780 
NATURE 
[June 9, 1923 

The meeting of the British Association at. Ipswich 
in 1895 was marked by the reappearance of Mr. Harmer, 
to the great surprise of a generation that had come to 
regard his work as finished. He presented two import- 
ant papers upon the Coralline and Red Crags, which 
were received with great interest and attention by new- 
comers in the field of Pliocene geology and also by 
distinguished workers from France and Belgium present 
at the meeting. 
From this time until the end of his life Mr. Harmer’s 
interest and activity never flagged. He again took to 
the field and contributed many important papers to 
the Geological Society and other bodies. In Pliocene 
geology his achievements were many and valuable. 
The discovery of a deposit of Red Crag at Little 
Oakley, which yielded to his minute and pertinacious 
investigation a fauna of unparalleled richness, led him 
to a general review of the Pliocene geology of East 
Anglia, giving definiteness to the opinion long held by 
workers in that field that the deposits of Red Crag age 
marked successive stages in the withdrawal of the 
North Sea from south to north. 
A discussion of the fragmentary Upper Tertiary 
patches of Lenham gave occasion for the correlation 
of the British Pliocenes with those of Belgium and 
Holland. His achievements in this field of study have 
the enthusiastic recognition of the geologists of Holland, 
Belgium, and France. 
The remarkable contrast presented by the contem- 
porary Pliocene deposits of the two sides of the North 
Sea in regard to the abundance of shells led to investi- 
gations of great moment. Premising that shells are 
cast up in profusion on the Dutch coast by the pre- 
valence of onshore winds, Mr. Harmer showed that in 
Pliocene times the western shores received the shelly 
beaches. He proceeded from this to an elaborate 
discussion of the meteorology of the Pliocene and 
Glacial Periods, the first attempt by any man of 
science to apply the methods and results of modern 
meteorology to the solution of geological problems. 
This pioneer work has been followed up by many 
writers, notably in the recent book ‘‘ The Evolution of 
Climate” by Mr. C. E. P. Brooks, to whom Harmer’s 
work was apparently unknown. 
The many additions to the Molluscan fauna of the 
Upper Tertiaries rendered necessary the resumption of 
the work of description interrupted by the death of the 
elder Searles Wood. Mr. Harmer undertook the task, 
and it is gratifying to know that shortly before the 
accident by which his death was accelerated he had 
revised the final proofs of the last of a series of 
supplements to the monograph on the Crag Mollusca 
published by the Paleontographical Society. 
The great value of Mr. Harmer’s work was recognised 
by his geological brethren ; from the Geological Society 
he received the Murchison medal; he was elected 
successively Membre Associé Etranger and Membre 
Honoraire of the Belgian Geological Society ; ; and the 
University of Cambridge conferred upon him the 
honorary degree of M.A. 
Two of Mr. Harmer’s sons adopted a scientific career, 
in which they have attained very high distinction; the 
elder, Sir Sidney F. Harmer, is well known as the 
director of the Natural History Department of the 
British Museum; the other, Mr. William Douglas 
NO. 2797, VOL. III] 

Harmer, called at a very early age to the position of 
warden of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital—always regarded 
as a presage of future distinction—is now the senior 
surgeon in the throat department of the hospital. 
Percy F. Kenpatt. 

Mr. M. pre C. S. SALTER. 
THE death on May 21, after a short illness, of Mr, 
Mortyn de Carle Sowerby Salter, at the early age of 
forty-two, removes from the scientific world an ex- 
tremely able worker just at the moment when the 
mastery he had attained in his special field of study — 
had brought him in sight of important achievements. 
The son of Mr. M. J. Salter, he was educated at 
Bancroft’s school, and passed directly, at the age of 
sixteen years, to an assistantship in the British Rainfall 
Organisation under its founder Mr. G. J. Symons. 
Here he developed an aptitude for statistics and a 
patience with detailed routine which enabled him 
later to grasp the scientific principles underlying the 
distribution of rain and develop an enthusiasm for 
research combined with sagacity in the pcos 
application of his knowledge. 
Mr. Salter became my chief assistant at Camden 
Square in 1907, and from 1912 onwards relieved me 
of the whole responsibility for the accuracy of the 
annual rainfall tables in “ British Rainfall.”” In 1914 
he was appointed assistant-director and in rgr8 joint- 
director of the Organisation, and on the transfer to 
the Meteorological Office of ‘the Air Ministry in 1919 
he became the first superintendent-in-charge, and was 
thus able to make the transition from private to 
official management easy for the five thousand voluntary 
observers. 
Mr. Salter’s health was always precarious, but he 
was nevertheless an indefatigable worker, and to the — 
fact that no Medical Board would pass him for any 
form of military service is probably due the survival 
of the long-established system of rainfall investigation 
throughout the years of the War. 
Mr. Salter served on the council of the Royal 
Meteorological Society and as a vice-president for 
many years; and he was an active member of the 
Institution of Water Engineers. He contributed 
numerous papers to these societies and to the Meteoro- 
logical Magazine, of which he was joint-editor since 
1913. He took a considerable part in the compilation 
of annual rainfall maps of the British Isles and of 
large-scale rainfall maps of many counties and other 
areas in co-operation with me, and after my retirement 
he carried the rainfall mapping of the country far 
towards completion. His little book ‘‘ The Rainfall — 
of the British Isles,’ published in 1g2z, gives an 
excellent account of the existing state of knowledge 
on the subject. In a paper on the fluctuations of 
annual rainfall considered cartographically, in collabora- 
tion with Mr. J. Glasspoole, read to the Royal Meteoro- — 
logical Society during his last illness, Mr. Salter gave — 
an important discussion of the regional relations of 
rainfall and atmospheric pressure full of nome for 
future development. 
For twenty-three years I found Mr. Salter a loyal — 
fellow-worker and faithful friend, keenly intelligent, E 
absolutely trustworthy, full of sympathy and “con— 
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