Persotial and Scientific News. 1 29 
PERSONAL AND SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 
Professor W. M. Davis has been elected correspond- 
ing secretary of the American Academy of Arts and Scien- 
ces, vice Mr. S. H. Scudder, resigned. 
Prof. W. G.Miller, of the Kingston, (Ont.) Mining 
School, is in North Carolina with a view to the examination 
of the mica and corundum deposits of that state. 
Mr. a. W. Grabau, Morgan Fellow at Harvard Uni- 
versity, has been appointed to take charge of the instruc- 
tion in geology at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, 
New York. 
Professor G. K. Gilbert has been elected to succeed 
the late professor Orton as president of the American Asso- 
ciation for the Advancement of Science, filling the unex- 
pired term. 
Mr. F. W. Sperr. Secretary of the Lake Superior 
Mining Institute, has announced the next meeting of the 
Institute, to be held at Iron Mountain, Mich., Feb. 6, when 
papers will be read by O. C. Davidson, H. H. Dyer, L. M. 
Hardenburg, James McNaughton and A. W. Thompson, 
followed by a banquet Thursday evening. Excursions will 
be made to Lower Quinnesec falls, and to the Iron River 
and Crystal Falls districts. 
There is a list of Publications relating to South 
American geology, recently printed in Vol. Ill, pp. 522-533, 
of the Revista do Museu Paulista, Sao Paulo, by Dr. H. 
von Ihering, including the years 1897 and 1898; and a simi- 
lar list of South African geolog}' published by the Geologi- 
cal Commission of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, 
by H. P. Saunders, South African Museum, Cape Town, 1897. 
Burning of Buchtel College — Akron, O. Buchtel 
College was destroyed by fire on the evening of Dec. 20. 
We take the following from the Akron Beacon of Dec. 21: 
The origin of the fire is a mystery. The fire started in the attic at 
the east end and in three hours the building was burned to the ground. 
Hundreds of people assisted the members of the faculty in removing 
the contents. 
The collections were the result of years of work and care on the 
part of Dr. E. W. Claypole assisted by scores of his enthusiastic students. 
He gave them to the institution when he left for California in 1898. 
They consisted of local and foreign birds, many of them carefully 
stuffed and mounted, with great numbers of prepared skins, all in excel- 
lent condition and of thousands of geological specimens named and 
placed in order, with botanical, geological and mineralogical collections 
the result of fifteen years of labor at Akron and elsewhere. All was in 
readiness for the completion of a new Science Hall, whose foundations 
were already laid. Not a case of these specimens, including a few 
types, was saved for the fire reached them long before they could be 
removed. 
