member of the extinct commissão geologica, of which Professor C. F. Hartt was the chief. He has lived in Brazil ever since, and is the leading authority on Brazilian geology.—Professor J. A. Bownocker, of the State University, has been appointed state geologist of Ohio to succeed Professor Edward Orton, Jr., resigned.—The lords commissioners of the admirality have appointed Syndey S. Hough, Esq., F.R.S., chief assistant to the astronomer at the observatory, Cape of Good Hope, to be astronomer at that observatory on the retirement of Sir David Gill, K.C.B.
Dr. William A. Noyes, head of the department of chemistry in the Bureau of Standards, and secretary and editor of the American Chemical Society, has been elected professor of chemistry in the University of Illinois.—Professor Ernest Rutherford, Macdonald professor of physics in McGill University, has been appointed to succeed Professor Schuster as Langworthy professor and director of the physical laboratories at the University of Manchester.—Dr. William Duane, professor of physics in the University of Colorado, at Boulder, has resigned to accept a position in the Curie Radium Laboratory at Paris. The fund providing for Dr. Duane's work is the gift of Mr. Andrew Carnegie.
At the annual banquet of the National Geographic Society the first award of its gold medal was made to Commander Peary.—Professor T. W. Richards has been elected an honorary member of the Royal Institution of Great Britain.—Mr. Alexander Agassiz has chartered the steam yacht Virginia for a cruise to the West Indies. The yacht will sail from New York the first week in February to be absent for three months.
Mr. John D. Rockefeller has given the University of Chicago $2,700,000 for its permanent endowment, and $217,000 for current expenses and special purposes. It is further reported that Mr. Rockefeller will give $3,000,000 for a pension at the University of Chicago, and $2,000,000 for the proposed Louisville University.
