed the Geographical Section, and two years later and perfection. During the First World War his succeeded Sir Charles Close as director-general of the attention was directed to the need for measuring the Ordnance Survey. In 1924 he was promoted to the purity of hydrogen in connexion with airships and rank of brigadier, and in 1928 was made a C.B. observation balloons ; he quickly produced his Jack retired from the Service in 1930, but this 'katharometer', a sensitive and robust apparatus for 'official' retirement was only the beginning of another gas analysis by thermal conductivity, and then career of unpaid service to many charitable and applied it in many different directions, the principal other causes, scarcely less distinguished than the one one at that time being the permeability of rubberized he had just completed, and which lasted for twenty fabrics.

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