BRIEFER ARTICLES 
ALFRED GABRIEL NATHORST 
(WITH PORTRAIT) 
ALFRED GABRIEL NaATHORST was born on November 7, 1850, and 
died at Stockholm on Januray 20, 1921. Three years before his death, 
having reached the age limit of active service, he retired from the 
directorship of the Paleobotanical Museum of the Swedish Academy, 
a post which he had held for many years to the great benefit of his 
favorite science. In 1917 he wrote, “I am growing old and my health 
has been much weakened in 
consequence of a disease of 
the heart for the last one 
and a-half years”; again in 
October, 1919, “I have not 
been able to work seriously 
since 1916, but now I hope to 
have regained so much of my 
strength that I may complete 
an additional work on the 
Lower Carboniferous at 
Spitzbergen.” This hope 
was fulfilled, and in 1920 was 
published the last of a re- 
markable series of memoirs 
on Arctic floras. 
Nartuorst’s contributions 
to knowledge cover a period 
of fifty-one years. His first » 
paper, on Cambrian rocks of 
Scania, was published in 1869. The range of subjects is exceptionally 
wide, and everything he touched he illuminated. 
A few years before his death, Narnorsr had the satisfaction of 
seeing his beloved collections installed in a new and worthier home out- 
side the city, under the guardianship of his former pupil and assistant, 
Dr. Hattie, to whose able hands he was well content to intrust the 
reputation of the museum as a center of paleobotanical research. In 
Botanical Gazette, vol. 71] [462 
