On p. 215 of this issue will be found an abstract from a paper by Dr. A. D. Howard describing the storage of samples of ice and their transference from the Antarctic to Washington. As one of the “European glaciologists” mentioned therein I would like to offer a word of caution. We certainly found that vaseline preserved ice specimens for the short time between collection and examination—usually a matter of a day or two. But M. de QuervainFootnote * has more recently made some experiments which show that under certain conditions the prevention of air contact is not sufficient. In the case of very delicate specimens such as snow flakes, immersion in paraffin oil at −5° C. did not prevent modifications in structure due to the surface migration of molecules. On the other hand at −10° C. no alteration could be detected even after some months.