548 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF [Dec, 



December 5. 



The President, Samuel G. Dixon, M.D., LL.D., in the Chair. 



Forty-three persons present. 



The death of James W. McAllister, a member, May 28, 1911, 

 was announced. 



The Publication Committee reported the acceptance of a paper, 

 entitled A Monograph of the Procyonidce, by R. W. Shufeldt, M.D., 

 as a contribution to the Journal. 



R,. A. F. Penrose, Jr., Chairman of the Committee on the Hayden 

 Memorial Geological Award, reported for the Committee in favor 

 of conferring the medal this year on John Casper Branner, Professor 

 of Geology in Lcland Stanford Jr. University. 



On favorable report of the Council the award was made as recom- 

 mended by the Committee. 



Dr. John Caspku Branner was born at, New Market, Term., July 4, 1S50. 

 He was educated at Maryville College, Tenn., and at Cornell University, New 

 York, graduating from Cornell in 1874 with the degree of B.S. In 1885 he 

 received the degree of Ph.D. from the University of Indiana, and in 1897 the 

 degree of LL.D. from the University of Arkansas. 



Dr. Branner went to Brazil in 1874 and was for some years a geologist on the 

 Imperial Geological Commission of that country, which was then under the 

 directorship of Professor llartt. In 1878 and 1879 he was assistant engineer 

 and interpreter for the S. Cyriaco Mining ( lompany, in the State of MinasGeraes. 

 in 1880 to 1881 he carried on special botanical investigations in Brazil, and in 1S82 

 to 1883 he was agent (hereof the United States Department of Agriculture. 



Dr. Branner then returned to the United States. He has since made many 

 trips to Brazil and else where in South America, his geological and other scientific 

 work there being well known to scientists. His special fields of operation in 

 recent years have been in the neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro and thence 

 northward to Bahia and beyond. His work on the stone and coral reefs of the 

 coast, published by the Museum of Comparative Zoology of Harvard Uni- 

 versity, is well known. His investigations of the black diamond fields of Bahia 

 have been productive 1 of most important scientific results, and have shown 

 the source of the diamonds to be in certain rocks, from which they were derived 

 by erosions and buried in the gravels where they now occur. This source of the 

 black diamonds of Bahia had been unknown until Dr. Branner discovered it. 



Among the most important of his recent trips to Brazil was his expedition 

 in 1899 as head of the Branner-Agassiz Expedition. He made other expeditions 

 in 1907 and 191 1 . Some seventy papers and books on Brazilian geology, with 

 many papers on zoological, botanical and other subjects, have resulted from 

 Dr. Branner's work in that country. He has also published in the Portuguese 

 language a text-book on geology for the use of Brazilian students, and many 

 papers lor the benefit of the people of that country, where he is held in the highest 

 regard as a man and a scientist. 



Since his return from Brazil in 1883, Dr. Branner has been active in geological 

 work in the United States. Prom that year to 1885 he served as topographic 

 geologist on the Geological Survey of Pennsylvania under Professor Lesley; 

 and from 1885 to 1892 he was professor of geology at the University of Indiana. 



