1898.] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 355 



i 



August 2. 



Mr. Charles Morris in the Chair. 

 Nine persons present. 



August 9. 

 Mr. Benjamin Smith Lyman in the Chair. 



Thirteen persons present. 



The following biographical note was presented by the Committe 

 on the Hayden Memorial Award : 



Otto Martin Torell. — Born in Varbergin Sweden, the 5th of 

 June, 1828, he passed the examination for entrance into the Uni- 

 versity of Lund in 1844, and was made Doctor of Philosophy, 1853. 

 He then turned his attention to medical studies, and passed the sec- 

 ond examination for physicians in the year 1858. He became 

 Adjunct Professor of Zoology in 1860, and in 18G6 was nominated 

 as Professor of. Zoology and Geology at the University of Lund. 

 He soon left the University for Stockholm, and was in 1871 ap- 

 pointed Chief of the Geological Survey of Sweden, which office he 

 resigned some months ago. 



In 1856 he visited Switzerland with the object of studying the 

 glaciers, and in 1857 he made a voyage to Iceland with the same 

 view. His main purpose was to determine whether it is probable 

 that glnciers formerly covered the whole of Scandinavia. 



In 1858, in company with A. E. Nordenskiold, he went to Spitz- 

 bergeu for the first time, and the following year to Greenland. 

 These voyages may be said to have led to the Swedish Polar Expe- 

 ditions, and Torell was himself the leader or manager of the first of 

 these of any importance, namely, the expedition to Spitzbergen in 

 1861, which was very rich in scientific results. 



The most important part of his work at Spitzbergen was his deep 

 sea investigations with the grapnel, which were executed in order to 

 study the animal life at the bottom of the sea (2,500 meters below 

 the surface), a depth from which before that time only foraminifers 

 had been obtained. This discovery afterwards led to many re- 

 searches of the sea bottom, through which, one may say, a new era 

 has arisen in the history of the geology and physical geography of 

 the ocean bed. 



Partly for scientific studies and partly as a member of geological 

 and geographical congresses, Professor Torell has made many jour- 



