Readers of the Journal of Glaciology will learn with deep regret of the death of Michael Holland in Greenland. Obituaries have already appeared, or will be published shortly, in The Times (9 August), Nature (28 September), the Geographical Journal, Wayfarers’ Journal, Climbers’ Club Journal and the Polar Record, and the present brief notice will therefore omit much that can be read elsewhere.
Holland, in a few years, had become a regular and active participant in the meetings of the Society, describing his early work and taking part in discussions. For his sheer enthusiasm, ready wit, exceptional kindness of heart and his knowledge, he will be sadly missed. Glaciology, and the work of the International Geophysical Year, are responsible for his death, for, with his young Danish companion, Carsten Velsboe, who also died, some circumstance caused him to leave the ice cap station above Inglefield Fjord and to attempt the descent of a heavily crevassed glacier during an exceptional summer blizzard. It would be proper here to record with gratitude the extreme solicitude and kind actions of the leader of the Danish party, Dr. Børge Fristrup, and of all the Danish authorities in Greenland and elsewhere. Moreover, thanks to them, his body was brought to his home near Macclesfield for burial. A memorial service was attended by a Iarge congregation of his friends.
His contributions to glaciology, yet to be published, will come from Spitsbergen, the Alps, the Sukkertoppen region of West Greenland and from Inglefield Fjord. For the greater part they are observations and measurements of firn and glacier. His conclusions on some problems of glacial geology and relief, to be found in his notes and unfinished thesis, are indicated to some extent in his paper on Sukkertoppen, which was awaiting publication in the Geographical Journal when his untimely death occurred.
