Foreword
The publication of the following narrative of Dr. Walter
T. Goodwin has been authorized by the Executive Council
of the International Association of Science.
First:
To end officially what is beginning to be called the
Throckmartin Mystery and to kill the innuendo and scandalous suspicions which have threatened to stain the reputations of Dr. David Throckmartin, his youthful wife, and
equally youthful associate Dr. Charles Stanton ever since
a tardy despatch from Melbourne, Australia, reported the
disappearance of the first from a ship sailing to that port,
and the subsequent reports of the disappearance of his wife
and associate from the camp of their expedition in the
Caroline Islands.
Second:
Because the Executive Council have concluded that Dr.
Goodwin's experiences in his wholly heroic effort to save
the three, and the lessons and warnings within those experiences, are too important to humanity as a whole to be
hidden away in scientific papers understandable only to
the technically educated; or to be presented through the
newspaper press in the abridged and fragmentary form
which the space limitations of that vehicle make necessary.
For these reasons the Executive Council commissioned
Mr. A. Merritt to transcribe into form to be readily understood by the layman the stenographic notes of Dr. Goodwin's own report to the Council, supplemented by further
oral reminiscences and comments by Dr. Goodwin; this
transcription, edited and censored by the Executive Council of the Association, forms the contents of this book.
Himself a member of the Council, Dr. Walter T. Goodwin,
Ph.D., F.R.G.S. etc., is without cavil the foremost of
American botanists, an observer of international reputation and the author of several epochal treaties upon his
chosen branch of science. His story, amazing in the best
sense of that word as it may be, is fully supported by
proofs brought forward by him and accepted by the organization of which I have the honor to be president. What
matter has been elided from this popular presentation -
because of the excessively menacing potentialities it contains, which unrestricted dissemination might develop - will
be dealt with in purely scientific pamphlets of carefully
guarded circulation.
THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF SCIENCE
Per J. B. K., President
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