1 I 2 NATURE [MARCH 24, 192 I joint on the death of a relative seems to have adults shrank from the pain this mutilation been peculiar to Goodenough. It was first noted caused, so 'little children were made the vic• by M. H. Moreton, R. M., in his report, Appen• tims. . . . Men seldom lose more "than two or dix N to the "Annual Report on British New three finger-joints [never of the thumb or of the Guinea,'' I897-g8. He describes which joints are right-hand little finger], but it is not at all unusual cut off for special relatives, and adds : '' They do for a woman to have all the fingers (not the not, as a rule, disjoint the fingers of the right thumbs) of one or even of both hands maimed," hand, but, on the occasion of a man distinguishing but only the terminal phalanges are removed. himself ic fig-hting-, the first joint of the third One lore-learned native said that "all the dead finger of the go to vVafolo [an uninhabited district on the north• right h a n d i s west side of Fergusson Island] except those with lopped off. unchopped fingers; these are killed and eaten by This custom is some dogs that bar their path.''

FtG. 1.-A Kabuna youth, .1\lud Bay, Island. ·' The FIG. 2. -Fishing with traps and hauling up a square fish-netl lata, Mud lhy, Goodenough !\orthern D'Entrccasteaux ... Island. From "The Northern D'Entrccasteaux.'' falling into disuse. . . . I do not know Mr. Ballantyne's long and intimate knowledge that the custom of disjointing is practised in a of the natives gives especial authority to the esti• single other district. . . . I have noticed many mate of the psychology of the natives and of their natives with mutilated left hands." Our magico-rcligious beliefs and customs, and it is in do not refer to Moreton's statement, nor do they this section that the partnership of a missionary .o: deny any association between the par• and a trained ethnologist is particularly valuable. tlcuht_r JOmt and a definite relationship. They Thirty-seven excellent photographs add to the descnbe the method, and sav that "in Mud Bay interest of this instructive book. A. C. H.

Obituary. PuoF. i\. G. NATHORST. and some of his papers are written in French. LFRED GABRIEL l\'ATHORST who for In him, as in comparatively few men, were com• A the greater part of his life Director bined the naturalist's love of the open air and the of the l'alreobotanical Museum of the Swedish lust of travel with the patience of the laboratory Academy, died at Stockholm·· on January zo student. at seventy years of age. In many respects Nathorst paid his first visit to England in I8]z, N athorst was a remarkable man; precluded when he met Sir Charles Lyell, whose "Principles by deafness from the ordinary means of of Geology," as he stated in acknowledging the communicating with his fellows, he had an award of the Lyell medal from the Geological almost uncanny power of divining the point of a Society in 1904, first attracted him to the study remark before it was fully expressed in writing· of geology. In 187o he went to Spitsbergen, on the tablet which he always carried with him : where he became familiar with recent Arctic a keen sense of humour, a boyish love of the plants, and on his return he investigated fresh• ridicubus, and a lovable personality made him a water Pleistocene beds in Denmark, Germany, delightful companion. Some chance word or in• Switzerland, and England, utilising his knowledge cident would lead him to quote verbatim passages of existing species in tracing the distribution of from Dickens, especially "The Pickwick Papers," Arctic plants in Europe during the Glacial period. Kipling, or other favourite author; he wrote and A series of travel-notes published in 188o contains spoke English and German with apparent ease, many valuable opinions on fossil plants from Meso- NO. 2682, VOL.

© 1921 Nature Publishing Group NATURE

.zoic and Tertiary localities in English collections. ally, Scandinavia, and other parts of the world. In 1879 he collected specimens of the dwarf birch By his researches into the Jurassic plants of York• at Bridlington, and on later visits he always shire, N athorst not only added greatly to know• -divided his time between conferences or excursions ledge, but also stimulated other: workers in the with Mr. Clement Reid and collecting plants from same field, and his friendly invasion of the East the Jurassic rocks of Yorkshire. A summary of Coast increased the activity of some English his work on the distribution of At'ctic plants palreobotanists. His discovery of male flowers of during the Glacial epoch was contributed by him vVilliamsonia and of several new types of the to NATURE for January 21, r8gz. genus is of special interest to English students. In 1907 Nathorst attended the centenary of the An improved method, which he invented, of treat• Geological Society as a delegate of the Swedish ing the carbonised or mummified impressions of Academy, and received the Se.D. degree from the plants led to fruitful results both from his own University of'Cambridge. In 1909 he returned to researches and from those of others. His Cambridge as a delegate to the Darwin celebra• demonstration of the true nature of many sup• tions. In 1917, at the age of sixty-seven, in posed Palreozoic Algre marked an important accordance with Swedish custom, he retired from advance in accurate knowledge and in experi• the museum directorship. After his retirement his mental methods of research. researches were frequently interrupted by. heart Of special interest from the point of view of trouble, but he had the satisfaction of completing evolution are Nathorst's discoveries of many new .an important memoir, published last year, in con• generic types, such as Pseudobornia, a primitive tinuation of his well-known investigations of .the Devonian plant combining characters of the Lower Carboniferous flora of Spitsbergen. f!;quisetales and the extinct group Sphenophyllales; Nathorst's contributions to knowledge cover a Lvcostrobus, a Rhretic lycopodiaceous cone com• very wide field-Arctic exploration, stratigraphical parable to the large Palreozoic Lepidostrobi ; and tectonic geolog-y, palreontology in the broadest Cephalotheca, a new Devonian fern with peculiar sense, and recent botany. In 1882 he again visited fertile pinnre; several new seeds from Lower Car• Spitsbergen, and in r8g8 he was the scientific boniferous rocks of Spitsbergen; Wielandiella, a leader of an expedition, primarily in search of remarkable cycadean genus bearing bi-sporangiate Andree, to Bear Island, King Charles Land, and flowers and in habit entirely different from that '()ther regions; it was in the course of this expedi• of recent cycads ; Cycadocephalus, a Rhretic tion that he circumnavigated Spitsbergen. He cycadean micro-strobilus; and Camptopteris, one of described his experiences of two summers in polar several Rhretic ferns which he described in detail. seas in an attractive two-volume book written in He also made numerous important additions to our Swedish and publisheci in 1900, and the scientific more accurate knowledge of cycadean fronds in• results of the voyage, both geological and palreo• cluded in the group Cycadophyta (a name insti• botanical, have appeared in a succession of valu• tuted by N athorst), and investigated the past his• able papers. tory of the Ginkgoales, a group with one existing Nathorst's first paper, in r86g, was on Cambrian representative, the maiden-hair tree. rocks of Scania, and this was followed by a series The Palreobotanical Museum of Stockholm, '(){ b?tanical and geolog-ical papers. In 1875 he which was worthily housed in a new building, published the first of a long series of contributions erected by the Government at a cost of 14o,oool., to our knowledge of the rich Rhretic floras of a few years before his death, is an epitome of his Scania, which have thrown a flood of light upon achievements and a monument of wkich his native many extinct types, and incidentally have illus• country may be justly proud. In no other country trated in a most striking manner the possibilities has palreobotanical research received a more gener• of the intensive study of the fossil plants of a ous recognition; it is usually relegated to a posi• single reg-ion. )'houg-h he became more and more tion of secondary importance. absorbed in palreobotanical researches, he always It would be difficult to exaggerate the value of retained an active interest in both geology and Nathorst's contributions to natural knowledge; he botany; the range of his work was exceptionally devoted his life to research, and it was always a wide. He had few equals in the extent of his joy to him to give all the assistance he could to knowledge and in breadth of view. other workers who appealed to him for guidance. It is to Nathorst more than to any other man As a critic he would take infinite pains, and it was that we owe our knowledge of Arctic floras extend• never a trouble to him promptly to answer in a ing- from the Devonian to the Late Tertiary period. letter of almost perfect English the most trivia 1 His work is characterised by meticulous accuracy, questions. Those who were among his regular lucidity of presentation, originality, and philo• correspondents have lost a true friend, the value sophical treatment. In IQ04 he contributed to the and stimulating effect of whose wise counsel and French Academy a preliminary account of a re• frank but kindly criticism cannot at once be markable collection of Jurassic plants from thoroughly appreciated. Graham Land, on the borders of Antarctica, which Nathorst was fortunately able to retire with the demonstrated the almost world-wide distribution knowledge that his successor and pupil, Dr. Halle, of certain ferns and cycadean plants. His palreo• would fully maintain the high standard of palreo• botanical papers deal with floras from Japan, the botanical work which has long been associated New Siberian Islands, the Arctic regions gener- with the Stockholm Museum. A. C. SEWARD. NO. 2682,VOL. 107] © 1921 Nature Publishing Group