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microtome methods to the study of plant structure. Her preparations and material were indexed in incomplete and concise fashion of her own, which might well serve as a model for scientific book-keeping. Though her work dealt to a great extent with the minutiae of structure, she never lost herself in a maze of detail; she continually related the study of her sections to the external features of the plant, and also where possible, to the general skeletal system as seen in three dimensions, for instance by rendering the whole region transparent in strong carbolic acid. She insisted that it "is most important to be constantly orientating oneself in microscope work by means of the naked eye or with the simple lens." She had a great belief in the importance of "getting one's fingers in the thing," and held that the actual handling of the material gave solidity and proportion to the biological conceptions. Her hypotheses grew, it might almost be said, through her fingers. Her geophytic theory of the origin of Monocotyledons arose of itself, as it were, out of the fact that she germinated the seeds of members of this group in large numbers, and through a series of years, kept watch over the curiously dilatory development of countless geophytic seedlings.

The actual writing of Ethel Sargant's papers was done slowly and "at vast expense of nervous energy." That she