Object of municipal police river dragging for several weeks, the body of Sylvester Gardiner '46, College Junior declared missing last January 23, was discovered yesterday afternoon in a lagoon in the Boston Basin of the Charles near the Exeter Street intersection.

Two children found the remains of Gardiner floating in the water under circumstances suggesting a skating accident and subsequent drowning. They quickly rushed up the bank to summon police assistance.

Finds Medical Examiner

By coincidence, the first one the pair encountered was William Brickley, Medical Examiner for the Metropolitan District Police. After preliminary inspection he dispatched the body to the Northorn Mortuary, where the deceased student's father, William T. Gardiner '14, made the identification in the afternoon.

Dr. Brickley reported after the examination yesterday that the 22-year old Gardiner had ice skates fastened to his feet. Lieutenant Edward L. Connally of the Lower Basin Division M.D.P., surmised that the third string football center and Varsity stroke oar had gone through an ice hole hidden from the moonlight in the shadow of a bridge farther up the river.

Family Story Checks

Previous testimony by the victim's family recounted that he had departed from the Gardiner Boston home at 184 Beacon Street at 10 o'clock on the evening of January 23. Since that time while Maine and New Hampshire State Police and detectives from the New York City missing persons bureau carried on the search, the family's greatest fear was that he had attempted to return to his Eliot House room by ice.

Lieutenant Connally considered the delayed surfacing of the body was probably due to its being pinned under an ice sheet. Monday's rainstorm, he explained, probably melted and disturbed enough ice so that downstream current and wind brought it to its place of rest.