NOTES loi 



I well remember the keen pleasure which his visits to the 

 British Museum brought me while I was working there some 

 years ago, and I have still the cover-slip which I happened, by- 

 accident, to have in my handbag, and the lid of a glass box, 

 which was all we could muster in that department in the way 

 of equipment for him to show me the microscopic structure of 

 some beautiful Williams onias he had with him. Although 

 that was not many years ago, Palseobotany in the British 

 Museum has since been more adequately equipped, and this 

 achievement was not a little due to Nathorst's indirect and 

 genial influence. 



Though seventy-one, Nathorst really died prematurely, the 

 doctors say, owing to overwork in earlier years which led to 

 an acute form of anaemia. Although he was, ever since I 

 knew him, stone deaf, and one had either to speak with the 

 hands or write one's own remarks, he was a most entertaining 

 and charming companion. One of the red-letter days of my 

 life was spent with him and Sir Cecil Spring-Rice (then British 

 Minister at Stockholm), who was also a delighted listener to 

 Nathorst's fund of stories. 



He leaves a place at the very top of his science quite 

 unfilled, and those who knew him feel that no one can ever 

 fill it. 



The Oxford University Expedition to Spitzbergen (J. B. G.) 



We have received from a press agent some account of the expedition from 

 Oxford University to Spitzbergen. As at present arranged the members of 

 the expedition consist of an Ornithologist — the Rev. F. C. R. Jourdain, Mr. 

 JuHan S. Huxley — well known to the readers of the daily press for his brilliant 

 researches on the thyroid gland, Mr. Carr-Saunders, the editor of the Eugenics 

 Review, Mr. Paget- Wilkes, a medical student, Mr. F. G. Binney, who edits the 

 Isis, a student-journal at Oxford, and several others, among whom Mr. J. 

 Slater of the Royal School of Mines is to be mentioned. Mr. Huxley, Mr. 

 Carr-Saunders, and Mr. Paget- Wilkes served during the war. 



On looking at the names of the members of the expedition, we see no 

 zoologist with a knowledge of marine fauna, qualified to give a reliable account 

 of such natural zoological phenomena as may be met with. We specially 

 regret the non-inclusion of a marine biologist, some man with several years' 

 experience of the life of both plants and animals of our shores. 



Mr. Roger Pocock, a writer on nature subjects, goes in advance to Tromso, 

 Norway, from which the expedition will start. It is to be hoped that the expedi- 

 tion will succeed in bringing back to this country some interesting new facts, 

 as well as collections of the interesting fauna which exist there. 



The financial status of the expedition is not quite so secure as one could 

 wish, and it is hoped that further financial assistance will be forthcoming 

 before the start is made next month. 



American Biologists 



On Tuesday, March 15, a meeting was held by the National Union of 

 Scientific Workers in the Royal School of Mines, South Kensington, when 

 Sir Daniel Hall, K.C.B., F.R.S., took the chair, and a lecture was given by 



