APRIL 24, 1835, saw the birth of Frederic William Harmer, one of the pioneers in the field of East Anglian geology, and one of the last of the distinguished amateurs by whom the science was advanced so much during the Victorian era. Harmer came of an old Norfolk family, and by his public services was prominently identified with the city of Norwich. In his early years he had only scanty leisure to devote to geology, but a chance meeting with the younger Searles Wood was the beginning of a long-continued geological partnership. The map they prepared of the glacial deposits of Norfolk and Suffolk on a scale of 1 inch to the mile was the first ‘drift’ map of the kind in the world. After the publication of much valuable material on the Pleistocene deposits of the east of England, came Wood's death in 1884. For a time, Harmer devoted himself to municipal duties and the politics of the day, but some ten years later, when he might well have felt entitled to the leisure of life, he resumed an intensive study of the Tertiary and Quaternary geology of East Anglia and the Continent. A series of papers on the Crags, still standards for reference and highly esteemed, inaugurated a new regime in East Anglian geology; and his contributions to glaciology and palaeo-meteorology were no less stimulating. Two outstanding productions of the eve of his life, each entailing immense labour, were the detailed map showing the types of boulder clay and trails of erratics in England and Wales, and the great monograph, published by the Palaeontographical Society, on the Pliocene Mollusca. The latter work was an achievement which will long earn the gratitude of investigators, and will ever remain a fitting monument to his memory. An appreciation of Mr. Harmer's scientific work appeared in NATURE for June 9, 1923 (p. 779). Sir Sidney Harmer, formerly director of the Natural History Departments, British Museum, is a son of Mr. F. W. Harmer.