SCIENTIST'S DEATH

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 105, 6 May 1933, Page 5

SCIENTIST'S DEATH

DE. JOHANNES SCHMIDT

THE DANA EXPEDITIONS

(From "The Post's" Representative) LONDON, February <M. The Copenhagen correspondent of "The Times" reports the death, at the ago of fifty-six, of Professor Johannes Schmidt, Director of the Physiological Department of tho Carlsberg Labatorium. "The Times" gives much interesting information regarding his work and travels. . Dr Schmidt held many academic honours in his own country, and was a member of the Norwegian Academy, the Academy of Sciences in Paris, and the New Zealand Institute. Ho was an honorary member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Zoological and Challenger Societies, and a foreign member of the Linnean Society. He was awarded the Welden Prize in 1923, and held an honorary doctorate from Liverpool University. He was the leader ot numerous oceanographie expeditions, for which, together with his genetic studies in animals and plants, he received in 1930 the Darwin medal of the Eoyal Society. His best known work was on tho migration of eels, whose full life history he was the first to trace. After his last expedition, the two years' voyage round the world of the Dana, ho developed heart trouble, and the eagerly expected account of his work which he had intended to give to tho York meeting of the British Association last year had to be given in his place by Dr. C. Tate Began, FR.S., the Director of tho British Museum (Natural History), who has been closely associated with many of Dr. Schmidt's studies. When, more than twenty years ago, he became Director of the Physiological Department of the Carlsberg Labatorium, he was given frequent leave to superintend the series of oceanographie expeditions with which the name of the Carlsberg Foundation has been associated. From 1903 to 1910 Dr. Schmidt was repeatedly tho leader of these expeditions, the most important before the war being the voyage of the Thor from 1908 to 1910 in the Mediterranean and adjacent waters. LIFE-CYCLE OF THE EEL. While Dr. Schmidt did much useful work on the racial investigation of fishes in the Norwegian fjords » d on the larvae and young of various food fishes, the classical discoveries with which his name will always be linked concern the life-cycle of tho eel. How and where eels succeeded in breeding had long been a puzzle, but by his time it was recognised that the creature known as Leptoccphalus was not a separate species of fish but the larva of what would next become an elver and finally a full-grown eel. By long and painstaking investigations he showed where tho full-grown eels disappeared and whence the Leptocephalus came. He established the surprising fact that all the eels of Europe and as 'far east as the Nile make their way in autumn, when they have reached a certain age, from ponds, streams, and rivers to the sea, crossing tho Atlantic to reach a breeding-ground south of Bermuda, where they spawn and die without returning. Their eggs, he showed, hatch out into Leptocephali, and make their way slowly to Europe with the help of tho Gulf Stream, undergoing a rapid metamorphosis as they reach the coast and becoming elvers, which finally, at the ago of about three years, ascend the rivers and make their way to suitable ponds and streams. Schmidt's investigations on this subject began to be published some years before the war, and were finally summarised in a paper published by the Royal Society shortly before ho received the Darwin Medal. Schmidt's most prolonged voyages were made from 1920 onwards, the first to Panama and back for the detailed study of the eel life of the Pacific, the second in 1926 to Australia, New Zealand, and Tahiti, and finally tho two years' voyage round the world of tho "Dana, beginning in June, 1928. This ship, a steam-trawler of the Lord Mersey class, built in Groat Britain for naval service during the war, was purchased by tho Danish Government in 1921, and adapted for oceanographical research much as her sister ships, tho George Bligh, of th<o English Fisheries Board, and the Explorer, of the Fishery Board for Scotland. The Dana, 360 tons in burthen and 138 ft long, claimed to bo tho smallest ship making a world voyage. Tho general oceanographical collections made by her were immense in extent, and are only gradually being published by scientists in all countries. No small quantity of the Dana's material is being worked upon at the present time at tho British Museum. A lively and well illustrated popular account of the Dana expedition was published not long ago from Schmidt's own pen in Danish. The scientific reports, mostly in English, are still coming out. The route of the expedition was largely' dictated by a desire to study the life histories of the eels of tho Pacific and Indian Oceans, but an echo-sounding gear enabled soundings to be taken of the ocean depths, water samples were taken at various depths in every region, and oceanic life was studied from the plankton to tho larger marine fauna, some of them at the greatest depths.