liv PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [May 1 898, 



harassed for long periods by many difficulties and obstacles, many 

 of them of his own making, was nevertheless wholly without worry, 

 that destroyer of the mind so common in our country. This half- 

 century's enjoyment of research, extending from his 7th to his 

 57th year, can only be described in its effects upon him as 

 buoyant; it lifted him far above disturbance by the ordinary 

 matters of life, above considerations of physical comfort and 

 material welfare, and animated him with a serene confidence in the 

 rewards which Science extends to her votaries.' 



Johannes Japetus Smith Steensteup, Professor of Zoology in 

 the University of Copenhagen, who was elected a Foreign Member 

 of this Society in 1879, died in that city on June 20th, 1897. He 

 was born on March 8th, 1813, and became an undergraduate in 

 1832. His principal teachers at the University were Forchhammer, 

 Eeinhardt, and Schouw, whose researches in geology, zoology, and 

 botany exerted a stimulating influence on the direction taken by 

 Steenstrup in his studies. In 1837 he wrote his memoir ' On the 

 Conditions under which Coniferous Stems occur in our Peat- 

 mosses,' which was further elaborated in his epoch-making treatise 

 ' Geognostic and Geological Enquiry into the Evidence of Eorest- 

 beds and Small Peat-mosses,' published in 1840. This work, 

 together with the well-known memoir published in the following 

 year ' On the Alternation of Generations,' laid the bases of 

 Steenstrup's reputation in the world of natural science, and this 

 was further strengthened after 1848 by his studies on Kitchen- 

 middens. 



Of man's immigration and development he found evidence in 

 the peat-mosses, and with that discovery his interest in archaeology 

 waxed strong. And so during the ensuing half-century of his 

 life he spent much of his activity on that science, publishing in 

 1893 and 1895 the fruits of his long-continued investigations in 

 the form of the voluminous archaeological works ' The Great Silver 

 Eind at Gundestrup,' and ' The Yak-Lungta Bracteates.' In his 

 latter days, too, he busied himself with questions of Quaternary 

 Geology, whereof the following paper among others bears witness : 

 ' On the Glacial Period in the North, especially its Dwindling and 

 Einal Cessation.' This was read on Nov. 4th, 1892, before the 

 Scientific Society of Denmark by its author, who had been for 

 50 years an associate and member ; and a later portion was 

 published in 1896 in the Society's ' Ofversigt.' 



