NEWS OF UNIVERSITIES. MUSEUMS, AND 

 SOCIETIES. 



Important changes have recently been made in high scientific posts of the 

 United States Government. Major Powell, who for thirteen years has been head of 

 the Geological Survey, has resigned on account of ill-health, due to enlargement of 

 the nerves in his wounded arm. Major Powell is an ardent explorer and ethnolo- 

 gist, and it has been largely through his efforts that there is now so complete an 

 understanding of the Californian Gold Belt and the Rocky Mountain region. 

 Major Powell will not, however, retire into private life, but will become superin- 

 tendent of the Ethnological Bureau, which was recently severed from the Geological 

 Survey. His successor, as head of the Survey, is Mr. Charles Doolittle Walcott, 

 %vhose nomination will be heartily welcomed in this country by all who appreciate 

 his thorough and painstaking investigations in the palaeontology and stratigraphy 

 of the older rocks of America. There has of late years been some exception taken 

 in certain quarters to the lines on which the work of the Survey has proceeded, but 

 we understand that the present change has nothing whatever to do with these 

 attacks, and that the labours initiated by Major Powell, especially the great topo- 

 graphical map of the United States, will be continued without alteration. 



Professor C. V. Riley, for twenty years chief entomologist of the Department 

 of Agriculture, has resigned his post in order to devote himself to scientific work 

 unfettered by the restrictions that necessarily surround a Government servant. His 

 retirement will be regretted by both practical and scientific men, whom the work 

 ■done in his bureau has so greatly benefited. He is succeeded, at his own recom- 

 mendation, by Mr. Leland O. Howard, who has been first assistant in the bureau 

 for fourteen years, co-editor of the Bulletin with Professor Riley, and is nov/ 

 President of the International Association of Economic Entomologists. 



Professor Milton Whitney has been placed in charge of a newly created Division 

 of Agricultural Soils, in the United States Department of Agriculture, which 

 Division is intended to study the relation of soils to crops and the physics of soils. 



Lastly, Professor W. H. Holmes has severed his connection with the Bureau of 

 Ethnology to accept the position of head of the department of anthropology in the 

 Columbian Museum at Chicago. 



Among recent European appointments we note those of Dr. S. J. Hickson to 

 the Professorship of Zoology in the Owens College, Manchester; Professor E. 

 Kalkowsky of Jena to the chair of Geology in the Dresden Technical School, and 

 not Dr. Credner as previously announced ; Dr. L. Will to the Professorship of 

 Zoology in the University of Rostock ; and Forstassessor G. Sarauw to be assistant 

 in the National Museum, Copenhagen. Professor R. Semon has resigned his 

 position as assistant at the Anatomical Institute of Jena, and Doctors Braus and 

 Driiner have been appointed in his place. We take this opportunity of congratulat- 

 ing Dr. Pfitzer, the Professor of Botany at Heidelberg, on his appointment to the 

 dignity of Geheim-Hofrath, and the University of Oxford on the fact that Francis 

 Calton is now one of its Doctors. 



The following awards have recently been made : — The silver medal of the 

 Zoological Society of London to Mr. H. H. Johnston, C.B., in acknowledgment of 



